Huntsman World Senior Games Active Life

#429 Avoiding Injuries - Featuring Dr. Christian Millward

March 23, 2023 Kyle M Case & Lil Barron Episode 429
Huntsman World Senior Games Active Life
#429 Avoiding Injuries - Featuring Dr. Christian Millward
Show Notes Transcript

Today Dr. Christian Millward talks about avoiding sports related injuries. Dr. Millward is the Medical Director for the Huntsman World Senior Games and has served in that capacity for over 10 years. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 2004 from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He then completed his medical residency and fellowship at Utah Valley Family Medicine in Provo, UT. He is currently the Director of Sports Medicine at Intermountain Health in St. George, UT and is the Head Team Physician at Utah Tech University. And lest you think he does not practice what he preaches, Dr. Millward has also competed several triathlons and IRONMAN races himself. 

Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine.

Hello, and welcome to the Huntsman World Senior Games Active Life. My name is Kyle Case, and I'll be your host on this amazing journey as we attempt to help you get the most out of your life. Joining me in our studio today is my co-pilot Lil Barron. Hey, Mr. Case. How are you? Today is a great day. It's going well, yeah. And you know, what else is going well? Registration? Oh, yes. I mean, you've been watching the numbers come in...they're literally pouring in. They are really going so well. One of the fun things that we do...I think it's fun, I don't know if anybody else thinks it's fun. Maybe I'm just forcing everyone. One of the things that we do is we try to guess how many athletes we're going to get in a week's time. Yes. So we go from midnight on Sunday to midnight on Sunday. And we have just kind of a little informal pool. And there's a little prize for the person who picks the closest one. And I'm gonna say like, generally speaking over the last almost month, we've undershot. Yes, we have almost always yes. So that's a good thing. You know that last week, it was over 600. I know, in a week. Yeah. Which is the third of March is the third week that registration was open. So they're still just coming in, we kind of get those big numbers on the first week, there's a lot of excitement, we have a very competitive audience. So they want to be the first ones in, they want to cross the finish line first, they want to register first, you know. So we have those really big numbers at the beginning. But they've continued to be big for us. So we're really excited. As of right now, we have over 2700 total registrations, which for this time of year is just fantastic. There's still room to go, like we're gonna get way more than that, we're anticipating over 11, maybe even 12,000 athletes this year, but to be at almost 3000 in 3 weeks and a little bit is amazing. So we're super excited about that. We just need more venues, we just need more venues for some of these sports. Yeah, for sure. Some of our sports are starting to fill up. So we want to make sure everybody knows that. Don't delay, get registered today. You can do that at seniorgames.net , as well as find all the schedules and the rules and all the frequently asked questions, anything you need to know about the games, how to compete, how to volunteer, how to be a sponsor, how to just be involved, how to be connected, all of that is available at seniorgames.net. So check that out, and Lil, with everybody registering and getting ready to register over the next several weeks, couple months, several months, I should say, I thought it might make sense to talk a little bit about how to avoid injuries in the training process, right? Yes, I know all the training that you're going to be doing coming up, you want to make sure that you're avoiding injuries. So today we've invited Dr. Christian Millward to join us. Dr. Millward is the medical director for the Huntsman World Senior Games and has served in that capacity for over 10 years. I can't believe it's been that long. It's been a while. That's awesome. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 2004 from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He then completed his medical residency and fellowship at Utah Valley Family Medicine in Provo. He's currently the Director of Sports Medicine at Intermountain Health in St. George, Utah, and is the head team physician at Utah Tech University. And lest you think that he does not practice what he preaches, he is also an accomplished triathlete. Having done a bunch of triathlons and Ironman races, as well. Dr. Millward, welcome, and thank you for joining us. Thanks. It's been fun. It has been fun. It has been over a decade. Wow. That's amazing. I've
been down here now 15 years. Yeah, I think it was only a couple years in that I ran into Kyle. We were talking about something and it came up and he's like, What are you doing with this? Ah, nothing.
And here you are. I think Lil has a similar story too. So yeah, when you see Kyle coming down the road, run, run, run fast. Otherwise, you end up having the experience of a lifetime. Yes. Some of the amazing athletes that come from all around the world. No, it's been great. And we've appreciated your work and your help and your service, but also your friendship. It's been fun. So, so like I said, we want to talk a little bit about sports injuries and getting ourselves ready to go for what's coming up. You've been doing this for a while. What's the biggest injury that you see?
