Sports Medicine
Dr. Ken Kinakin
D.C., CSCS
Dr. Ken Kinakin is a sport medicine doctor, chiropractor, certified strength and conditioning specialist and personal trainer! He’s also the author of the book “Optimal Muscle Training” and has competed in bodybuilding and powerlifting for over 20 years. Dr. Kinakin lectures around the world to doctors and personal trainers on the areas of weight-training, rehabilitation and nutrition. He is also the clinic director for the AIM Health & Wellness clinic (see www.aimhealthgroup.com), with a rehabilitation and training centre in Mississauga, Ontario. Dr. Kinakin founded the Society of Weight-Training Injury Specialists (SWIS), an organization that educates and certifies doctors, therapists and personal trainers in the area of exercise muscle testing, rehabilitation and treatment of weight training injuries (see www.swis.ca).
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Cutting-Edge Injury Treatment
Q. What are the newest treatment methods for injuries that bodybuilders and other athletes should be excited about? Are there any cutting-edge technologies that will improve injury recovery?
A. There are three treatments that are not new in the therapy world, but they are new to the general public. They are instrument-assisted soft tissue treatment techniques, Kinesiotape or Rock Tape, and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy.
Instrument-assisted soft tissue treatment has a few different styles, which include the Graston Technique (www.grastontechnique.com), Fat Tool (www.wts.fat-tool.com), and Sound Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (www.sastm.com).
They all work under the same principle of using a hardened steel or polymer to break down scar tissue and fascial restrictions. This technique effectively treats areas exhibiting extensive soft tissue fibrosis, or chronic inflammation, and is usually very effective when normal fascial techniques such as Active Release Technique (ART) don’t work as well because of the amount of scar tissue.
Kinesiotape (www.kinesiotaping.com) or Rock Tape (www.rocktape.com) is a special weave of tape fabric that lifts the skin away microscopically from the soft tissue underneath, allowing more blood to move into an injured area to accelerate healing and recovery. Many of you may have seen athletes wearing this multicolored tape either on their lower backs or shoulders this summer at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is blood plasma that has been enriched with platelets. PRP contains (and releases through degranulation) several different growth factors and other cytokines that stimulate healing of bone and soft tissue. This has been reported to be very effective for chronic small muscle tears that continue to impede training due to pain and weakness.
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