By Alexander Germanis
Anyone who has spent any amount of
time in Bloomington-Normal or its outlying communities can’t help but
notice one thing about the area: it loves sports. Whether it’s youth
leagues, junior high, high school teams, collegiate level programs, or
professional competition, the area is saturated with athletic contests.
Logically, a slew of athletic programs requires a legion of athletes
of all ages, which, in turn, means there are a host of athletic-based
injuries all along the scale that require the proper treatment and
rehabilitation. That is the purpose of Bloomington’s Orthopedic and
Sports Enhancement Center (OSEC) — a facility that caters to the
athletic needs of an athletic town.
Acceleration Program
As its name indicates, the Orthopedic and Sports Enhancement Center
tackles the more severe orthopedic issues plaguing athletes, such as
bone fractures, tears of the anterior cruciate ligament or rotator cuff,
and, perhaps down the road, total joint replacement.
But
treating those injuries and rehabilitating the athlete after surgery is
only part of OSEC’s mission. Preventing injuries from occurring in the
first place has become one of the center’s noble pursuits, brought to
fruition through the newly implemented Acceleration Program.
Dr.
J. Anthony Dustman and Dr. Robert K. Seidl of OSEC are the founders of
the Acceleration Program — a clinic designed to improve the abilities of
individual athletes regardless of their sport, position, or even age.
Drs. Dustman and Seidl both bring an extensive knowledge of
sports-related injuries and their related solutions, being both
board-certified in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine as well as
receiving fellowship training in sports medicine.
The program is
not a cookie-cutter regimen by any means, of course. “We try to tailor
it to each individual athlete, depending on their sport and ability,”
Director of the Acceleration Program Nate Henry outlines.
An
alumnus of Illinois State University, Henry received both his
undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in exercise science. Having first
served an internship at OSEC in 2003, Henry loved the work so much he
continued to work there through grad school, taking the assistant
director position after receiving his master’s. A year after that he
took over the directorship.
A self-confessed “sports junkie,”
Henry belongs not only in his current place of employment but also in a
town like Bloomington-Normal. “It’s crazy how competitive this town is,”
he smiles. “It’s a great sports town.”
In a competitive town,
athletes need a competitive edge, and the entire purpose of the
Acceleration Program is to help athletes find that edge in themselves.
Like grinding a knife blade against a sharpening stone, the program is
designed to hone, refine, and sharpen that edge, to make each athlete,
as Nate Henry puts it, “faster, stronger, more agile, and more
powerful,” and to improve upon what is already there.
An athlete
enrolled in the Acceleration Program meets with trainers at OSEC three
times a week for sessions lasting roughly 90 minutes. “Their workout is
different every time they come through the door,” Henry says. “They
don’t know what they’re going to be doing every time. There is a
routine,” he adds, “but there’s a progression. We’re not trying to keep
the body guessing; we’re trying to progress the body.”
“It is
holistic,” he continues. “We don’t just negate one whole part of the
program.” Agility and acceleration, weight training, speed mechanics,
deceleration, and plyometrics, or jump training, are all put into
effect. How each is portioned out and in what way depends on the needs
of the individual athlete. “That’s where the tailoring comes in,” Henry
says.
Prehab Not Rehab
Part of the
Acceleration Program’s purpose and one of OSEC’s goals is to reduce the
need for orthopedic care in the first place. “A lot of injury prevention
goes on here,” Nate Henry says. “Instead of therapy, we try to look at
it from the other side, sort of ‘prehab’ instead of rehab.”
Preventative measures are as core to their training as teaching
athletes how to run faster or more efficiently. A good example is
illustrated by deceleration and landing mechanics. For instance, it is
common for an athlete, when landing, to be quad dominant, meaning he or
she places the bulk of their decelerating weight on their quadriceps.
This not only puts extra pressure on the knee joints, sometimes causing
them to turn inward, but it robs the athlete of agility and mobility.
They are unable to change direction and move off again as quickly. To
combat this, Henry and his team of trainers “teach the body how to
recruit the appropriate muscles,” in this case, how to be more glute
dominant in their landing, “shifting their weight back, which sets them
up for faster, more agile movement.”
Sometimes injuries occur
regardless of appropriate preventative training, however. Whether
because of the normal wear and tear of bones and tendons or from sports
field accidents, athletes will often need to undergo orthopedic surgery
followed by physical therapy. When the time in physical therapy runs
out, though, many athletes still fall short of their pre-injury stats.
For that purpose, OSEC instituted the Bridge Program.
“You’ll
have a patient that has a catastrophic injury like an ACL tear and they
go through three or four months of therapy,” Henry says. “They’re ready
to be done with therapy but they’re not necessarily ready to return to
their field of play. So we are that bridge. It’s a kind of extended
therapy — much more intense and longer — to prepare them for the rigors
of their sport.”
Doing It for the Kids
In
such a competitive town, it is necessary to realize that the average
athletic life span is increasing — ending later and starting sooner — so
the programs put in place need to accommodate ever older and younger
athletes. Nate Henry and his team train athletes as young as 7 years
old.
That’s why the sports programs were instituted in the first
place. According to Henry, “Drs. Dustman and Seidl wanted to provide a
state-of-the-art facility to give the youth of Bloomington-Normal a
place for sports training and physical activity. To not only get them
healthier but get them stronger, faster, and to make them better
athletes.”
Henry emphasizes that the doctors are not instituting
sports enhancement training for the monetary gain aspect of it. “We’re
not charging $30 an hour to a 10-year-old when he’s in a group of six
kids,” Henry states. The doctors are in it for the “love of the
community and the love of sports. After they’ve seen 40 patients and
have been in surgery all day, you can see the relief and smiles on their
faces as they look at the kids training. They just love it.”
They’re not the only ones who love it. Nate Henry says “watching kids
succeed,” is the best part of his job. “The little stuff like being able
to go to a youth football game on Saturday afternoon, and they thank
you for coming to their game. You’re not there for any other reason than
to see some of the athletes you’ve worked with.”
Just Part of the Team
“I call my staff ‘performance coaches,’” Henry says. “We’re not
coaching a team, we’re coaching the individual athlete. And there’s no
social comparison here, trying to be better than the person next to you.
You’re here to try to better yourself and become a more valuable member
of a larger whole.”
When it comes to the performance of
Bloomington-Normal’s athletes, Nate Henry and the rest of the doctors
and athletic trainers at Orthopedic and Sports Enhancement Center
realize that they too are a part of a larger whole — a team dedicated to
making their athletes faster, stronger, and more powerful. “We are
working in conjunction with a lot of people,” Henry freely admits. “The
athletes themselves, their coaches, their parents. It’s cool to be a
part of that team and to affect athletes’ lives in a positive manner.
That’s by far the best part of this job.”
For
more information on the programs available at the Orthopedic &
Sports Enhancement Center, you may call 309-663-9300 or visit them
online at www.sportsenhancement.net. They are located at 2406 East Empire in Bloomington.