Collarbone ruptures, examination and treatment

Musclotendinosus cuff rupture
Collarbone rupture
AC joint displacement (acromio-clavicula)
AC joint osteoarthritis
SC joint displacement (sterno-clavicula)
Shoulder displacement
Instability
Labrum injury
SIS (Subacromio Impigment Syndrome)
Bicep caput longum displacement

Those are all common shoulder injuries and they are caused by different reasons. When you break your collarbone that’s normally due to a trauma when you break it due to violence. Depending on where you break it it’s either easier or harder to recover. The further out from the center the weaker the bone (because it’s supposed to be substantial in the middle whenas it’s supposed to be flexible closer to the shoulder.. although you’re supposed to be able to rotate it in the center aswell, only not as much) and you’d need to be exposed to alot of violence to break it close to the center, and if you do you’d want to break it so that the bone points out, because if it points in it may be life threatening, because it might injure the lungs and inhibit the blood flow to the brain. But luckily that’s pretty uncommon.

When getting a fracture in the collarbone you’ll notice easily, because the bone shaft will stick out. So it’s easy to make an assessment of the injury. And besides, it’s gonna hurt moving your shoulder, so you’ll notice… When examining a collar bone rupture you’ll also need to check the status below the collar bone, like if the patient can pinch with the fingers. If he or she can’t there’s a risk the nerve might have been injured.  

Kids and athletes are likely to break the collar bone, somehere in the middle. They probably fall on their arm and the bone cracks. Normally it heals itself, but if the bone shafts are to far away they wont heal together as they should, so then you’d need to help out by operating. Then you’d attach the two ends with the help of this iron plate (called platt osteosynthesis) that looks like this:

makes sense ?? That’ll help it heal together

But luckily it’s more common that it heals by itself. In that case you’d have to carry an eight bandage around your soulders to stabilize to keep your posture up. Looks like this
 

In conclusion: Kids and athletes are more likely to break the collar bone because they may fall on the arm and crack the bone. You normally break it somewhere in the middle, but if exposed to heavy violence you may break it close to the center. If you do you’d wanna break it so that the bone shaft points out, because if it points in to the lungs and throat it may be life threatening. When breaking your collar bone it’s easy to notice, because you can easily see that your bone shaft points out, and besides it’s gonna hurt to use your shoulder. Normally you wont have to operate, but if the bone shafts are too remote you’d have to operate a platt osteosynthesis to help the healing happen. But normally you just wear an eight bandage round your shoulders for a couple of weeks. 

Understood ?? Good. So Bring it on and Take it Easy !!

Shoulder injuries in sports II

Ok, let’s try this again !! I’ve been working all day, but i feel good now because i went out for a run and today i bought myself another issue of Illustrerad Vetenskap (Science Illustrated) !! So after this I’m gonna tuck myself into my bed and im gonna lose myself within the world of good-to-know illustrated science !! And if im still up for it im gonna read ”Spring för livet” (Run For Your Life), about a young athlete that competes in athletics (800 and 1500 m)… I’m not a reader, but i love that series of books !! Bengt-Åke Cras, remember that author’s name if you wanna read youthful dynamic sport’s literature!!

Ok, so back to shoulders then. You wanna know some of the muscles that enroll around the shoulder?
Front

and Back

Those are only some of the muscles (and acromion + humerus, that aren’t muscles..)

For those of you that know your anatomy you should know that Latissimus Dorsi, Teres major, Pectoralis major+minor and Biceps Brachii caput longum are also involved.

Deltoideus, that’s the one that guys like to have big (somehow, i find guys with not much bigger arm-, shoulder- and chest muscles than the legs much more attractive…but that’s just me !!). That muscle rotates the arm in three directions. Front, back and sideways. That one and pectoralis major are made to be strong, and not so much stabilizing, like other muscles.

You wanna see something scary ??

That’s called wing scapula and it can happen to anyone that carries something that’s too heavy. The physio may ask you to put your hands towards the wall to see if your scapula stands out, like on the picture. If it does they need to press it back and your rehab will last about 3-6 months.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow’s gonna be the last day of shoulder’s anatomy and injuries, so then I’m gonna answer these questions, all related to shoulders:
1. What is SIS and how do you notice you may suffer from it? Also discuss a bit around the purpose of these tests to discover the risk of suffering from SIS
2. What treatment to SIS do physios recommend?
3. What treatment is recomendable to a 10 year old that fell and broke his/her collarbone (clavicula)?
4. What options to treatment are there to osteoarthrisis in the AC-joint?
5. What tests will you be put through at the physiotherapists if you’re suspecting you may suffer from a labret injury?
6. You got your shoulder dislocated !! What do you do??

See you tomorrow !!

Shoulder injuries in sports

Back to anatomy.

