PERFECT 10.0 Tips to Keep Your Optional Healthy This Season
By Brandi Smith- Young, PT
Perfect 10.0 Physical Therapy
#7 LOADING MECHANICS UPPER BODY:
Proper loading mechanics are imperative to ensure normal loading of the joints and tissue. It is important to note the athlete loads the wrist with the fingers facing forward, maintaining the arches of the hand, the antecubital fossa (“smiley face”) points inward as if “kissing each other”, elbows are straight but not locked out and shoulder blades are cinched up to the rib cage (no winging) as seen in figure 11. Figure 12 shows improper loading. This is easily trained with beginners when teaching push up position and during the handstand progressions using the blocks and walking up the wall. It requires a lot of constant cueing with athletes who have developed bad habits. I recommend working on this every time they load their wrist including pushups, handstand holds, and bar drills. I strongly believe if we address the loading mechanics and the weak muscles which lead to bad mechanics a significant amount of wrist injuries can be avoided including growth plate injuries.
(Fig A) CORRECT
(Fig B) INCORRECT
