Anatomy of Working Through Something
So In reference to yesterday’s game, I had heard mentioned that there may be a (we’ll say unnamed) Quarterback that is working through an oblique strain.
Oblique strains don’t happen all too often in Football, so I figured I would be fun to talk about exactly what it is, and how it impacts the player physically from a performance standpoint.
Just as a side reference, I’m a Physical Therapist that works with athletes pretty regularly, so I have a good idea of how various injuries affect players ability to play as well as general guidelines for return to play times (they always tend to differ depending on severity).
So to start off, the Oblique is a vague term to denote the sides of the abdomen or trunk, specifically the muscles directly on the outside of the rectus abdominis, which is what shows when you have 6 pack abs. There are two oblique muscles, an internal oblique which runs diagonally(or “obliquely”, anatomy isn’t clever) in one direction, and another, external oblique that runs diagonally in the other direction, effectively creating a “X” on either side of your midsection. This X pattern runs all the way up from your hip to your pectorals on each side of you.
The Function of the Oblique
Because of the way the obliques run, they are able to aid in a lot of motions, such as trunk flexion and sidebending. However, the primary role here is rotation. When the trunk rotates, you will find that your two sets of obliques work together. An example would be when you rotate to the left, your right side external oblique and left side internal oblique work together to create this motion.
Why is this important in athletes? Well for throwers, such as baseball pitchers and football quarterbacks, rotation is critical. Try and throw the ball without rotating your body at all, and you will find that not only does it not go far, but you look like an idiot.
So yeah, rotation for throwing generates a large chunk of the force to put velocity behind the ball. This gives a baseball it’s speed, and a football it’s distance and zip. This rotation doesn’t start from the obliques, though, it’s created through your larger hip rotators, like the gluteals. This means when you start to throw, your hips generate most of the force and your obliques help to finish the motion by rotating your trunk however much you need to allow all the energy generated to transfer into your arm so you can put that nice zip on the ball.
How an Oblique Strain Affects a Thrower
Here’s the secret to an Oblique strain. The harder you try to throw, the more you try to rotate your body to generate power. The more you rotate your body to generate this power, the more your oblique stretches.
And that’s where the problem is.
A strain is just another word for a small tear in the muscle. I could be the muscle belly or it could be where the muscles joins in with the tendon. Either way this tear doesn’t react to excessive stress well.
When a thrower winds up to throw the ball as hard or as far as they can, the oblique gets stretched and is then asked to forcefully contract as hard as possible to get the kind of rotation needed for performance.
This is both A) really painful, and B) less powerful with a strain because of this small tear. A stretched muscle that is strained will not respond well to a full body stretch. That’s why it’s such a huge deal for a pitcher, who needs every last degree of rotation for performance.
It’s less impactful to a quarterback, as they don’t use as much rotation to get the ball out, so it’s possible that a baseball pitcher and a quarterback can have the same injury to the oblique, but the pitcher is out for 4-6 weeks, while the QB gets to come back the next game.
That’s not to say that the QB won’t have pain. He most likely will. And depending on the severity of the strain, he might even have is performance hindered as well. Short throws, which involve less rotation of the trunk will be easier than longer throws, which involve a lot more trunk rotation.
So How Long Will It Take to Heal?
For a mild to moderate strain it could be anywhere from 4-8 weeks, depending on the person, the tear, and the location. Obviously any player who injures their oblique is going to go through some rehab with the trainers that will focus on restoring things as fast as possible, but these things take time to get the body to heal itself.
Anyway, hope you all found this somewhat informative. Cheers!
September 8th, 2019 at 6:06 PM ^
I'm a retired from practice PA that was a PT before I embarked on that career path. I liked your post. Well done.
If you watched both games, can you add any observations you had on Patterson's throwing motion that might be useful in determining if he actually has such an injury and whether or not it is limiting.
I can't point to anything and I saw both games live, in the stadium. That doesn't mean he's not hurt. I think the best evidence that he is hurt is the obvious effort by the coaching staff to essentially eliminate his option to keep the ball off the Zone RO and there simply wasn't a lot of RPO stuff - a few, but that was gone in the 2nd half.
Of course, that kills the Gattis offense if the QB cannot present a legitimate run threat to the opponent's defense off the Zone Read or RPO. I am not surprised at all after Patterson put the ball on the ground two times in the first half and generally looked confused behind a porous OL facing multiple, heavy blitz packages from Army, that Harbaugh implemented his much safer lizard brain playbook for his QB who he'd like to have make it through the entire season.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:34 PM ^
If Shea can't run the offense, then the backup has to replace him.
September 8th, 2019 at 10:39 PM ^
This is what I don't get. We have a serviceable backup. Supposedly even a maturing star backup. Why would we play our injured first stringer, when he could be healing up for league play?
September 8th, 2019 at 11:59 PM ^
I noticed the lack of longer throws for this offense was sort of alarming. Not sure if that was the Army D, the lack of time in the pocket, or his injury. I also noticed that the ball seemed to float and wobble more than on some of his throws in the past. I mean, the guy had an off day yesterday, so I lean towards his injury as a way of explaining it.
I took a look at more of the Army game again, and it sort of seemed like he limited his shoulder abduction/external rotation when he was throwing. He seemed to be really compacting his motion. That may be what's happening or I might just be fitting it into my hypothesis. Tough to say.