The shoulder. A pretty useful device as it rotates and it allows you to lift the arm in different angles. Lets start by looking at a simple illustration of the shoulder’s construction

The shoulder (axel) is constructed around the upper arm’s skeleton (humerus) where caput humeri (the humerus’ head) is attached to the scapula (shoulder blade) And to the collar bone (clavicula) there’s a bone attached that looks like a duck’s beak called acromion.

As you know the shoulder is extremely flexible and it allows you to move the arm in almost every direction. The acromion takes part of the joint (the acromion-clavicular joint) that pretty muck does what joints do: it facilitates movements. We have other joints too !!  Like the sterno-clavicular joint and the humero-scapular joint. Their names are easy to remember, because the names indicate what structures in the body are involved in that joint. Take the acromion-clavicular joint for instance. Acromion is that duck beak I told you about. And the clavicula is the collar bone. So it means that this joint does its work where acromion attaches to the clavicula !!

The shoulder blade also plays a significant part of this whole movement thing. It’s not attached in any way to the thorax (chest), because if it would, it wouldn’t be able to move the way it does:

See how it rotates upwards but how there’s is still an elevation. That’s cool !! Shoulder blades are cool !! The shoulders’ meniscuses look alot like the knees’ meniscuses, but with one slight difference: Shoulders’ meniscuses don’t stabilize whenas the knees’ meniscuses do. And that’s a good thing, because if they would stabilize you can only imagine what happens… we wouldn’t be as flexible as we are in the shoulders.

There are 4 different types of joints that you should know about
Humero-scapular joint (number 2 in this illustration)

Sterno-clavicular joint

Acromio-clavicular joint (also called the AC joint)

Scapulo-thoracle joint

My god im tired. Im sorry im gonna have to continue this tomorrow, i’ve been working about 20 hours this weekend, had time to exercise and other things that contributes to my wellbeing. And before that I worked 13.5 hours on the friday, im soooo tired, i need to sleep i can’t see what im typing anymore, so ill see you tomorrow

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter VI (Memory)

Short term and long term memory. Elderly people have great long term memory, they can remember things from the 1920’s better than from the new decade… I must admit that my memories from when I was little are pretty strong aswell. I remember with warmth and joy when i competed in alpine skiing. I did well, I had great friends, we were competetors, but i don’t think we knew we were because we were such good friends. Those were good times. I also remember other things that are too private to blog about but that’s irrelevant. And you know something i will never forget… this:

That’s Neuschwanstein, and that’s where i wanna live !! Not in that castle, but in those surroundings. In southern Germany right by the austrian border. That’s the prettiest scenery i’ve ever seen and the people are so friendly !! I can definitely see myself living there, or atleast renting a house there and go a couple of times a year.

Memory !! How come my four year old sister always beat me in ”memory” ??? Why does she remember where every damn pair is whenas i don’t?? Kids practice alot, they love memory and im not as passionate about it. Kids are just as smart as adults only they don’t know as much as adults. For better and for worse. ”Ignorance is bliss” as they say…

Why don’t you try something: Make up a story. It can be as silly as you want it’s just a test.
Then you tell it to yourself (or to somebody if you want)
After that you re-tell the story but backwards.
It’s way harder to remember things backwards- especially when you’re making the story up !! That’s why the police uses that method when they  interrogate suspects.

Another funny test: The Stroop test !! It refers to the reaction time of a task. Log on to this website and try it out:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html#seffect

When the name of a color (e.g., ”blue,” ”green,” or ”red”) is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word ”red” printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color.

SHORT TERM AND LONG TERM MEMORY
Did you do what i used to do in German class when i studied german back in school ?? Whenever we had vocabulary tests i never practiced for the tests during the weeks, but only practiced like 10 minutes before taking the test. I normally made the tests, but i would probably understand German a bit better today if i put the vocabulary in my long term memory instead of my short term memory.

When stocking something in your short term memory you won’t be concious of all the information you’re reading- your attention will pick out whatever you find appropriate to learn in that very instant. Sometimes you may be able to conscioulsy control your attention towards what you’re supposed to learn, but that information won’t stay for longer than 30 seconds in your head. You can only keep the memory of that thing for as long as your attention is pointed towards that thing you’re focusing on, orelse it will go away quickly.

We’re able to remember 7 +/- 2 pieces of information and they will stay for about 30 seconds. You know when you’re trying to remember a phone number that you gotta dial ?? You look up the number on the internet, on the yellow pages, in your cellphone or however you look it up and you’re too lazy to write it down on paper so you force yourself to remember that number. So you keep repeating that number to yourself over and over again from when you looked it up until you dial it on the phone, you may even say it out loud cause that way it’s gonna be easier to remember !! How many of you can remember the phone number until you dial it ?? Alot of you i hope, because i can. But how many of you still remember that number after you got hold on that person you were looking to speak with on the phone ?? I know i don’t… once im no longer focused on that information and can’t associalte it with anything of importance i wont remember it anymore.

