Editor’s note: Dana Santas, aka “Mobility Manufacturer” is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Mind-Body Coach in professional sports and author of “Practical Solutions to Back Pain Relief.”
CNN
—
Whether you’re a former athlete looking to return to summer sports or just want to attend the family kickball game, you don’t want to suffer with back pain for weeks after the game, never mind the embarrassment of not being able to perform in front of your friends and family.
To help ensure everyone can safely and effectively return to seasonal recreational activities, I enlisted four of my closest friends and fellow coaches in the professional sports world to share their expert insights and practical tips for staying active, improving your performance, and enjoying summer activities without getting injured.
Read on to learn how you can maximize your summer sports potential and get back competing.
Jason Glass, a top performance coach who trains top athletes on the PGA Tour, emphasizes the importance of daily habits. “Whether you’re a professional athlete or a weekend golfer, you can’t prepare for the day of the game,” he says. “Proper preparation comes from daily habits.”
Glass recommends creating a daily lifestyle checklist of what he calls the “corner five.”
Sleep like it’s work: Quality sleep is essential for recovery and performance, so aim to get consistent, restful sleep.
Stay hydrated: Drink half your body weight in water per day — that’s 100 ounces per day for a 200-pound athlete.
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.
Works beautifully: Do something every day that makes you feel good, whether that’s yoga or weightlifting. Listen to your body.
Live with Intention: Train with a specific outcome in mind, even taking a nap to rest up before a big game.
At the end of each day, Glass recommends giving yourself a score on each of these five fundamentals, using a scale of 0 to 5. Aim for a total of 20 points or more. At the end of each day. “Master these five fundamentals before you add in other ways to improve your performance,” he suggested.
Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images
Hydration is important for athletes. Here, the Nigerian women’s soccer team takes a hydration break during a match against Brazil in Bordeaux, France, on July 25 during the 2024 Olympic Games.
Bill Burgos, a former head of strength and conditioning for three NBA teams, has some advice for those returning to sports after a hiatus: “It’s really important for people who haven’t participated in sports activity in a significant amount of time to start doing it safely and effectively,” Burgos said, adding that people shouldn’t wait until game day to return.
Burgos’ three tips are:
Prepare your body for exercise: Do dynamic stretching exercises such as foam rolling or walking lunges with your elbows on the tops of your feet. You will also do kneeling exercises to improve your flexibility and mobility.
Gradually increase your heart rate. Start with low-intensity activities, such as slow jogging, and gradually increase the intensity to a moderate, sport-like intensity.
Listen to your body: Pay attention to how your body feels and adjust the intensity of your training accordingly.
Maintaining strength and speed
Paul Fournier, strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and a player in major league baseball for more than 30 years, emphasizes the importance of strength and speed for longevity and injury prevention. “Maintaining strength and speed of movement is key to preventing chronic pain and injury,” he asserts.
Stuart McFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images
Incorporating weight training into your daily routine can help you stay fit. Pictured here, Arsenal soccer star Ben White works out at the Los Angeles Rams facility in Thousand Oaks, California on July 23.
Fournier recommends incorporating exercises, weight training, sprints and plyometrics into your routine. He suggests starting with two sessions per week that include the following:
Low level plyometrics: Skipping rope, step-ups, and light medicine ball exercises will build nervous system and muscular endurance.
Core Strengthening: Perform exercises like planks, deadbugs, and rollouts to improve torso stability and protect your back.
strength training: It focuses on compound lower body movements with exercises like lunges and squats, while also incorporating more isolated upper body exercises like chest presses, rows and curls.
Matt Nicol, a coach with 30 years of experience working with professional and Olympic athletes, emphasizes the importance of a proper warm-up: “Warming up is just as important as the training,” he says.
Hendrik Dekkers/Borussia Dortmund/Getty Images
Maintaining a daily routine helps keep weekend athletes and professional athletes prepared. Pictured here, German soccer team Borussia Dortmund trains in Osaka, Japan, on July 23.
Nicole offers these practical warm-up tips:
Arrive early: Just as professional athletes arrive at least three hours early on game day, allow extra time to warm up before any recreational activity or competition.
Walk More: Park a little further away to get some light movement in on the way to the activity.
Get warm: Avoid stretching cold muscles, and instead perform sport-specific movements (running, dribbling, swinging a bat or racket, etc.) at a lower intensity and gradually increase in speed until you reach game speed.
Listen to your body’s cues: Pay attention if you experience any aches or pains while warming up, as these could be signs of injury. It’s better to back off the intensity for one game than to push yourself too hard and miss the entire season.
As a professional sports mobility coach for over 20 years, my job is to help athletes move through the fullest range of motion in their sporting positions. To do this, I encourage athletes to follow three strategies:
Have clear goals and a plan to achieve them: Your goals should align with the needs of your sport and guide your mobility program. For example, if you want to return to golf, tennis, or other rotational sports, focus on mobility exercises that improve rotation.
Builds strong, powerful movements. Enhanced movements that improve sports performance require strength and power to support the movement. As Fournier noted, core strength is essential to stabilizing the hips and preventing injury. Building core strength and stability also provides the foundation for expressing power through spine and limb movement.
Practice controlled movements: Avoid relying solely on stretching to create passive range of motion during activities, which can lead to injury.
Instead, focus on targeted strength and mobility exercises that promote control at the end range of motion.
For example, rather than performing seated toe touches as a passive hamstring stretch, practice one-legged Romanian deadlifts to lengthen and strengthen your hamstrings while also improving pelvic stability and mobility.
Before you head out to join the neighborhood basketball game or sign up for the town softball league, keep these actionable insights in mind to improve your performance and reduce your risk of injury.
Sign up for CNN’s “Fitness, But Better” newsletter series. Build healthy habits with expert help in this 7-part guide.
