How Major NBA Injuries Relate To You

This last week both Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors suffered major injuries. Durant a ruptured achilles and Thompson a torn ACL.

Both earlier in the playoffs suffered muscle strains to the same leg in which their major injury occurred. Durant strained his calf, while Thompson strained his hamstring.

Knowing about the biomechanics of the body, I and other health professionals immediately knew that the muscle injuries caused dysfunction in their movements and or weakness that definitely played a significant factor in the injuries.

For Thompson, the hamstring aids the ACL in “pulling back” the tibia. So if the hamstring is compromised the ACL takes more of the brunt. That being said Thompson did have a pretty bad fall which even with a good hamstring the ACL could have been injured.

Durant on the other hand suffered a non contact injury. The achilles tendon works directly with the calf to plantar flex the foot. Again, if the muscle is compromised more of the load is then put on the achilles increasing the chance for injury.

With hyper-competitive athletes and team physicians who have the teams interests not the players best interest, it’s no wonder these two played. However, their careers may never be the same.

This is an extreme example of what I see day in and day out with the everyday average person I train. The only difference is because they usually don’t play sports anymore the injury isn’t from an acute instance, but rather a repetitive movement. All the same though. Weak and immobile muscle lead to faulty movement patterns which put too much load on a certain part of the body.

Strength training, stretching, and myofascial release techniques all should be used to ensure proper movement.