Imagine that number you’re gonna dial is 0 9 0 1 8 0 7 8 7. How do you do to remember it ?? This is what i do: I unify the numbers. So I’d go 090 (that’s the number for Umeå- where I live in the north of Sweden) 18 (that’s my sister Malin’s age) 07 (that’s my lucky number and the number I wore when I was playing soccer) 87 (that’s the year my sister Caroline was born)
So in conclusion: It’s 090    18    07     87. Way easier to remember that 0 9 0 1 8 0 7 8 7. By using this method, when you associate the figures to information that you know you’re gonna store that number in your long term memory. If you wouldn’t be able to associate those number to anything but you just had to dial that number you might just repeat the number to yourself a couple of times looking at it, then you’d walk towards your dialing phone, saying 090 18 07 87, 090 18 07 87, 090… until you dialed it. But then you’ll forget the number, because it won’t mean anything to you…

Know what, that’s it for Motion Learning and Performance. Tomorrow I’ll start something new and exciting !! Hope i get hold of the teacher for this compendium cause there were 2-3 things i’d need to get clarified in order to understand it fully. 
Smell you later

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter V (System of Control)

Just got back from running with the dog. Poor girl, she’s supposed to be a hunting dog but she’s in suuuuuuch a bad shape !! We only ran for 6 km and even if she was eager in the beginning she got tired of running after only 2 km. Lucky for her today’s work out wasn’t running 6 km straight, but I had a warm up for about 2 km, then stopped and got ready to do some 2a fiber exercising (imagine 800 m and 1500 m distance runners. They have to be explosive and pertinacious at the same time). When I was 13 or 14 I used to clock myself when I ran 600 meters (more or less, i measured it when i was young and it still makes sense to me that it should be about that) and I did that in 2.45.69 min. Now I wanted to see if I could set a new record. I didn’t think i would because i was in better shape back then. But who knows, i might be stronger now !! Seniors make better results that juniors… And guess my results ?? 2.37.50 min !!! And the dog stopped me once because she wanted to smell a lamp post… i normally let her smell whatever she wants, but this time i just dragged her along, but she slowed me down !! So lets say I would have done 0.5- 1.o sek better. Let’s say I did 2.37 min then 🙂 So that’s 8.69 sek better then my previous record 🙂 And, if I may add, this is a hard course, because it’s real hilly (both up and down) and saw dust surfice, so i was pleased 🙂

Enough of that. System of Control !! This part i found a little tricky to understand so it’s a good thing I get to blog about it !! Let’s see if we can understand what I write.

With System of Control I mean something that’s able to assess the results of the output. You remember that tennis example?? Of how you play the ball with your opponent, not much happens, then you decide to play it short so the opponent reacts a little too late so he has to run to save the point. He does, but once he’s there he just barely saves it so he doesn’t keep track of the right side of him, which you do because you know what’s going on in your opponents head because you can read the game. So you just smash it on the right side of him, the side he has no control of. So the output it: you won the point. Here is where the system of control comes in: to evaluate and assess that outcome (output). So you did well and the more you play the more you learn.

Let’s say you were the one that didn’t know what to do when the opponent made it and saved the point, eventhough he’s out of balance and that sets you off and you are the one that reacts too little too late, so you play the ball in net and the point will be your opponent’s. Then the evaluation of that outcome would have been different, because you had a different outcome: you lost the point. The system of control is there to evaluate. So next time you facing off with your opponent and you end up in a similar situation you might have learnt from your previous outcome, so now you play differently (or the same, if the previous outcome was good). Does constructive critisism make sense ?? It does to me !!

I tried to make it easier to over-view what the control system actually is by creating a figure on Word, but that was difficult because i can’t upload it !! But basically it’s about making a decision and perform. You want a result, you think about how you need to do to make it. So you practice by making quick decisions under alot of stress, you learn how to handle the stress and therefor perform better and then one day you smash it !! So you practice it even more and then it’s something motoric: you ”just do it”, it’s simply in your bone marrow !! So using your bone marrow and your muscles you’ll get the out come that you want and you’ve improved your smash !!

 Shut control and open control. There’s a difference between them. The shut control is a slower motion process, and something that we’ve learnt to do and never forget. Like learning how to ride a bike, or driving a car !! Or swimming !! Once we know that we won’t forget how to do it.  The open control system is a quicker way of reaction to action. You only have time to make a decision and make a move. Like playing tennis !! How much time do you have from when you passed the ball over to your opponent ?? Minimal. You pass it over, you move back into position and you gotta catch the ball again. So you gotta act upon your sensation, and you gotta trust your knowledge of the game in order to achieve good results.

