I recently met with Lee Brown EdD, CSCS*D, FACSM of UCal Fullerton to discuss his research and take a look at his facilities (if you do not know who Lee Brown is, I highly suggest looking into his work). Unfortunately, I live unreasonably far away to meet with him on a consistent basis, but just talking with him got me thinking of all the
research I would like to see done. This month for OQMA, I want you to tell us the TITLE of one research study YOU would perform if you had unlimited resources/time/participants (obviously nothing is truly unreasonable here), and what you think the outcomes of that study would be. Maybe if it’s not too long winded, include how these results
would affect the rehab and S&C fields.

Selena Horner, PT – Identification of a Possible Model Consisting of Latent and Observed Variables and Hypothesized Relationships between Variables that May Impact the Outcome in Patients Being Treated in Physical Therapy for Low Back Pain

Generally, the collective “we” spend a ton of a chunk of time measuring and observing what we see or even potentially feel.  Way more variables that impact the outcome of care we provide exist than the typically observed variables.  I believe if we happened to be aware of latent variables along with the relationship and interactions among all the potential variables that may affect outcomes in care, we might be more efficient and effective in treating patients with low back pain (had to pigeon hole the topic to be specific).  The strength of the relationships may also help with clinical decisions with regard to determining candidates for physical therapy – our role also needs to evolve to understand candidates who will respond to physical therapy intervention and those who will not.  Our ability to determine this and then possibly create a response shift would help to potentially improve the probability of a positive outcome.  The awareness of multiple variables we may not even necessarily think about may also alter treatment approaches, especially if variables can be weighted as to the strength of their relationship to the outcome of care.  The strength of the relationship of some variables on outcome might assist us in working with outside stakeholders in determining/changing policies that regulate the provision of physical therapy services.

I’d like a grant.  😉

http://twitter.com/SnippetPhysTher

Mark Young – Determinants and contributors to overweight and obesity in North America and Effective Methods for Long Term Weight Control.  Hey…you said it could be a big study.  To be honest, I could speculate about the root causes of excess weight in North America, but in the end we fail again and again to identify them and to properly treat this problem so obviously we just don’t know.  The results of this study would lead to the elimination of rapid fat loss programs (a.k.a. gimmicks) that frequently result in weight regain and allow North Americans to live with decreased risk of Diabetes and obesity related illness.  Perhaps this isn’t as close a relationship to rehab or strength and conditioning as one would like, but I think it is one of the most pressing issues in our society today.

Exercise and Nutrition Consultant
www.markyoungtrainingsystems.com
www.youtube.com/markyoungtraining
www.facebook.com/markrjyoung
www.twitter.com/markyoungtrain

Christopher Stepien, DC – TITLE: The role of connective tissue adhesion in chronic pain.
OUTCOMES: Primarily caused by dysfunctional movement or a combination of limited walking, running, squatting, lunging, pushing, and pulling and excessive inactivity, “adhesion” in the musculoskeletal system is extremely common.  The one-two punch of adhesion with relative weakness in the body, as observed by this doctor’s experience, causes the vast majority of pain syndromes in the body.  Even most manual therapists, including A.R.T. practitioners, don’t take the time to palpate and treat only adhesion, instead treating entire muscles and areas of a complaint.  For example, shoulder impingement??  Let’s treat supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, subscapularis, and capsule and hope that we got it.  If we had the ability to visualize exactly where adhesion was present and correlate those findings with functional ROM, functional strength, and pain levels, the results would likely show signficant adhesion in locations of chronic hypoxia.

Mike Young – Examination of the long term efficacy of training methods on speed development using elite identical twin sprinters
-There are several twins currently competing at the elite level in sprinting. If we could somehow chorale them all up and put one twin in protocol A and the other in protocol B for a variety of training parameters we’d theoretically be able to examine the effects of training with an extremely unique population. We’d look at one parameter and then go on to the next controlling all variables except for the parameter in question.

Director of Sports Performance
Human Performance Consulting
http://www.hpcsport.com
http://athleticlab.com

Patrick Ward – MS, CSCS, LMT – changes in heart rate variability and autonomic nervous system with massage and manual therapy.  Also along those lines would be the effects of touch therapy on the brain as a means of increasing proprioception and awareness.

www.optimumsportsperformance.com

Mike Boyle – I’d love to see a bilateral deficit study that looked at 10 RM squat and deadlift vs 10 RM RFESS (Rear foot elevated single-leg squat) and 1 Leg SLDL after 10 weeks of training

www.BodyByBoyle.com

www.strengthcoach.com

Bret Contreras – I’m not a researcher so I’m sure there are holes in the experimental design that would need to be patched up, but this would be the gist:

Preface: Ignoring the potentially deleterious effects of core exercises that cause movement in the lumbar spine (core movement exercises), it is often assumed by strength coaches and fitness professionals that core exercises that prevent movement in the lumbar spine (core stability exercises) are more functional and lead to higher levels of transfer of training in comparison with core movement exercises. This assumption may in fact be true, but there has never been a study (to my knowledge) to test this hypothesis.

Title: The effects of core movement exercise and core stability exercise on jumping, sprinting, agility, and throwing.
Purpose: To measure the effect of core movement exercise training and core stability training on athletic performance indicators.

