Barwis and Injuries
Given all the Barwis hype and the assumption that we'll be better conditioned this year, are there any stats that would indicate that WVU had a lower rate of injury than other programs under Rod/Barwis? Probably not given coaches desires to keep injuries private, but if so that would be another huge benefit and would justify the hype.
Out of the Freep article today:
"That was five years ago. In that time, Barwis said, he has never lost a starter for an entire season to injury."
Of course this means Michigan will lose half the team to injuries this year.
knock on some wood and get rid of those bad jujus
He talked about injuries and he basically said this, they try to do two things, they strengthen the weak spots and ligaments a lot. They work on shoulders, knees and ankles, but sometimes freak stuff happens. Like a weight falling on a kids finger, and there's nothing you can do about that.
But he said that if you condition for it in advance (he calls it pre-habbing instead of rehab) that people will recover faster.
He also said that not a single starter got hurt for a long stretch of time at wvu, or something along those lines.
"...never lost a starter for an entire season to injury." That could mean nobody gets hurt before the season starts.
I like Barwis but think that qiuote could be misleading.
Barwis should be wearing thr wizard's hat because he, apparently, has the powers to protect players from injury. Much like Gatorade, Barwis has developed a product called Mana-ade, which boosts your mana and protects you from injury.
I would not dismiss that notion out of hand. The Pistons, for example, have been extremely injury-free over the past several years, and they credit their S&C coach (Arnie Kander) for that. I was reading an article recently about his philosophy. Unlike a lot of S&C coaches, he does not aim to get the players' bodies as flexible as possible. He believes that that ends up weakening tendons/ligaments and making them prone to injury. He went on in the article about the scientific logic behind his approach. Given that Barwis seems to be all into the scientific philosophy of lifting, he might hold similar ideas.
Stretching helps muscles and tendons because the more they can stretch the further a joint can bend with out causing damage.
Do the splits right now and you tear your groin. Take a few weeks and slowly stretch the muscle and doing the splits becomes injury free.
If I did the splits right now, those poor saps that live along New Madrid Fault line would be in for one helluva natural disaster.
He's not opposed to stretching altogether. He just thinks that there are limits to how far you should push your body to become flexible. There is a point at which you're causing yourself more harm than good. Given the Pistons' incredible record with regard to avoiding injuries over the last 5-6 years, I think he's on to something.
how much you're trying to increase flexibility, it can hurt quite a lot and require significant healing time. in extreme cases you are litteraly tearing muscle fibers, allowing them to grow back elongated. But that's probably not what they're talking about.