So what’s better then?? I’d say both of them are equally as important, because we use them in different situations. All of us (atleast everybody that knows how to ride a bike) have been using the shut control function. But if you’re someone that’s ”good at sports” and someone that amazes everybody with your incredible understanding of the game, and how it all looks so effortless to you, you’re probably using the open controll. You’re able to handle situations in a fast pace. You have time to think but your performance is automized.

I’m off to bed, i’ll have to be at work again in 8 hours, so i better get some sleep. But before I go i just wanted to add something that i found really interesting about multi-tasking. They say women are good at multi-tasking and that men can’t do it. I think ”multi-tasking” is gonna have to be remodified from now on, because it’s impossible to pay equally as much attention to doing two things at the same time. Imagine you’re watching TV and talking with your granddad on the phone at the same time. You’re gonna stop listening to him when something interesting catches your attention on the TV. Then you’ll get interrupted by a ”Maggie !! Are you listening to me ?? Bring your fishing rod and I’ll change the line !!” and you’ll go ”What ?? Me ?? Fishing line ?? Yea sure, I’ll bring the fishing line”. Of course you can have many things going on at the same time, like boiling rice and cutting veggies, but you’re gonna let the rice boil and let it go as you go ahead and cut the veggies, and then remember you have it on the stove so it won’t burn. The more advanced your main task is, the worse the outcome of the secondary task is gonna be. Unless you focus more on the secondary task than on the main task.

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter IV (Reflex and Reaction)

I’ve been resting a bit, and now im eager to write again !!

Reaction. Let’s start with that crazy phenomenon !! The definition of ”reaction” is the the time it takes for unexpected information to become action. I.e. you wake up and find that the sun is up. You didn’t expect that, because you thought it was still night !! And you know you have to get up to go to work so once you realized that it’s morning and you get up you can say that you have reacted. The reaction time can be a sort of measurement tool to see how efficient you are in making decisions. In sports it’s crucial that you’re capable of making a decision in the very instant, atleast if you want to become a professional.

If you got alot of information to handle and it gets more complex, your reaction time is going to increase. Imagine you’re playing soccer. You need to pass the ball, and you see one of your team mates and how he’s free. You think you should pass him, but then he gets covered by two opponents so he’s not anymore an option, you’ll have to find a different sollution. So the time between the information, the decision making and the acting will increase as it gets more complicated to make a decision.

When the stress is big your performance might (and will) suffer. Because your pupils will enlarge, your pulse will get higher as your heart frecuency will increase and it will be harder for you to focus and perform. You might wanna try meditation if you want to try to chill out a bit. It lowers your blood pressure, highers the parasympathic nerv system’s activity and lowers the sympathic nerv system’s activity (which is good). It reduces the amount of stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, and also it exudes more melatonine and serotonine (melatonine is created from serotonine, and they are both hormones that work like anti-oxidants. So it’s good to have them. They shown that depressed people may lack of these and also that they help you sleep).

There are other factors that affect your reaction time. Like when something unexpected happens somewhere you didn’t expect it to happen. Imagine you’re at Munic international airport. Then you hear ”Heeeey, Maggie !!” You halt. Look suspicious. Go ”what ??” Then ”naaaa, that wasn’t me they were calling”. So you keep on walking. And again ”Maggie !! It’s me !!” So you turn around and you see your next door neighbour that you only see when taking a morning walk with your dog !!

When you exercise alot your action and movements will become automatic, because you know how to move. These reflexes can happen both consciously and unconcously

M1- reflex
You know when the doctor hits you with a hammer on your knee to check your reflex?? Or maybe you’ve never had that treatment, i know i haven’t, but I’ve seen it on TV. However, this is a monosympathic stretch reflex that will increase your contraction when your muscles are exposed to sudden strain. Your knee is gonna react within o.o3-o.o5 seconds after he hit you with that hammer. Or atleast it should.

M2-reflex
You wanna know the procedure for this reflex to happen ?? Here it goes, hold on tight:
The signal goes from muscle to the spinal marrow and up to the brain, where the information is treated. Then it’s sent back to the muscle of issue to perform the movement impuls.
Sounds like a long process, right ?? This all takes up to 0,1 seconds to happen and sure, it IS a longer process than i.e. the M1-reflex. This is something that you’re affected by when your CONCIOUS of your action. Like you know you’re looking across the street to spot something and when you spot what you expected to spot you raise your thumb. Or something like that 😉

M3-reflex
This reflex is actually too slow to be a reflex. It comes 0.12- 0.18 seconds after stimuli and is a volunteer reaction. It’s like when you see something coming towards you and you have enough time to react to protect your face with your hands.