You know, that's a good question, because I think you'd get there's two types of injuries you'll see. You'll see the injuries like before they get here and they're trying to kind of just compete. They've been looking forward to this for all year and that's trying to get trying to get ready and then something happens right before and then so you know, your typical musculoskeletal type stuff, but every year you know, we'll have, we have a few injuries. During the event, I remember a guy coming down Snow Canyon in there and hit the speed bump on his bike and yeah, we'll leave it at that. Whatever he did, you know, broken arm and a few things like that road rash and stuff which happens, but then that's the ones we always think of right, right is that, hey, I pulled a hamstring. But I think you also have to think of the cardiovascular aspect of it and that because it does happen. Sure. I mean, that's all of us. But obviously, as we get older, age, right, every age, that's more of an issue than, say, the high school college athlete that with him having something that way. So
that can happen there as well. Normally, but certainly, certainly there. So I want to like dig in just a little bit, focus in on some of those, the ones that we think about, not so much the cardiovascular, we're not gonna Jinx anybody. Try to avoid that one as best we can. But certainly, as you said, like as we're getting ready for that sport, whatever the sport is, whether it's swimming, track and field, softball, tennis, pickleball, whatever it is, you want to be at the peak of your game, you want to peak at the right time. And sometimes, maybe we overdo it just a little bit. Right. So how do you avoid that? Well, that's I think that's the question we get
all the time. And I think the hard part with that is, that's one of the reasons I love sports medicine is you take I don't want to pick on people, but some of the general population is sometimes you're almost pushing them to get active and go do something. Right. Right, right. And you get athletes no matter what their age, sometimes that's pulling the reins back and saying, Hey, slow down. We're almost there. You can't do this too fast. Right? And so a lot of times the phrase, you know, you go start low go slow type of thing. And I think as we age, those muscles and tendons, they don't have the same elasticity that we want them to. I joke with patients and family members and a lot of people all the time, you know, mentally, yeah, you never age. Your brain says I'm going to do this. And then sometimes your body is the one that says no you slow down. But if you plan for and prepare. So that's where the critical part is, like the weeks, months before, is if I'm going to do, I don't know, one of the running events, and I haven't run the 50 meters. We were talking just before we started it. Yeah, one of the 50 meters, I haven't done a 50 meter type sprint in weeks. You know, the risk of Achilles or hamstring or some of those things. You can do 50 meters, because it's easy, it's quick, well, there's different muscles firing. And that's when you're gonna say like, get 25 meters in, you're kind of hobbling or something. So it's kind of that conditioning a little bit. Yeah, not just for that. But if it's, Hey, I'm not gonna run a 50 meters every morning type of thing. But I'm gonna go out and go for my walk. And then some light jogs and conditioning the muscles for that activity and then throw in those sprints that if that's the sport, right, for the throwing sport, similar idea. I say, Hey, I'm not just going to show up. I haven't played softball since I was in high school. But what the heck? Yeah. So that's a lot of that's that build up and plan for it. Right? You were saying in the beginning that already several thousand people have signed up? Well, if they know now that they're already doing it, now is the time to say, hey, look, I know I'm doing this, most of them have been doing it year round anyway. That's the idea, right, they've been doing it? So it's not as big of a deal. But first of all, maybe there's like, Hey, I haven't done this in a while. I'd like to try it. It's, yeah, I'm for it and kind of work it up and then
start where you are. Correct. And I think I think what you said, is right on, I think we have maybe two kind of distinct groups. The one is the group that does compete year round, and they go from competition to competition. And, you know, whether that softball tournaments or, you know, they're checking out with those, you know, those masters swimming events, or whatever, and you kind of maintain and keep just a level of fitness. And then maybe you do some tweaks leading up to just before the competition, just to be ready to go, but you kind of maintain that higher level. And then we also do have some athletes that are just like, oh my word, I never even knew this thing existed. I just want to go try it because it's so exciting. And that's probably where you start to see some of those.
Even when you know your limits too. I was looking just when I got asked to do this, like, what kind of events do we have? I know most of them. But yeah, like I saw rugby. I didn't know we had rugby. It could be really fun.
