Tuesday, December 11, 2012

DO YOU KNOW THE NUMBERS????


DO YOU KNOW THE NUMBERS???

DO YOU KNOW THE Numbers???????

COACHES EVERYWHERE KNOW HOW MUCH THEIR ATHLETES BENCH PRESS OR SQUAT.
ATHLETIC TRAINERS ARE AWARE OF MUSCLE IMBALANCES , INJURIES  OR THE PREDISPOSITIONS OF THEIR ATHLETES.

Coaches and trainers record all types of data about all sorts of things.  Treatment given to particular athlete or in the case of a coach, maybe he has measurement of all the athletes vertical jumps.
Anterior Cruciate Ligament tears are common, but a major injury in athletics.  There are timelines for recovery, how strong the musculature around your knee should be as you progress through therapy administered by the ATC.

No competent athletic trainer would release an athlete to return to competition unless he was sure the athlete was ready.  The trainer, team physician, and the strength coach collaborate on how to best get an athlete back to playing their sport, but not until the athlete has regained full range of movement, propericetion, baseline strength levels etc.

The trainer needs best effort numbers from the strength coach to judge how far the athlete has progressed. There is a need to know how close to 100 percent  the  strength level of the muscular of the injured area, in this case being the knee, before the returns to play.  The strength coach has numbers on squats, knee extension, for quadriceps strength, leg curl and RDLs for hamstring strength. Now they know how close the athlete is to regaining full strength in the musculature of the injured area. This way you have baseline measurements, solid number of where the athlete was strength wise before the injury and now after the rehab.
Lets examine another common but serious injury, Concussions.

Concussion Management is a Good thing.  The Concussion Management Protocol  allows the athlete to rest, sometimes sleeping in a dark  room for hours a day until symptoms subside.  What happens to the athletes strength level as their muscles atrophy while they rest? More importantly, what happens to the muscles of the head and neck. Those same muscles that were not strong enough to ward off the initial Concussion, are now even weaker because of the inactivity.

Now, we need numbers. Solid Numbers about previous Head and Neck Muscular Strength. What was the circumference of the athlete’s neck prior to the Concussion? How much have those muscles atrophied? Do strength coaches have numbers on baseline strength of the muscles of the Head and Neck? If they have baseline numbers on the quadriceps surely they will have numbers on the muscles that protect the Athlete’s Brain.
Sadly, I know of  only one Division I University that documents all those vital numbers and has a data base of information at their disposal. Colgate University does an outstanding job of knowing those Numbers.
How can a team physician, strength coach and athletic trainers make an informed decision about Return to Play without All the pertinent information?

Do parents want their sons and daughters to Return to Play with a weaker body and a much weaker neck?  We know muscles atrophy very fast, and if athletes are restricted from activity for longer and longer periods of time, then the muscles are even weaker when they return to competition.

Before an athlete can Return to Play, there are several tests. There are No tests given by professionals for head and neck musculature strength.
Would the Team Doctor give approval to an athlete to return to play from ACL surgery  with weak quadriceps or hamstring muscles? Why would we put a helmet on the head of an athlete with a weak neck? Should an athlete be allowed to “head” a soccer ball with a weak neck?

What can be done to ensure that our athletes are Properly Protected?
1. Implement a comprehensive Head and Neck Training Program.
2. Strength  coaches need to keep accurate and up- to- date records of head and neck musculature. Have current circumference measurements of male athlete’s necks.
3. Athletic Trainers and Strength Coaches need to share information of athlete’s  strength levels, including the muscles of the head and neck.
4. Make this information available to Physicians so that an informed decision can be made about when an athlete can safely return to play.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Small Beginnings Lead to Large Results

The best of ideas started  as a simple notion of how to do something better or more efficiently.

When two individuals join their ideas collectively, sometimes it can  result in something Big.



If those ideas come to fruition it can be paradigm shifting.





