Jake: Hey, I’m Jake of Body by Jake and I’m here with the motivational minute. We’re her at Chase Field. Ken Crenshaw is here.
Ken, what’s up? Director of all performance, sports and performance here, right, with the Diamondbacks. You were 12 years the athletic trainer?
Ken: Right And this is my fourth team I’ve been with three other teams before I came here, so I’ve got a pretty good broad view of what goes on in baseball.
Jake: So today, with the pro athletes, what the most common sports injury you are seeing these days?
Ken: Well I think, generally in our sport, it’s shoulder and elbow injuries just because of the usage, or over usage if you will, of throwing a baseball.
That’s the most prominent injury in baseball. In other sports it’s a little different, depending on what body parts you’re using.
Jake: Right. Rehab – how important is rehab?
Ken: It’s absolutely critical.
You can have a great physician, maybe you have a surgery, but if you don’t have a good rehab….most really good physicians are going to tell you that’s the key component to it, so it’s really important.
Jake: what do you do on the nutrition side, for the fellas?
Ken: We’ve got a registered dietitian, Michelle Ricardi. She’ll go in and get a profile of the player. We do some significant blood testing, things that give us an idea of exactly what they need., so it’s very individualized. Then she’ll sit down with each player and develop a nutrition strategy and a program just based off of their specific needs.
Jake: Ken – weekend warriors. What are some tips you would give to them, with the knowledge that you have, of how they are not going to get injured, make sure that they are in a good spot.
Ken: Yeah, I think you can boil it down to some really simple things. You can start with hydration – it’s a really key component. Another one that we don’t so much of in our society is sleep. Make sure you sleep. Then try to balance it out with some kind of quality nutrition. And then when you get into your activity, don’t over-do the activity. We all want to do probably more than we are capable of.
Jake: Ken, well done!