Subjects: Thirty well trained (5 years of training experience) individuals

Equipment: Ab wheels, cable column, chin up stand, dumbbells, vertical jump measuring system, speed timing system, tape measure

Procedures: The thirty subjects will be randomly allocated to three groups of ten individuals. The groups will consist of a 1) core stability group, 2) core movement group, and 3) control group. The core stability group will perform 12 weeks of ab wheel rollouts, suitcase holds, and Pallof presses. The core movement group will perform 12 weeks of hanging leg raises, dumbbell side bends, and cable woodchops. Exercises will become progressively difficult over time by adding resistance and/or repetitions, however volume and time under tension will be matched.

Data Analysis: Subjects will be will be pre-tested and post-tested in vertical jump performance, 30 meter sprint performance, agility T-test, and max softball throwing distance.

Statistical Analysis: Statistics will be principally descriptive in nature. A repeated measures ANOVA with post hoc contrasts will be used to determine significant differences in the athletic performance indicators. An alpha level of 0.05 will be used.

Hypothesis: My guess is that the effects of the two different training protocols would yield similar results and that there would be no significant differences between the two types of training in any performance indicator.

Practical Discussion: I believe that this would be a great study for the Strength & Conditioning profession because it would either provide some support as to which type of core training transfers better to athletic performance or it would show that there isn’t much of a difference between the two. Coaches and trainers could use this information in combination with information pertaining to exercise safety to formulate optimal core training protocols for their athletes and clients.

www.bretcontreras.wordpress.com

Brooks Tiller, DPT – Correlation of Rest and Pitch Count on Injuries of Baseball Pitchers
It seems every coach (dad, player, fan) has his own theory about how many pitches is excessive and how much rest is needed between throwing sessions.  The study could give some very interesting insights to the quirky world of Baseball.  I believe that the results would vary and the conclusion would be that pitch counts and rest should be an individual factor due to the vast difference in the anatomy, biomechanics, and techniques of each pitcher.

www.thorathletics.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DrBrooksTiller
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/THOR-Athletics/132729619382

Sam Lahey MS(c), CSCS, CPT – Short Answer: The title would be “Plyometric Proficiency – A New Horizon on the Methodology and Neurophysiology of the Stretch-Shorten Cycle” or “Renaissance of the Stretch-Shorten Cycle: Plyometric Proficiency

Long Answer: INTERVIEW QUESTION (I actually suggest you read this, along with all the answers, but especially Sam’s. 1. Because he’s way bigger than me and wanted me to tell you to read it, and 2. because he brings up some awesome points).

Mike T. Nelson MS, CSCSPhD Candidate – Biofeedback training.   The area of biofeedback/autoregulatory/ cybernetic periodization has many components and some systems to measure it (heart rate variability, bar speed, Omega Wave, etc) but I feel there is a better way.   Any exercise can make you better or worse.  Do the highest amount of exercise that makes you better.  Seems simple, I know.

I would love to see a study that uses range of motion as an indicator for exercise quality.    A better range of motion (can be measured with a toe touch, shoulder movement, or any active range of motion) indicates that is a good exercise for you—high quality exercise for YOUR body on THAT day.   Over time, you will find almost no injuries in the weight room , increased performance, and many nagging pains will go away.

In over 3.5 years of doing this on athletes (by myself and others at the Movement), we have seen this happen virtually every time.   I can’t point to a direct study that has investigated this, so I would love to see one done.   This has the potential to revolutionize how we look at programming and exercise in general.

Exercise Science – http://www.ExtremeHumanPerformance.com
http://twitter.com/MikeTNelson

Matthew Johnson, M.S. – 1st: Title: Acute Neuromuscular Responses to Unilateral (SL Squat) vs Bilateral (Back Squat) Squatting Movements. A comparative study to identify muscle group activation, strength and CNS response of each movement.
2nd: Acute Strength Responses to Variable Resistance Training. A Muscular Strength Comparison between Traditional Barbell and Plate loaded/Chain Resistance Squatting Movements. (Continuation of my study)
http://www.strengthcoachconcepts.com
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/28sgsy7

Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/27fmjpw

LinkedIn: http://tinyurl.com/2aqmzyb

Richard Husseiny – Short Answer: Correlates of Sport performance with increasing sports mastery over a 10-year time-scale: Team sports (Rugby Union, Rugby League, Soccer, American Football, Ice-Hockey, Basketball) and Olympic sports (Marathon, 10km, long jump, javelin, 800m, swimming, 400m, 200m, 100m etc…..)

Long Answer: RH OQMA 8

Mike Scott, DPT – The effects of a 3 month 10 RM RFESS (Rear foot elevated single-leg squat) vs 10 RM Standard Squat  program on horizontal force production over 5 yards in elite level offensive linemen. *As in Mike Young’s study I would love to use twins for subjects.*

http://www.mikescottdpt.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mscottdpt

Well there you have it folks. A ton of reading, but isn’t that what research is? I hope this lets you know a little more about some of your colleagues’ interests, and the most important fact to take away from all of this, is that we all continue to want to learn more!

Always Evolve,

Mike