The NEW HEAD AND NECK MACHINE WILL CHANGE THE WAY WE LOOK AT CONCUSSION REDUCTION FOREVER.

www.concussionpreventionprotocol.com 






Monday, October 15, 2012

Project Neck II The Follow-up Study

 Project Neck II   The Follow-up Study

Why do researcher spend their time doing researching?


Research is just that, re- searching a problem or gaining a better understanding of what we are studying.
                                           Project Neck II  Laboratory


Starting January 2, 2013 Project Neck II gets bigger and better.  Project Neck II once again will be a NIH and Institutional Review Board Approved. Without these checks and balances a study is No research study. An Opinion or Idea is Not a Research Study.


The Experimental Group will Number in the 300s.  The Equipment will be Prototypical. The Results will Change the way we TRAIN Musculature the Head and Neck .


All research will be sanctioned and reviewed by The Head Neck and Spine Institute.

www.concussionpreventionprotocol.com



Sunday, September 30, 2012

Looking Back.

 Looking Back.

Clinical Research Takes Time to Complete.   This Blog was Written Three Years Ago. The research process is complicated and must be approved by several organizations, The National Institute of Health and may need to be approved by at least One Institutional Review Board. 
If this type of rigor and validity is not incorporated into a True Research Study. It is not a study at all. It is opinion, conjecture or just a good guess. There is only One Evidence Based Head and Neck Training Protocol.
concussionpreventionprotocol.com 

Ralph Cornwell
 
Undergrad From University of Maryland/Radford University Va
Masters of Science from Virginia Tech
Doctor of Philosophy -Science Virginia Tech Completion Date 12/10

Former Strength Coach
Radford University
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
United States Military Academy at West Point
North Carolina Agriculture and Technology State University
West Montgomery High School, NC

Served as Sport Performance Director and Owner of 2 Sports Performance Facilities 1 in Blacksburg, Va, the other in Greensboro, NC.


I have been training on Pendulum 5-way neck for about a month and have had remarkable results. The weight has steadily gone up on the exercises, but the amazing thing is my neck circumference has increased by an inch and a half.

Never gotten those types of results from any neck machine and I have tryed them all. I am currently preparing for my Ph.D. case study which involves the question: If you increase the circumference of the neck through resistance training and increase the stiffness ratio,as soft tissue becomes stronger, along with trapezius strength increases thus reducing the deformation rate during contact(impact) would you not decrease impact forces to the head, neck area and transfer or dissipate the forces throughout the trapezius,upper back muscles and ultimately have those forces absorbed through the stronger back muscles, hip/glute area transferring those forces finally to the much stronger lower body muscles.
Also, would this not help to reduce or lessen the rate of concussion or more importantly would it not lower the subconcussive forces of small impacts that seem to cause as much or more long term damage to the athlete. Would a bigger stronger neck not raise the tipping point in which we start to see real long-term brain damage, Well, that's what I intend to find out. I will be setting up my lab at the Virginia Tech campus where I am completing my Ph.D..
The pendulum neck machine will be an intricate part of the case study and I want to share the data with all the coaches out their so we can better protect our athletes from harm. We cant' forget it all starts with the neck. The vulnerable part of the human anatomy with respect to contact sports or life in general is our cervical spine which supports the skull which incases our most important component with regards to life -our brain.



Sunday, July 29, 2012

Let's Spring Into Action And Protect Athletes

The Ralph Cornwell Files

Let's Spring Into Action And Protect Athletes                                              
describe the imageRalph Cornwell is a Ph.D. candidate in health promotion/human performance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Prior to pursuing his Doctoral Degree he was a collegiate strength coach.
spring
Research from the best minds in the automotive safety industry  all agree, the circumference of the neck changes the way it reacts to forces applied to that area.
The former Congressional appointed Chairman of the Head  and Neck Committee put together a study on concussions and found: " Stronger necks reduce head acceleration, deltaV, and displacement. Even relatively small reductions in deltaV have a large effect on head injury criterion that may reduce concussion risks because changes in deltaV change head injury criterion through the 4th power."
Test dummies are used to simulate a human in a collision whether it is by automobile or playing sports.
spring1

How do they simulate neck strength in humans?

