Carlo Alvarez

Recently, I got an email from Dave Gleason on a blog post he wrote on the McMinnville High School story  and wanted me to comment. For those of you who don’t know, this was the nationally covered story (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/highschool/news/story?id=5483568) about a 19 high school athletes who were hospitalized due to a “mysterious” illness.

Here is a link to his blog post: http://www.athleticrevolutionsouthshore.com/mcminnville-high-school-football-lessons-learned/

My two cents:

Earlier today, I had a great conversation with Paul Winsper, Director of Performance at Nike SPARQ about this same topic. We both agreed that this was most likely a conditioning issue that needed to be addressed and not a supplement issue that could have caused this type of trauma to the muscle.

There was initial coverage on the topic by ABC News, which broke the story with very little actual facts. I have to agree with Dave Gleason on the irresponsible reporting by ABC. In situations like these, its easy to find a quick answer and someone to blame rather than spending the adequate amount of time researching the facts. This could have serious negative repercussions for administrators, coaches, trainers and the medical staff. I’m sure the administration is performing their own internal investigation in which summer and two-a-days protocol will be adjusted.

Jeff Milton mentioned in the Athletic Revolution-South Shore  post, at what time should the parents question the coaches routine? My answer is ALL THE TIME. Its extremely important for parents to have a clear understanding of what type of program their sons and daughters will be utilizing to improve their physical development. Does it take into consideration age-specific exercise menus, base level of conditioning or even physiological maturity. From experience, we have learned that not all programs can be created equally for high school athletes. All athletes entering high school mature at different levels and that should be taken into consideration when training athletes in a group or by team.

I believe we must ask specific questions to determine what led to this problem and what went wrong during these specific conditioning days leading to the emergency. These simple questions will allow us to draw more specific conclusions as to the possible reasons for the emergency.

• Was this Varsity, JV or Freshman level?
• What level of conditioning were these athletes exposed to prior to this incident?
• What type of protocol have they used to train the football team in previous weeks?
• What level of hydration/dehydration was present at the time of the incident?
• What type of rest to work ratio was present during the workout session?

Research has proven that anyone of these factors can have a negative impact on muscle dehydration, swelling and breakdown. Its effect can vary depending on the age of the athlete and conditioning level.

Parents, coaches and administrators must understand that the development of the young high school athlete must be divided into levels. The progression must start once they arrive their freshman year and progress through levels from sophomore to senior year as they show maturity, understand the program and can begin to adapt to the higher volume and workloads.

Developing an annual training plan that allows athletes at different levels to adapt over the length of the year, can help athletes transition from training phases. Its important to remember that work adaptation is a function of indivdual capacity. Give the athletes a chance to adapt to the higher workloads by progressing them over the course of extended time periods. This will help them avoid injuries and reduce the possibility of overtraining, which in turn will help athletes have a productive summer and season.