Redeemed Reflex
0.08- 0.12 seconds after stimuli and it’s the slowest of all reflexes. It effects muscles far off from the muscles that has been stimulated and functions so that it withdraws hands and feet to protect itself. Like when you burn your hand on the stove or when you twitch watching a horror movie

That’s enough for today, I’ll proceed tomorrow with Control system and maybe the memory, if i got time.
See ya !! Wouldn’t wanna be ya !! (because i wanna be myself 😉 )

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter III (decision making)

Decision making then.Making a decision wether to do or not to do something happens when we’ve received enough information.
Keep this in mind: Input- information- taking measures- making a move- output

Imagine you’re playing tennis, right? You play the ball with your match opponent, smoothly. Not much happens, you try to create an opportunity to strike. You decide to play a short ball so that your opponent needs to run up to the net just to save the point. He (or she… but let’s say ”he”, because writing ”he/she” is so annoying) gets there just in time so all he’s concerned about is to get the ball over the net. You’ve had time to act, because you see your opponent, how he runs, that he barely makes it and that he has left all the right side wide open, so all you need to do is to act upon the information. You take measures, you make the decision to smash the ball on the right side of your opponent, because he’s not balanced on the right side and the point is yours. So from getting the input and the information you’ve taken measures and you made the move in very little time: and the outcome is that you’ve won the point !! Aren’t sports just wonderful ?? So fast, so dynamic and so much achieved in very little time !! You gotta love it.

The tennis thing is an example of automatic decision making, that will appear in your capacity after many years of training. It’s fast and dynamic and you don’t need to pay any direct attention to handle it, but rather have knowledge of the game and what’s needed in that very instant. But there’s also something called controlled decision making, and it’s caracterized by a slower process, you have time to think and to evaluate. Like when you’re deciding what chocolate bar you’re gonna buy !! For me that takes forever… but it’s also common when something’s new or if  there’s something you haven’t learnt to do properly. Like in that tennis example, you might not have decided to smash the ball to the right of your opponent because you wouldn’t have known what to do, so you’d try to think and that would take too long, so your opponent would have time to get back into balance and save the point because he could read your intentions and get back into position.

When people ask you how you smash the ball and place it where you want so effortlessly your answer might be ”I just do it”. That ”I just do it” is something you’ve learnt when you started playing tennis when you were little (assuming you started when you were little) and you’ve learnt to predict the game in two different ways (maybe in more ways, but these are the dominant ways) in time and space. Time prediction is when you predict when something is gonna happen, like a face-off, a serve or a sprint start. How do you do that ?? Well, you just do it. You know when it happens because you’re focused. You know what you listen to and look for and you act upon that feeling because you know that feeling!! About spacial prediction you predict that something’s gonna happen. Like when you play soccer, you might predict you opponents’ movements because you know those movements. You’re able to read your opponents intentions because his reactions happen 0.06-0.1 seconds before he makes the move and you act upon that reaction, because you know that reaction. And if you’re playing tennis you might predict that your opponent’s gonna play it short before he does, so you can actually take measures and make a move before he does: by predicting what’s gonna happen. Also if you’ve done wage negotiations before, you know what salary to ask for and how not to settle with less. That reminds me, I’m nervous for monday, because I’m gonna have my first salary negotiation!!) The more experience you have within a field the better you’re gonna get at it !! Pressuming you’re physically fit, if needed.

Roger Federer. What a genious !! A perfect example of automatic decision making- he doesn't have to think, he just does it !! Look at how relaxed and comfortable he is

Tension and nervosity. You know your decision will be effected by these, don’t you? The tension comes from the feelings generated in the Central Nerv System (CNS), as we talked about in Chapter I (Brains). Nervosity is affected by how you register the situation. Playing a tennis game infront of the boy or the girl you like? Your dad that expects alot from you? Your opponent that you know has played great lately? Nervosity is good, because it keeps us focused. But if you’re too stoked you might get the same results as if you were supine- you don’t perform well. You might have a certain routine that you can’t do and that might set you off. Imagine you’re a 800 m runner and you’re gonna compete. You know that you need to be warmed up, you have your routine for that and you know when and where to do it. But then you need to stand in line to identify yourself before you’re let in, because the stadium has certain security procedures. And once you’re in you get told that the start is gonna be postponed because the nigerian women’s relay-team made a false start and got disqualified so now they’ve appealed etc. etc. etc. So that also sets you off because now you can’t enter the stadium at 1.30 pm with your left foot first and tie your right shue before you jump 7 times…….. So learn how to keep your nervosity under control, learn how to breath and how to keep your pulse controlled, how to relax during unpredictable situations and how to focus. And how do you do that ?? By practicing. And then practicing more. And then some. Just don’t give up !!

By the way, to get real good at something you need two things: 1. Hard work, as we agreed on. And 2. Good genes. As the lecturer for this class said: For good genes you thank your parents, and by hard work you make them proud.