They change the size of the spring on the test dummies. Small to replicate a child’s neck circumference.  Medium size for female adults and large for adult males.
spring2
To simulate an athlete’s neck you have to go one step further.  The athlete’s neck is simulated by the largest and most stiff spring on a crash dummy in order to replicate the kinematics of a collision accurately.
spring3

The replicated athletic neck is more resistant to change than the mock-up normal population neck.  It  deforms less then all the simulated necks.
spring4

This is true for crash test dummies; is it not true for athletes playing sports that include collisions?
By increasing the circumference of our athlete’s necks the same result should occur. Less deformation of the cervical spine.
spring5
If this is good for test dummies, it should be good for America’s athletes risking concussion during sports. It will certainly lowers the subconcussive forces.
 spring6
Congress calls concussions an 'American Epidemic'. Let’s start inoculating our athletes with larger stronger necks.www.concussionpreventionprotocol.com

Friday, July 20, 2012

Training the Muscles of the Head and Neck, Priority ONE!

From Training and Conditioning Journal Making A Case For Training The Neck

Posted by intelligentexerciserx on July 20, 2012
http://www.training-conditioning.com/2012/07/18/a_case_for_training_the_neck/index.php
www.concussionpreventionprotocol.com
WWW.concussionpreventionprotocol.com

A Case for Training the Neck

By Ralph Cornwell, Jr., Ph.D. (abd)
To protect athletes from concussions and other head injuries, strength coaches should focus on strengthening the neck and trapezius muscles. In fact, the author argues that neck strengthening should be a training priority.

In a tradition that dates back centuries, physicians take the Hippocratic Oath before they practice medicine. In the original interpretation of the oath, a doctor would swear to “prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”
This code of moral conduct offers up valuable lessons to strength coaches and athletic trainers who work with the “patient” in their world: the athlete. Strength coaches are charged primarily with the duty of preparing athletes for the rigors of their chosen sport. Referring back to the Hippocratic Oath, one could argue that increasing the performance of an athlete should become the second priority for strength coaches because a great athlete standing injured on the sidelines does no one any good.

Instead, the top priority for strength coaches should be a training regimen targeted first at protecting their athletes from harm as they tune them for competition. If strength coaches look first to protect their athletes from potential harm and prepare properly and diligently the most vulnerable region of athletes’ bodies, one could argue that the number of serious sports injuries could be reduced or minimized.
And what is the most vulnerable region of the body that, if traumatized, could lead to a serious, possibly life-threatening injury? Without question, it is the neck region (cervical spine).
The neck supports the head, which encases the hierarchy of human beings’ functions, the brain. The trapezius–either of the two large muscles that run from the base of the back of the skull to the middle of the back–makes it possible for persons to raise their heads and shoulders. In essence, these muscles act as the foundation and support the driving force at the top of the body–back to the brain. If the foundation is strong, then the head is better supported and the brain better protected.

Given the critical role these muscles play, one would think the neck and trapezius would be at the top of strength coaches’ regimens for their athletes. But in a recent survey I distributed as part of my dissertation, over 200 college and university strength coaches were asked about their neck/trapezius training regimens, and their answers revealed this muscle region has a lower training priority than others. Survey questions ranged from “does your weight room have a four-way neck machine,” and “do you do any direct stimulation to strengthen the neck,” to simply “how important is training the neck in your program?”

The lack of emphasis on training this area may be explained by the fact that many coaches are simply unaware of the importance of training the neck and the trapezius muscles, which the neck relies on to dissipate forces. If strength coaches knew of the vital role the neck plays in sports performance, as well as the importance of increasing neck strength, then these results may have been very different.