I'll tell you, it is fun. Yeah, we offered it, I questioned if it could happen. Just because it's rugby, but man, I went out and watched it. It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible. The athleticism, Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. The violence was more than I anticipated, I knew it was a very physical sport. I have told this story before but I was standing on the sideline. This guy comes out of the game. He's got this gash on the top of his head, like I saw his skull. I was just standing there. I saw his skull. He's like, Hey, honey, I'm assuming it was his wife, some lady came over, she pulled out a kit. She stitched up his head, and he went back in. And then two plays later, he came out. He's like, we got to do it again, it tore out. And then he went right back in. It was crazy.
But you know, we talked about building up to it, but sometimes it's knowing your limits that way. Yes, for sure. We all know that. I mean, whether it's pain tolerance, or whatever you want to call it, stupidity, whatever you want to call it amongst athletes, sometimes you push yourself and you kind of not gotta know, what you can tolerate and where you can go. And you feel like hey, this is fine. This soreness, I tell people, sometimes achiness and soreness is okay, but when it's painful, and it adjusts your throwing mechanism, or your running stride or your gait, stuff like that, that's when you go, Is it worse? Then you need to have a look at it. But yeah, if you know your limits, and kind of know what you can do, you can push some of those limits pretty good and be fine.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I know we're kind of throwing the rugby people under the bus a little bit, but it is across the board, right? It's across the board. Understand, listening to your body, knowing where you're at. I really do like the idea, though, of preparing yourself, but then allowing yourself to push yourself just a little bit for sure. Because I think that sometimes we can not achieve our potential out of fear, or concern. And so it's a balance, it's a balance, because you don't want to go so far that you're injuring yourself, and then that's the end of your potential or your competitive opportunity. But you also want to, like I said, you want to peak at the right time. Right, you want to be able to reach that. I
remember and one of the Ironman's, I was training for it. And I was talking with one of the professionals from the year before, and he just got bringing that up, like how do you know and I go, how do you know when you can just push it in, you've got enough left to get that last two miles. And he was saying if you get that last mile or so or two, and you still feel like you're feeling pretty good. You didn't try because you didn't try hard enough. And you need to really kick it in for any better coming to that finish line with everything you've got, you know, I did the first time I did it was hard. Yeah, I got I left. I'll be honest, I left some of them. I don't know what I'm expecting. I didn't know what to do. And then the next time I was dead, coming through the finish line, right? You kind of learn your own body too, it is to say, Hey, I've done this before, I think that's the benefit of people that have come back. Try it once the first time. Like it's just gonna be a cool experience. And then they go okay, it's still what I did, whether that's playing softball, or I mean horseshoes, or something like that. Some of the some of those other events, knowing what they did, and like, Okay, I know what I did, and the competitive nature of the athlete comes in going Okay, I'm gonna do better next time. I can push it a little bit harder and still be safe.
And we definitely see that, countless stories, for sure. Which is just so awesome. We love being a part of that, we love being a part of something that people can come experiment just a little bit, figure out where their baseline is, and then improve from there.
Well, I think that to me, is one of the funnest things about the Senior Games, is because a lot of those things I mean, we talk about all the time with high school athletes, or we're trying to get injured, whatever it may be broken arm, whatever the injury is. And you kind of look at, okay, what's your season? And what have you got left? Yeah, but a lot of those you say, well, when's the next time you're gonna play? We picked on rugby, but competitive football, for most of those people, right? And so for them, that's their season, but the Senior Games has kind of left this open to be like, hey, what's the next time you're going to run 100 meter dash after high school for most people. Rarely, you may not get that. Okay, now I'm gonna run a half marathon until you turn 50, and then the opportunity. So it's fun, though, because there's those things that hey, I was never going to do it again. And look, now I can. Yeah.
Now, you alluded to this, you touched on it. But I want to dig a little bit deeper, since we're talking about injury and prevention and what really to do as an athlete getting ready to go. Throughout any training process, there's going to be sore muscles, you're gonna feel that for sure. But then there's the injury, which is a different level. So how do you know when it's time to see a doctor? Or do you just kind of grit your teeth and go for it? Like how do you know when to do that?