Back to handling nervosity. There are things you can change in your brain activity.
1. Gain self control and self confidence. By exercising because that will give you a pleasant mental state of mind !!
2. Decrease the negative thoughts. It’s such an easy thing to do,just don’t say don’t !! I remember when I was about 10-11 years old and i did alpine skiing. We dedicated one night to talking about psycology in competition and the lecturer told us not to say ”not” or ”don’t”. One girl that was good at horse back ridig said ”but what if I’m doing show jumping, can’t i say to myself ”not to deck”? The lecturer said no, don’t say that, you should rather say ”I’m gonna make it to the other side”.
3. Excercising !! That will make you resiliant to stress
4. Physical activity gives you a positive feeling, because it releases Beta-endorphines that give a calming effect and also contribute to a pleasant ambience. They can also make you sleep better at night !! Actually, it’s the same types of endorfines as when you’re having an orgasm !! Isn’t that interesting !! (I didn’t read that in the compendium, i heard it from this spanish dude i used to know)
5. A part from those hormones physical activity also contributes to cell renewals in the brain, the same way anti-depressives do.
6. Physical activity has proven to have decreased activity on hypothalamus and hypofys. The activity increases on those areas when we’re depressed.

I’m tired of writing, I’ll get back to reaction and reflex later.

Btw if you haven’t seen this you have to see it !! It’s Novak Djokovic imitating his opponents (and Maria Sharapova) !! Now here’s someone who’s able to predict his opponents. But don’t think about that, just watch it and laugh, like i do !! It never gets old xD

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter II (Vision)

Chapter 2/6 is about vision and how that effects the performance. Or actually, how it helps us perform.

So we need our senses to help us perform. We get exteroperceptive information from the hearing and the vision and the intraperceptive information from the motion information inside our own body, where muscles and ligaments tell and get told by the brain to move.

The hearing is good, but I’d rather lose my hearing to my vision, because it is the vision that helps out the most when it comes to moving. Imagine you’re gonna cross the street, yes? You can tell if a car is coming from behind, because you can hear it. But you still turn around to see it with your eyes, because that way you can 1. confirm that the car is coming your way (or actually turning away to go towards another direction) and 2. decide exactly how far away the car is and how fast it moves in relation to your pace and that way you can determine wether you have time to cross the street or not. However, the darker it gets the more impaired the vision is gonna get. This is called ”focused vision”. Then you got the ”totality vision”, the type of vision that covers your sight field. This vision helps us answer what we’re looking at. And what am I in relation to that? Like, if I see an elefant I’ll probably feel tiny, or if I see a mouse I’ll probably feel big. Or if I see Kelly Slater I might feel humble!! Totality vision is something unconcious and gives information about optic flow when it comes to:
– Stability and balance
– The speed and pace of a movement
– The movement’s direction (like a ball’s direction when you’re playing soccer)
If you read my Chapter I entry about the Brains you’ll know that it’s the right side of the brain that carries the totality vision funcion !! Of course you remember that. I mean I did…………………

Why don’t you try something? Stand up and stand on one leg. It’s easy, isn’t it? Now close your eyes. For how long can you maintain your balance? It gets much harder!!

Apparently when your taking a golf swing, if you don’t keep your eyes on the ball you’ll lose your balance. But i don’t understand that, because i played soccer when i was young and i used to lift my eye and focus on the target when I took a shot. But then again, i’m weird. When I drive I let go half way of the clutch pedal and meet it with the gas pedal instead of doing it the other way around, as i remember they tried to teach me at driving school back when i took the driver’s licence.

Motion Learning and Performance Chapter I (Brain)

Motion Learning and Performance will attend 6 subjects, all related to Motion and Performance. You may not be interested in all 6 subjects, so you can navigate yourself through the 6 chapters I created to give you a chance to skip what you’re not interested in and jump straight to the area that you want to learn more about. Or you might aswell be interested to know it all!! It’s up to you 🙂

The point with this information is to be able to easily over-view how humans move, how we learn how to move and when, our motion functions and some key principles to performance.

1. Brains
2. Vision
3. Decision making
4. Reflex and Reaction
5. Control Panel
6. Short term- and long term memory

So let’s start then, and see if we get the right side of this

1. BRAINS
The Central Nerv System (CNS) consists of different fibers that provide and send signals to and from the brain. There might be more than those that I suggest now, but these are the ones I know:

– Afferent nerv fibers
  (incoming and sensory: i.e. they provide you with information and sense them)

– Efferent nerv fibers
(outgoing and motoric: i.e. they make the brain send out signals to act upon the nerves’ sensations)

– Somatic
(In the skeleton)

– Autonomic
– (In the glands, heart, in smooth muscles such as vital organs like the heart and the diafragma and in vessles)

The brain and the spinal marrow has billions of neurons that communicate through electric stimulation (google action potential if you’re interested to learn more, or wait until i deal with that in my blog, but that won’t be until further on.) Or check this out if you want to: youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCasruJT-DU )

The neurons allow in- and output of ions in the cells, such as natrium, calium, calcium etc and associate that to the body and the extremites (i.e. different exterior body parts, like arms and legs).

