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PRESS RELEASE - SEATTLE, Washington - May 11, 2015 - The AST Institute (dba Advanced Sports Training Institute or ASTI) has partnered with IAPM (Institute of Applied Physiology & Medicine), a Washington state 501c3, to provide FREE athletic injury prevention and performance maximization education seminars for parents, coaches, and athletes. The seminars will be presented at local King County, WA libraries starting the month of May.  See their site www.astinstitute.org for more information and to register.  Attendance is open to the public, but seating is limited.

 

Sports injuries especially in youth sports are epidemic per certain medical experts. Dr. James Andrews of the Andrews Institute, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, has stated that he has seen a 5 to 7 fold increase in youth sports injuries in the past 10-15 years!  He states that “parents should demand that their children’s coaches have ACL injury prevention training.”  Additionally, Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital reported a 400% increase in youth ACL injuries from 2003 – 2013. 

 

While concussion prevention has recently been in the media spotlight, little has been mentioned in the mainstream media about overuse, repetitive stress and other sports injuries especially in skeletally immature youth.  The AST Institute has taken a multi-disciplinary approach to performance maximization and athletic injury prevention. Utilizing methods from occupational safety which have been proven to reduce workplace injuries, along with research published by credentialed members of the sports medical community, and combining this with the elements of Martial Arts that apply to sports: they have developed the ONLY martial art created specifically for sports performance enhancement and minimizing the risk of injury during practice and competition.

 

Per Sensei Gil Cook, Co-Founder & Program Director of the AST Institute, “Injuries have always been an epidemic in professional sports. They have become an epidemic in amateur sports over the last 15 years.  As a society, we have improved our ability to treat injuries, but our ability to prevent them has not improved.  There are specific technique mistakes that athletes make at all levels that impair performance and increase stress to the lower body during competition (and practice).  Identifying these technique mistakes and teaching the correct modifications for performance maximization and to minimize the risk of injury is the basis of our program.”

 

Our educational seminars also teach parents and coaches how to identify abusive conditioning drills, and to create effective conditioning programs that do not increase the risk of injury.

 

The seminar topics are:

 

• Overview of the current athletic injury rate increase reported by the sports medical community.

• Injuries attributed to overuse and acute trauma, and how to prevent them.

• Concussion prevention for all athletes and children.

• Most common causes of ACL/meniscus injuries.

• NMT (neuromuscular) training for ACL injury prevention.

• Understanding Kinetic Energy and how it impacts the most common causes of ACL/meniscus injuries.

• Movement technique mistakes that athletes make that inhibit performance and increase the stress the lower body experiences when performing them.  Technique modifications that maximize movement performance and minimize lower body stress, and the risk of injury from both overuse and acute trauma.

• How to maximize cardiovascular training and minimize the risk of overuse injuries.

 

COST:  FREE*

 

*$10 donations are appreciated and are tax deductible.

 

See their website for dates & times, www.astinstitute.org. If you do not see a seminar near you, feel free to contact the AST Institute directly for notification of future seminars in your area.

 

About the AST Institute

The AST Institute (dba Advanced Sports Training Institute or ASTI) is a Washington state based non-profit organization.  The ASTI’s mission and vision is to help drive education on athletic performance maximization while reducing injuries during competition, practice and conditioning.

 

About the IAPM

Dr. Merrill P. Spencer founded the non-profit (501c3) Institute of Applied Physiology & Medicine (IAPM) in Seattle in 1971.  The highly acclaimed documentary producers featured him in a Special Segment for the award winning PBS/ KCTS9 Television Series “Remarkable People”. To honor his memory, the IAPM is continuing their longstanding focus on programs that build upon the Institute’s globally regarded and rich heritage in producing innovative healthcare solutions such as brain and heart health & medicine, and physiological technologies and measurement. 

 

 

 

PRESS RELEASE - SEATTLE, Washington – December 20, 2014 – The AST Institute (a Washington State based non-profit) has developed a unique repetitive stress sports injury prevention training program for children nationally & globally. In alliance with the IAPM (Institute of Applied Physiology & Medicine, a non-profit 501c3 in Redmond), the AST Institute plans to do further research on the impact of current sports techniques and movement versus how their movement program minimizes stress to the lower body during conditioning and play.

 

The ASTI’s revolutionary, U.S. patent-pending advanced sports training program is positioned to entirely disrupt and dramatically advance virtually all other lower body sports training approaches. This program was created by utilizing a ‘cross-discipline integration’ across formerly widely-varying disciplines and industries, helping literally revolutionize sports training.

 

ASTI is in process of creating an affordable online training & certification for coaches, parents, and athletes. Current injury prevention training programs focus on conditioning the athlete to withstand the repetitive stress experienced during competition and practice, or warming up the athlete correctly to reduce the risk of injury.  Our program is unique in that it actually reduces the amount of stress the athlete experiences during practice and play. 

 

The Cost of Injuries

Injury rates to youth athletes have increased to epidemic levels in the last 10+ years per renowned orthopedic surgeons. Physicians have been so focused on how to fix patients that injury prevention has been overlooked.

• In 2013, ~3.8 million (10%) youth athletes were treated for sports related injuries with ~2 million injuries caused by overuse/repetitive stress.

• Over 500,000 ACL, meniscus and Achilles surgeries are performed annually.

• Overuse/repetitive stress injuries also cause tendonitis, bursitis, tendon and ligament sprains, muscle tears and strains, stress fractures, etc. 

• Osteoarthritis occurs in 50% -100% of athletes who have knee surgery within 10-20 years after surgery. 

• Skeletally immature athletes are more likely to reinjure themselves than mature athletes. 

• After injury the athlete returns to play and continues to make the same technique mistakes. 

• Per the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, adolescent female athletes are 2-8 times more likely to suffer an ACL injury than male athletes in the same sport.

 

If we could reduce the 2 million overuse injuries by just 10%, the impact to the quality of life for youth would be immeasurable.

 

Why Is This RSI Prevention Program Different?

The AST Institute’s program teaches the injured player what athletic movements create the most stress to the lower body and how to modify these movements for maximum stress reduction.  The athlete is put through a progressive 4 month re-training program so these technique modifications become intuitive.  This process is identical to how martial artists are trained by repeating non-intuitive movements until they become second-nature.  Finally, it educates the player on how to eliminate high impact movements from conditioning and endurance training, which is critical to preventing repetitive stress injuries. 

 

The Impact

Both the IAPM and ASTI feel strongly that this training program can make a huge difference.  By reducing the overall lower body stress during competition and practice, and avoiding abusive conditioning methods, they believe they can reduce lower body repetitive stress injury and surgery rates by 50%. 

 

About the AST Institute

The AST Institute (dba Advanced Sports Training Institute or ASTI) is a Washington state based non-profit working to reduce youth athletic repetitive stress injury. They have developed a U.S. patent-pending and revolutionary training & certification program for athletes, parents & coaches.  Their goal is to not only educate the public about RSI, but also to help modify the athlete’s techniques in conditioning and play to reduce injury or re-injury after surgery. Their mission is to improve the lives of young athletes.

 

About the IAPM

Dr. Merrill P. Spencer founded the non-profit (501c3) Institute of Applied Physiology & Medicine (IAPM) in Seattle in 1971.  The highly acclaimed documentary producers featured him in a Special Segment for the award winning PBS/ KCTS9 Television Series “Remarkable People”. To honor his memory, the IAPM is continuing their longstanding focus on programs that build upon the Institute’s globally regarded and rich heritage in producing innovative healthcare solutions such as brain and heart health & medicine, and physiological technologies and measurement.