Muscle regions other than the neck/trapezius area were emphasized in most strength-training programs. Does the following sound familiar when examining many of the nation’s strength training programs? Athletes use the bench press for the upper body; squats and leg presses for the lower body; and some abdominal and lower back work. This is a complete regimen, as many would suggest, if the strength coach’s only priority is the performance of the athlete rather than protection of that individual.
However, by training the neck and trapezius muscles, strength coaches can enhance protection and performance of their athletes. A stronger neck increases the strength of an athlete, who then functions as a complete working unit. For example, consider that the trapezius muscles run from the base of the back of the skull all the way to thoracic vertebrae 12. Overlooking such a critical and major muscle group certainly does not enhance an athlete’s overall performance.

To minimize head injuries, let’s revisit the neck/trapezius area and see how these muscles play a critical role. Neck muscles act as springs and shock absorbers; bigger, stronger necks can better absorb with less deformation. Recalling the laws of physics, consider the neck as a cylinder. The larger the circumference of the cylinder, the more load it can support without buckling.
As training the neck area increases strength there, the soft tissue thickens and the neck becomes stiffer. Using physics again to explain the necessity for stiffness, view the neck as a coiled spring. The thicker the coils of the spring, the greater the stiffness ratio. A smaller, less stiff spring is easier to compress from an axial-loading standpoint. A stiffer spring–or stronger neck–deflects greater frontal or side impact forces.

All variables being equal, if a given cylinder increases its diameter by two inches–say from six inches to eight inches–the deformation decreases 43 percent. Common sense, simple logic, or even strong speculation suggests that a bigger, stronger neck would give an athlete a better chance of avoiding serious injury when absorbing impact forces during collisions.
And female athletes should not avoid training the neck area, just because many think they will get a “fat neck” from such conditioning. Biologically, females do not achieve the hypertrophy that males do, but they can benefit greatly from the strength gained in this region of the body.

Training the neck area in four directions–flexion, extension, and left and right lateral flexion–followed by a shoulder shrug exercise offers the most effective direct stimulus to this region of the body. Neck machines are great devices to help with this training, but if strength coaches cannot afford these machines, they should educate themselves on the protocol of manual neck resistance, along with a barbell or dumbbell shrug.

Relating back to the original premise, if strength coaches truly believe their first priority is to protect the athlete and prevent injury, and that the neck and cervical spine are at risk during competition, why would they not train this region of athletes’ bodies religiously? If strength coaches train all the agonist and antagonist muscle groups but neglect the neck and trapezius area, are they truly preparing their athletes effectively for the rigors of their sport? Well-informed strength and conditioning professionals would see the logic in this premise and would want to help their athletes in any way they could.
Strength coaches need to find 30 minutes twice a week to train the neck and trapezius area. With effective time management and efficiencies, any strength and conditioning program could meet this objective. In setting up a strength training facility, would it not make sense also that for every station, say, for squatting, there would also be a station for protecting the brain and turning the head?

As these questions tumble forth, again the Hippocratic Oath comes back into play–”to prescribe regimens for the good of my patients.” Maybe the essence of that document created long ago can have relevance in more ways than one to strength coaches everywhere today.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dan Riley for all of his help and wisdom over the years. I would like to thank Mike Gittleson for his guidance with this article and the completion of my Doctoral Degree. Also, special thanks to Chris Potter Mechanical/Structural Engineer for his help and insight. Lastly, I would like to thank Tyler Hobson for the use of a great neck machine that will allow me to finish my research.

Ralph Cornwell is a Ph.D. candidate in health promotion/human performance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, with additional course work in sports psychology. A Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association. An honors society member, he currently is conducting a case study on neck injuries and the prevention of or leasing of concussive forces. He has more than 17 years experience as a strength and conditioning coach, consultant and lecturer. Having derived his training philosophy from Dan Riley while with the Washington Redskins, Cornwell has worked with high-school, collegiate and professional athletes–including those in the National Football League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer–as well as women’s soccer and lacrosse players, NFL Europe athletes, European and Russian basketball players, and several international players from Africa and Australia. He has been the head strength and conditioning coach at Radford University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and assistant coach at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Cornwell points to the fact that he never had an injury in a weight room where he was the head coach. At age 45, he still trains as hard as any of his athletes.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

CERTIFIED HEAD AND NECK TRAINING SPECIALIST « ConcussionPreventionProtocol

CERTIFIED HEAD AND NECK TRAINING SPECIALIST « ConcussionPreventionProtocol

Get The Knowledge! Protect your Athlete!