There are 3 main systems here (and this is repitition from the different fiber types):

1. Sensory
Measures and treats sensory information from the body. Like when you burn your hand on the stove: right before you react !!

2. Motoric
Sends information to the muscles and the glands. Imagine that hand on the hot stove. It’s a good thing if it hurts, that shows you got well developed motoric functions

3. Motivating
Starts the processes based on intellectual- and emotional choices. Like right now, I feel soooo motivated to become a personal trainer and a sport’s massage therapist!! Just gotta make this course…

1.2 The brain, the cerebellum and other vital parts of the brain
The cerebral competence allows you to see, speak and hear: Just to mention a few !! The brain is divided into two hemispheres by a deep groove right between the left- and the right side of the brain.

The left side of the brain= the concious, analytical and verbal part. The left side of the brain activates the right side of the body.

The right side of the brain= the unconcious, totality registering and spatial part. The right side of the brain activates the left side of the body.

Amygala  Now this is interesting, as this is the part of the brain that’s mostly conected to  certain emotions such as fear, anger and horror. It also sends alarms to the body when it needs to protect itself. It also adjusts blood pressure, heart beat and breathing if we get scared or angry. Extreme sport athletes challenge this part of the brain more than people that don’t dedicate to extreme sports, and they therefor learn to handle fear differently than others.

Hypotalamus This part of the brain gears bloodpressure, sleep, body temperature, metabolism etc. It tells us what to do and what goals we’re gonna achieve and it’s kindof ”the brain of the brain”. It motivates us to do something (or not to do something)

Hippocampus is the memory. (Think hippo= horse, horse’s memory !!) It kindof works like a tape recorder. It orientates us through space, time and location (sense of orientation, and mine is baaaaaad !! Maybe my hippocampus isn’t very well developed !! or maybe my Hypotalamus doesn’t motivate me enough to give a damn about time and space)

The cerebellum is also the visionary part of the brain, or as it’s also called ”Primary Visionary Cortex”. It measures the information starting from the visiual association (have a look at Broadmann area 17 to get a view of the brain) and it identifies and estimates sizes, directions and speed. Which is a good thing if you want to be any good at for instance soccer !! 🙂
Have a look at Brodmann area 17 to give you a stock-taking picture of the different parts and lobes of the brain:

1.3 The cortex’
So this part is a bit complex, but I’ll keep it simple, as this isn’t even part of my compendium.

1. Dorsolateral prefrontal associative cortex

serves as the highest cortical area responsible for motor planning, organization, and regulation. It plays an important role in the integration of sensory and mnemonic information and the regulation of intellectual function and action. It is also involved in working memory. However, it’s not exclusively responsible for the executive functions. All complex mental activity require the additional cortical and subcortical circuits that this part of the brain  is connected with.

Damage to the DL-PFC (Dorsolateral Prefrontal associative Cortex) can result in the dysexecutive syndrome, which leads to problems with affect, social judgement, executive memory, abstract thinking and intentionality

2. Premotor cortex

This part of the brain is the executive of movement and control of the core and the muscles that are close to the core. The functions you’ll exercise when using the premotor cortex are as follows:
– Grabbing objects
– Throwing
– Jumping
– Bowling

3. Supplementary motor area

The Supplementary Motor Area (SMA) is implicated in the planning of motor actions and bimanual control. In contrast to the premotor cortex, the SMA has been implicated in actions that are under internal control, such as the performance of a sequence of movements from memory (as opposed to movements guided by a visual cue).

4. Primary motor cortex

There are two representational areas of the Primary Motor Cortex (PMC). In primates, the primary motor cortex is unusual in having in its anterior and posterior areas two representations of the digits and wrist. The posterior areas can be activated by attention without any sensory feedback and has been suggested to be important for initiation of movements, while the anterior areas is dependent on sensory feedback. It can also be activated by imaginary finger movements and listening to speech done without actual movements. This anterior representation area has been suggested to be important executing movements involving complex sensoriomotor interactions.

5. Somatosensory cortex

The somatosensory cortex is an area of the brain which processes input from the various systems in the body which are sensitive to touch. People often think of touch as a single sense, but in fact several different sensory experiences are involved in touch, including specific sensitivity to pain, sensitivity to temperature, and the body’s proprioception system which monitors the body’s place in space. The somatosensory system as a whole is extremely refined and highly sensitive, allowing people to detect and interpret a wide variety of sensations.