I don't know that there's an official at this point. That's the same for everybody. Yeah. Right. And that's what's hard. People. I mean, I talk all the time I get people showing up in my house with Hey, is this broken? Like, I don't know for sure when you talk to him and figure it out. But you know, I think that's where we go back to was mentioned earlier, kind of knowing your body and saying, This feels different than just a strain or an ache, right? I was talking to somebody about ankle sprain, I twisted my ankle, is it just sprained? Most likely? Yes. But if it's, you know what we've mentioned a few minutes ago, if it affects your gait or strikes, hey, I'm really having a tough time pushing off and it isn't getting better within a few days, or a week or so. And it's still limiting you. I think it's easy to see someone fairly quickly wherever you are. And just then it's that okay, now I'm reassured that I'm not doing like I tell people at times, it may hurt and cause some soreness but it's not doing damage, right? And that's that fine line to say, you can kind of run through this or keep playing through this. And here's our limitations, or here's our limits. And now we kind of as an athlete, or as a person, you kind of know that. And then it allows you to, like we were talking earlier to push through it and see how you're doing. Yeah. To give it a, you know, there's no, there's no like, step 123. You've got this much bruising, or this much swelling or this much, whatever. It's kind of hard.
Yeah. But it's going to be different for everyone, for sure. But I like the advice that you said is if it's been a week or so and it's still bothering you, get it checked out. And then worst case scenario, you get good news, right? Correct, say, Hey, you're actually okay, it's painful, but you're okay. And then if you get the bad news, like, Oh, we've got an injury, got to work on it, then at least you know, what you've got to do, and you've got a plan.
Even worst case scenario, at least you get the news, and hopefully, whoever you saw has enough knowledge or knows how to work that, right? So if it happens in March, April, May, it's much easier to get ready and say, hey, look like a month down or whatever downtime, you can work through that and still get ready for the games or competition, right? Versus like it lingered and lingered and then you get to the game. Oh, no,
now it's too late.
It's too late. It's tougher. So yeah,
and that whole, I know you've said it. But it's worth emphasizing. You just got to listen to your body and try to figure that out. I have helped coach wrestling for the last several years. And one of the things that has been a challenge for my wife is I come home with a black eye every once in a while or a stiff neck or whatever. And I've also been injured you know, where I'm like, I need to take some time off. Like that has happened before.
But not often, 
But it's one of the it's one of the things she's like, you get hurt every time you go, you get hurt every time you go. And I'm like, No, it's okay, we're going to be just fine. Anyway, we were playing pickleball a few years ago, and she actually felt a pop in her ankle, and, or in her heel, and it ended up being her Achilles. But we came off the court and she kind of limped off, and we went home, and we were just, Maybe it's fine. Everything's fine. Anyway, it ended up that the bruise like goes from her ankle all the way up to the back of her thigh all the way up, almost to her waist. So I'm like, Honey, we've got to go check this out. So I have loved that she has the most serious sports injury in the family so far, even though she thinks it's gonna be me. She is the one with the most serious sports injury so far. But it is true. Like obviously at that point, we could see something was not right. So she had to boot it up. And it became a whole thing. And I still you know, it comes up every once in a while, Sure. It just randomly comes up every once in a while. So anyway, lots of fun stuff there. But, listening to your body. Yeah. Just listen to yourself. And you
know if there's questions, I mean, most people I don't know. I guess I shouldn't say most people, a lot of Doc's if you call in and just have a quick question, if it's something simple. I think it's, I am like that way. But just it's easy to do a simple response and say, Hey, this doesn't sound bad. Go ahead and keep going. Yeah. Or come in, let's do it
Really quick. Yeah, for sure. So you've been working with sports medicine for a long time, that's really been your focus throughout your career. Obviously, through the games, you've had an opportunity to interact with athletes from different parts of the country, and then just here locally, you've obviously had opportunities. What do you think is the most important thing that athletes need to know as they're gearing up and getting ready and preparing for their next competition, whether it's in October at the games, or it's the next one that's coming up? Around the corner? I think it's knowing your
sport, or what you're, like, whatever your competition is, right? Because we talked, we just talked musculoskeletal stuff, right? But if you're gonna do more of an endurance event, what's your nutrition like? What's your training that way? Are you eating properly? Are you getting the rest? I mean, that's a huge study right now in sports medicine. Amongst the college, it's a huge discussion going on, you know, we've got these college, top of their game athletic people, but they get horrible eating, staying up all night, and it's part of the discussion. You know, the other things that we don't always think about is, am I eating properly? Or am I going to, you know, halfway through the triathlon bonk or whatever and be like, Okay, I'm can't finish because I didn't eat enough properly or stuff like that. So I think that's something you got to think about is what's my sport? And what's my goal? And are there things outside of just the, you know, conditioning, cardiovascular musculoskeletal, that I should prepare to be that peak athlete? Whatever the age is, yeah,
for sure. That makes sense. Now, I'm going to step away from that just a little bit. I want to talk about your triathlons, your athletics, I think I think that it's, you know, I think it's relevant because you're not only here to help other people, but you're actually accomplishing some of these things yourself. First question, how did you get into triathlons? What was the decision where you're like, that seems like something I want to try?
