Editor’s note: Dana Santas, “calledMobility Maker,” is a certified strength and conditioning specialist and mind-body coach in professional sports, and author of “Practical Solutions for Back Pain Relief.”
CNN
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Whether you’re a former athlete looking to get back into summer sports or want to participate in the family kickball game, you don’t want to deal with soreness after a few weeks. Don’t think about the embarrassment of not being able to hold your own in front of friends and family.
To help everyone safely and effectively return to seasonal recreational activities, I enlisted four good friends and training colleagues from professional sports for expert insight and practical tips to stay active, perform better, and enjoy summer activities injury-free.
Read on to learn how you can unlock your summer sports potential and get back in the game.
Jason Glass, a leading performance coach who coaches elite athletes on the PGA Tour, emphasizes the importance of daily practice. “Whether you’re a professional athlete or a weekend warrior, you can’t prepare for game day on game day,” he said. “Proper preparation comes from your daily habits.”
Glass recommends creating a daily lifestyle checklist he calls his “Five Basics”:
Make it your job to sleep: Quality sleep is essential for recovery and performance. Aim for steady, restful sleep.
Stay hydrated: Drink half your body weight in fluid ounces per day. For a 200-pound (91-kilogram) athlete, that’s 100 ounces per day.
Eat Clean: Know what’s in your food and how it affects your body. This awareness will help you make better choices on game day.
Travel gracefully: Do an activity that makes you feel good every day, whether it’s yoga or lifting weights. Listen to your body.
Live with intention: Practice with specific results in mind. Even napping can be helpful if done with the intention of relaxing before a big game.
Using a scale of 0 to 5, Glass advises scoring yourself on these five foundations at the end of each day. Aim for a total score of 20 or more At the end of each day. “Master these five fundamentals before adding other performance-enhancing techniques,” he suggested.
Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images
Hydration is key for athletes. Here, the Nigerian women’s soccer team takes a water break during a July 25 match against Brazil in Bordeaux, France during the 2024 Olympic Games.
Bill Burgos, former head of strength and conditioning for three NBA teams, offers advice for those returning to the sport after a hiatus. “For someone who hasn’t participated in any sporting activity in a while, it’s very important to start safely and effectively,” he said, noting that he’s not waiting for the day to return to play.
These are three tips from Burgos:
Prepare your body for movement: Use dynamic stretching exercises such as foam rolling and elbow-to-step walks and walking knee hugs to improve flexibility and mobility.
Gradually increase your heart rate: Start with low-intensity activity, such as a slow jog, and gradually increase to a moderate intensity that mimics your sport.
Listen to your body: Pay attention to how your body feels and adjust the intensity of your exercise accordingly.
Maintain strength and speed
Paul Fournier, a strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers who has worked in Major League Baseball for more than 30 years, highlights the importance of strength and speed for longevity and injury prevention. “Maintaining strength and range of motion is key to preventing chronic pain and injury,” he emphasized.
Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images
Incorporating weight training into your daily routine can help maintain strength. Here, Arsenal soccer star Ben White works out at the Los Angeles Rams compound in Thousand Oaks, California on July 23.
Fournier recommends incorporating calisthenics, weight training, sprint work and plyometrics into your routine. He suggests starting with twice-weekly sessions:
Low Level Plyometrics: Jump rope, step ups and light medicine ball work build nerve and muscle endurance.
Core strengthening: Perform exercises like planks, dead bugs and rollouts to improve core stability and protect your back.
Strength training: Focus on compound movements for the lower body with exercises like lunges and squats, while incorporating isolated upper body exercises like chest presses, rows and curls.
Matt Nichol, a coach with three decades of experience coaching professional and Olympic athletes, emphasizes the critical role of a proper warm-up. “The warm-up is just as important as the exercise,” he said.
Hendrik Deckers/Borussia Dortmund/Getty Images
Maintaining a daily routine helps athletes stay prepared, whether they’re weekend warriors or pros. Here, German soccer team Borussia Dortmund trains in Osaka, Japan on July 23.
Nichol offers these practical hot tips:
Arrive early: Just like professional athletes who arrive at least three hours early on game days, allow extra time before your recreational activity or competition warms up.
Walk more: Park far enough apart to incorporate some light movement as you move to your activity.
warm up: Avoid stretching cold muscles. Instead, perform sport-specific movements (ie, running, dribbling, swinging a bat or bat, etc.) at a low intensity and gradually increase the speed until you’re up to game speed.
Listen to your body’s cues: Pay attention to any aches and pains during the warm-up. These can be early warnings of injury potential. It’s better to dial back your intensity for one game than to push too hard and miss the entire season.
As a mobility coach in professional sports for over 20 years, it has been my job to ensure that athletes can move through their maximum range of motion within the positions of their sport. To that end, I encourage athletes to follow these three strategies.
Have clear goals and a plan to achieve them: Your goals should align with the needs of your sport and provide direction for your mobility program. For example, if you want to get back into golf, tennis, or another rotational sport, focus on mobility exercises that improve rotation.
Build strong, powerful movements: Improved movement that improves sports performance requires strength and power behind the movement. As Fournier noted, strengthening the core is essential to stabilizing the lower back and preventing injury. Building core strength and stability also provides a foundation for expressing power through spine and limb movements.
Trains for controlled movement: Avoid relying solely on stretching to create passive ranges of motion that can lead to injury during activity.
Instead, focus on targeted strength and mobility exercises that promote control of the end ranges of motion.
For example, rather than sitting toes touching as a passive pelvic stretch, practice single-leg Romanian deadlifts that stretch and strengthen the pelvis while promoting stable and mobile pelvic motion.
Before you jump into the next neighborhood pickup basketball game or sign up for the city softball league, take these practical insights to heart to improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
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