6. Posterior parietal cortex

The parietal cortex is located roughly ‘after’ vision and ‘before’ motor control in the cortical information processing hierarchy. Nobody knows exactly what this does, but one cares about what it does when strokes blow holes in the right-side PPC. Patients to this get bizarre syndromes and they might become unaware of the left side of space. Sometimes patients don’t acknowledge their surroundings on that side, sometimes their own bodies seem alien to them. So it’s been suggested that the PPC may have something to do with spatial processing. Other ideas include motor command generation, visuomotor transformation, multimodal integration, attention, consciousness … interesting indeed !!

Assessment of Performance

Finally Internet conection !! I’ve brought all of my compendia from classes we’ve already had at the course with me home, and I’ve decided to go through one compendium every day. Like when others do ”a word a day” I do ”a compendium a day”.

Today is pretty basic. It’s about different ways to assess your performance. The other day I did the Cooper Test at the gym to see what level I’d be at. I was amazed to see that I did Excellent. I expected to be average, on the verge of above average, because i don’t feel in that good shape… i’ve been way fitter before, so i was surprised to see that I did 2700 m in 12 minutes. Pleasantly surprised 🙂

All you need to do it is basically a treadmill that measures time and lenght; or you can do it outside if you know how to measure how far you go and also can clock yourself.

Cooper test is about running for 12 minutes and see how far you can go. Depending of your age and sex you can determine weather your level is Poor, Below Average, Average, Above Average or Excellent.

Sex/Age   Excellent     A.Average       Average            B.Average          Poor

M 20-29  >2800 m, 2400-2800m, 2200- 2399m, 1600-2199m,<1600m
F 20-29   >2700 m, 2200-2700m, 1800- 2199m, 1500-1799m,<1500m

M 30-39  >2700 m, 2300-2700m, 1900-2299m, 1500-1999m,<1500m
F 30-39   >2500 m, 2000-2500m, 1700-1999m, 1400-1699m,<1400m

M 40-49  >2500 m, 2100-2500m, 1700-2099m, 1400-1699m,<1400m
F 40-49   >2300 m, 1900-2300m, 1500-1899 m, 1200-1599m,<1200m

M> 50      >2400 m, 2000-2400m, 1600-1999m, 1300-1599m,<1300m
F > 50      >2200 m, 1700-2200m, 1400-1699m, 1100-1399m,<1100m

This video is quite dull, and besides it’s like in Dutch or some other weird language that’s even weirder than Swedish, so i don’t recommend you to watch it if you already know what Cooper Test is. It’s just to give you an idea if you didn’t understand the instructions.

Beep Test
I’m sure you all know what that is, I know I did before the teacher told us, because I remember I did that test once in my youth’s days. I did 15 (and I also puked afterwards) and I’m sure I’ll be able to preassure myself to do it again, but I really don’t see the point of doing it. I like living with the knolwledge that I Did 15 on the Beep Test !! So I really don’t see any point in retaking the test.

So What is the Beep Test?

It’s a test consisting of 23 levels

Every level lasts for about 1 minute and that minute you will run for 20 meters. The idea is to reach the other end of the 20 meter’s leg before you hear ”the beep”.

For every level that you accomplish the speed will increase with 0.5 km/h. At level 1 you’ll start out on 8.5.

When you hear only one beep that indicates you’re at the end of the 20 meter’s line. 3 beeps indicates you’ll start at a new level.

So when I did 15 on the Beep Test that means I had been running for 15 minutes, increasing each minute from 8.5 km/h to 16 km/h. Few people manage to do all the 23 levels. Håkan Mild (Swedish ex soccer player) has made it. So that means he ran for 23 minutes and increased his speed every minute from 8.5 km/h to 20 km/h. That’s pretty cool !!

Here’s a youtube video of the Beep Test
 

Yo-Yo IR2 test (IR= Intermittent Recovery Test)
A lot of soccer players use this method to assess their shape.

This test will take from 2-10 minutes to execute. In resemblence with the Beep Test they are going to run for a certain amount of mts and the speed will successively increase as you get further into the test.

This test is about running 2 x 20 meters and then rest for 10 seconds. You’ll start out with 10-13 km/h and do 4 intervals. Then you’ll proceed to raise the level to 13.5 km/h for intervals 4-7. Then every 4 or 5 interval you’ll raise the speed for 0.5 km/h, until they can’t do it anymore.

The Beep Test is something alot of ball players use to assess their physical shape. But honestly the Yo-Yo test is more suitable for football players because it’s a way to assess the players capacity to execute high intensity work out with a large amount of anaerobic energy and combine it with aerobic energy. Football players need both anaerobic energy (strenght, speed, explosiveness, like 100 m, 200 m and 400 m sprinters) and aerobic energy (endurance, stamina, like long distance runners) and you also see what their capacity of recovering is like when they get a chance to recover for 10 seconds.

As you notice it’s pretty similar to the Beep Test, as you have to keep increasing your speed and also because you have to gear your pace according to the beep. The only difference is that you may rest for 10 seconds between each interval.

That was interesting! Why don’t you test yourself and see what you can do!!