YOU AS A Coach, Athletic Trainer, Strength Coach, Military Trainer


Physical Therapist, Parent Need To Have The Knowledge To Protect Your Athlete.

Strengthening of the head, neck and surrounding cervical structures  is
the ONLY organic contingency within our control to prepare individuals to
withstand potentially injurious forces. The only one
!


The Concussion Rate in this Country continues to increase each Year!   The reactive approach simply DOES NOT WORK.  WE Must be Proactive. Through Evidence Based Research we Know We can Prepare our Athletes for the Rigors of Their Sport. 

THERE IS SIMPLY NO GOOD
REASON FOR NOT TRAINING THE MUSCLES SURROUNDING THE CERVICAL
SPINE. PERIOD!


Before you can Protect Your Athlete YOU need the skills to do so. You need to be Certified to train the musculature of the Head and Neck.

Through Concussion Prevention Protocol. com you can become a CERTIFIED HEAD AND NECK TRAINING SPECIALIST.  The Only certification that gives you the skill set to safely train the musculature of the head and neck. Go to www.coachaprotraining.com or concussionpreventionprotocol.com to find out more about becoming a Certified Head and Neck Training Specialist.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Get The Knowledge! Protect your Athlete!

Protect Your Athletes!  Prepare them for the Contact of the Sport!  Coaches, Parents, Strength Coaches, ATC. Get the knowledge and the evidence based DVD.
WWW. concussionpreventionprotocol.com

Thursday, February 9, 2012

ConcussionPreventionProtocol DVD GOES ON SALE!

ConcussionPreventionProtocol

Just another WordPress.com site


Finally It’s Here! The Concussion Prevention Protocol DVD is Ready to go.

Posted by intelligentexerciserx on February 4, 2012
SUPER BOWL SPECIAL!!!!!!
Finally, The Concussion Prevention Protocol DVD IS Here!
Concussions have become a National Epidemic.  Millions  of dollars have been spent to fund studies over the last 15 years.The research continues but the number of concussions in Athletics INCREASE Each YEAR. Something proactive needed to be done. Through our research and input from some of the greatest minds in strength and conditioning we have created the Protocol to
Protect  Your Athletes.
This Your opportunity to purchase the ONLY Evidence based CONCUSSION PREVENTION PROTOCOL DVD.
PRIORITY ONE
          The most important goal of the strength & conditioning professional is to PRUDENTLY PREPARE the individual for the rigors of the task at hand. As such, given the catastrophic consequences of a cervical spine and traumatic brain injury, the strengthening of the neck and surrounding muscular structures of the cervical spine MUST be considered PRIORITY ONE in the prescription and design  of exercise routines.
The Educational DVD and Instructional Manual will give you the knowledge and expertise to Properly strength train the musculature of the head and neck and surrounding muscle groups.

“All athletes exposed to “head impacts” (collisions, head trauma) should place the highest priority on strengthening the musculature of the neck and trapezius. Reliable and evidenced based information has been unavailable until now. Coaches, athletes, and especially parents can rely upon this manual (DVD) for the most comprehensive information available on neck development. I can without any reservation recommend this DVD for the safest and most effective methods to strengthen the neck and trapezius.”
Dan Riley                                                                                                                                                                             

Three Time Super Bowl Champion Strength Coach for the Washington Redskins
27 Year NFL Strength Coach (Washington Redskins & Houston Texans)
9 Year Collegiate Strength Coach United States Military Academy & Penn State



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