Dr. Emily Kraus specializes in sport related injuries in athletes. Emily herself has run 6 marathons (with a PR of 2:53), and ran the 2016 Boston Marathon, finishing as the 56th female overall. Pelvic, hip, and sacral injuries in runners can stop you from doing what you love for weeks or even months, and they are becoming more common. What can we do to stop them from happening and how can we make sure what we eat is helping us to stay healthy not making us injury prone?

Emily is also an advocate for ensuring young athletes do not succumb to high school burnout by having sport pushed to the extremes, either by themselves, their coaches or their parents. Emily has a strong passion for the promotion of a lifetime of health and wellness and a focus on injury prevention.

Today’s Guest

Dr. Emily Kraus is a Sports Medicine and Orthopedics Specialist at The Stanford Children’s Health Center.  Her focus is on rehabilitation of sport related injuries especially in young athletes.  Her passion is in running medicine, running and cycling biomechanics, injury prevention including the prevention of bone stress injuries in runners, and the promotion of health and wellness at any age of life.

What you will learn about:

• How she balances her practice and running (her PR is a 2:53 marathon at the Mountains To Beach Marathon in May) by running with friends in the morning or during mid-day breaks at the clinic.
• How important it is to find a supportive coach that can help you reach your goals without overtraining and balance your training around your lifestyle and responsibilities.
• How even as a physician in the field you are not immune to making the mistakes of not taking the time to honor the need for the body to heal and recover
•  How hip and pelvic recovery post childbirth is influenced by all the changes the body undertakes to make having the baby possible in terms of ligament changes and recovery. We also cover how the bones need to recover as well because of the strain having a baby and breast feeding impact bone density. There is also not a bunch of research on returning athletes to competitive fitness levels postpartum.
• We discuss the importance of adequate nutrition in support of both training and rebuilding in order to ensure adequate bone health and bone density. Under-fueling in general puts runners, both male and female, at a far greater risk of bone injuries, both insufficiency fractures and fatigue fractures. Under-fueling can come in terms of the amount the athlete is eating, the timing of the nutrition intake and the quality or mix of the foods eaten.
• How Calcium, Vitamin D and Iron intake, even without anemia, can also impact bone health and how important it is that your physician checks your levels if you are feeling low energy or are suffering frequent bone issues.• When you are recovering from any injury, it is not uncommon to experience pain in other areas as the body adapts to returning to activity. It may also mean you need to engage in other strengthening activities like strength and cross training.
• With pelvic stress issues/fractures it often worsens with running, and may start to develop with walking, or increases when stopping. It may also feel like a deeper groin pain or back pain. If it increases with all weight bearing it is time to have it looked into. Some pain may also arise from glute or other strength imbalances and a good form coach can help.
• We also discuss high school burnout and the need for young athletes to play multiple sports and build in off seasons and alternatives to avoid overuse injuries and avoid burning out. It is important that young athletes not exceed their age in terms of hours per week of participation in their sport of choice. The goal is to make them a lifetime athlete, not a flash in the pan.

Inspirational Quotes:

Growing bones and muscles need to be able to develop in a balanced fashion, which means alternating sports played and time off from training.

Resources:

Last week's episode with Matt Llano

Tina4Real Podcast 

Running for Real Superstars Community

Nancy Clark Podcast episode 

The Right Diet Can Help Prevent Running Injuries

Emily's work website

Emily on Twitter

Emily on Strava 

Email Emily: kraus.emily@gmail.com">kraus.emily@gmail.com

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