Fascial tissues – including tendons, aponeuroses and ligaments – have become a new focus in sports medicine. This is not only due to the fact, that most sports related overuse injuries occur in the collagenous components (rather than within myofibers), but also to new insights about the kinetic storage properties of tendinous tissues in athletic performances, such as jumping, throwing, and running. How do collagenous tissues sense mechanical stimulation and how do they adapt to repetitive mechanical loading within minutes, hours, weeks and months of training? How useful – or not – are some of the self-help myofascial techniques which have recently become popular among top athletes? And what do we know about the influence of age, genetics and gender on sports related fascial dynamics? Not surprising: hardly any final answers will be given during this lecture, but lots of inspiring research findings as well as similarly intriguing new questions.
In this presentation, Dr. Schleip, Phd (Ulm University) was interviewed by Nathaly Gaudreault, PhD (University of Sherbrooke) with host Rebecca Pratt, PhD (Oakland University).