September 9th, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
I noticed this as well. The first half of MTSU was bomb city USA. I bet this explains the sudden commitment to dinking and dunking.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:08 PM ^
Interesting. Thanks for the insight.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:37 PM ^
I'm not sure I understand this directly.
But I do understand it in a less direct way.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:47 PM ^
Thanks, McLeft, for your clear explanation for us laypeople! If this is indeed what Shea is dealing with it explains a lot, not just about the lack of QB runs. Several times on the TV broadcast the announcers commented that Shea had 'floated the pass' when he should have zipped it, and the wind seemed to be just strong enough to put the pass out of the receiver's reach. The way I am interpreting your notes above, Shea cannot put enough zip on those 25+ yard throws so that they go exactly where he wants them to, Also explains why he slid seemingly way early on one of his few carries, in order to protect himself. I also thought he seemed frustrated on multiple occasions for having handed off the ball when he knew that he could have run for many more yards.
September 8th, 2019 at 7:17 PM ^
Fantastic post, lots of good information here to see not only what the issue could have been, but also how it could affect someone's performance on the field. Very good read.
September 8th, 2019 at 7:29 PM ^
So if this is the case and it takes 4-8 weeks to heal, and assuming continuing the strenuous activity of playing football isn't conducive to healing, would you suggest he sit out a few weeks to fully heal so he's good to go by PSU and on? Wisconsin is gonna be tough regardless, but Rutgers, Iowa and Illinois are reasonable opponents to let McCaffrey take the reins for a few weeks.
Or is this something he could 'tough out' while he rehabs. We've all seen what happens with injured Michigan QB's the past few years.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:41 PM ^
Hard to suggest anything, since I don't have any information on his exact condition and how he tolerates any activity. It's something that will get better with an active recovery (rehab and such), and it will be better 2 weeks from now than it was yesterday. Severity of it all will kind of determine how he performs as he will most likely touch this out for the Wisconsin game.
The biggest thing to me is that he will get limited reps for the next week or two. At least that's my guess. I can't imagine him begin full go as he rehabs next week. I would imagine that Dylan will be with the 1st team. Again. I'm not in the know on this situation.
September 8th, 2019 at 8:15 PM ^
“Rectus.” Lol.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:35 PM ^
Damn near killed us!
September 8th, 2019 at 8:31 PM ^
If your starter is going to be limiting to the extent that we saw THAT gameplan, we might as well roll with Dylan. That pile of excrement that was the second half will win us 3-4 games in Big Ten play. Occam's razor says that Dylan *must* be reasonably far behind Shea to not play when Shea is hurt to that extent.
So it comes down to hurt guy vs. guy that is, I guess, worse but 100%. Let Dylan have a shot.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:37 PM ^
4-8 weeks seems long but I’d prefer a functioning Patterson for MSU and OSU in November.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:39 PM ^
For a mild to moderate strain it could be anywhere from 4-8 weeks
Then, it sounds like DMac needs to replace him if he can't run the offense. He gets a week off before Wiscy. If he's not ready to go for Wiscy, we should be fine the following week against Rutgers. He needs to be able to run the offense for us to be effective. After Rutgers, Iowa is 4 weeks away, PSU 6 weeks, ND 7 weeks, and MSU 9 weeks.
September 9th, 2019 at 8:31 AM ^
A nice breakdown. It's weird because Patterson actually looks okay throwing the ball, even deep. Or at least not like he's terribly encumbered. But he does seem a bit ginger running, and I wonder if the injury is somewhat related.
September 9th, 2019 at 8:37 AM ^
Are you certain it is an oblique tear ? Very rare in football, more likely a contusion. Typically, you can barely walk or sit with an oblique tear. Crap, sneezing is like an explosion of pain. Rehab starts like 4 weeks of complete rest after the injury. I don't think medical staff would let him practice or play a game with an oblique tear. Even if they did, the pain would be too severe to throw a football.
If a mild strain, stress on it could pop that area to a severe tear at anytime. Need to get McCaffrey ready in this bye week.
September 9th, 2019 at 9:23 AM ^
McCaffery might be injured too. Explains why Patterson came back in against MTSU and why McCaffery only came in against Army when they had no choice and he did not run either.
September 12th, 2019 at 8:36 AM ^
Possible. A lot of things are possible. McCaffrey didn't look amazing on the plays he was in for, as Brian noted. He may have a track record of being slightly more turnover prone or less risk averse than Shea, which Michigan could not afford in that game. He could be hurt too. Shea could be downplaying how much his injury is bothering him and telling the coaches he can go. There's a ton of things we don't know and are left grasping at straws. What seems obvious to us can be completely off base when you're inside the program and know what's really going on.
September 9th, 2019 at 9:32 AM ^
Very informative, thank you! The diarty title doesn't reflect the nature of the quality content provided, might I suggest to mention the oblique strain in the title?
September 9th, 2019 at 9:58 AM ^
I will try to edit the title
Edit: I seem to by able to edit this comment but not the title. Sorry all.
September 9th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
This is interesting, and may explain Shea’s issues at QB. I can now change my serious commitment to freaking out about Shea’s skill set and the play calling to freaking out over why they aren’t playing McCaffrey.
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