Honestly, that's a funny story. So I came down here is after I finished, I had never done a triathlon. In fact, I used to joke and still do joke with people that my swim consisted of, after I crashed while skiing or snow or wakeboarding was swimming back to the boat. That's how I was. That was my swim. I biked a lot in college, mountain bike and stuff a lot. And so I'd always had the bike parked down. And then I just had a couple neighbors that said, Hey, we're gonna do this Iron Man. I'm like, well, I'll do one of the sprints, the smaller ones. For a mile or two miles, that's not happening. So I started training with them. And about halfway through the training, I realized that I was already doing way more than I needed for my sprint. So I said, What the heck, I'll try it and do it. So the first time it was a half Ironman. So, the
first triathlon that you ever did was a half Ironman.
I was planning on a sprint, so I thought, why not, let's just go? And then it's just been, I mean, I've always been active. Like I say, I was mountain biking just the other day, I like to road bike steal, like and get out of town and not get hit by a car. But yeah, but that's, that's just just being active. I love that lifestyle, hiking and camping and all that stuff. So that's fun. But yeah, I just got a train with neighbors. And it became this joke. We have an old bike, this old, old, heavy bike, and I got it, inherited it like, Hey, this is kind of fun. And then by the time that triathlon came along, I need a different bike. And so that's I guess part of the games as far as the games, but it was the camaraderie of neighbors and friends that really got me in. Because without, if I'd been doing it myself, I'd quit. Yeah, because the 6am Swim, and then it's tough and 10 o'clock half marathon, we'd have to go run. I was like, No, I'm not gonna go to stay at home. Yeah.
Well, it's not like you don't have other things to do, right? And especially training for an Ironman or a half Ironman. It's a significant time commitment. I am a believer. And I really do think this is true that a sprint triathlon is much more accessible than most people believe that it is. 100%. I think if you don't know anything about triathlon, there's this intimidation level. But to be able to swim 400 or 500 meters, jump on a bike and ride for 12 to 15 miles and then run a 5k at the end. Even saying that out loud. That might seem like a lot, but I think more people could do it than believe that they can do it.
100%. There's that mentality of it. But there's another step
when you get to the Iron Man level, right? Like at that point, it really does take a time commitment and investment of your time, because those distances start to get significant. It becomes
a part time job. Yeah,
it really, really does.
But you mentioned that one thing I just make real quick is a lot of times, that's what stops us. Yeah, it's we think, Oh, man, so I'm just gonna bike for 12 miles. That's a long way. Yeah. And now, you know, after you hit biking with people, like total miles realized nothing, right. And sometimes that's what stops people from getting involved in sports is, that seems like a long way. So that's could be hard. And really, after a few weeks of if we're gonna say, quote, unquote, training, yeah, they realize it's not that hard. And once you get past the mental, like, mine was swimming, I'm not swimming. Yeah, once you got past that mental block, then you realize your body can do a lot more
than you think. I think that can be applied just across the board in sports. And that's where just here at the games, we get to see that so often played out where not it's not all the time that someone has never done anything. And then they jump into the games, although that happens. Yeah, certainly happens. And those are great stories. Oftentimes, what it is, is I I played football in, in high school, or I played volleyball in high school, and then I took 30 years off to raise a family, I have a profession and you know, that's, that's a lifetime, like, that's a whole generation that happens right there. And then you come back to it with this, maybe this level of intimidation or whatever, but then you realize that it's possible. And when you start, that's when you start that competitive
aspect that's always been there for 30 years or so. And then you start to
feel it again, and you go for it. Well, Dr. Millward, thank you so much for your time today and your expertise. And I'm going to put you on record as saying that in a couple of years when you're eligible, you're not eligible yet, but when you're eligible, we can count on you as an athlete.
Yeah, no problem. I was walking down the hallway and they've got on the board here...I don't know if anybody's been down here, but they've got on the board, these little different competitions, little wellness, competitions. I saw it and I saw Kyle and I started feeling like okay, that's a challenge. I'll have to tell him. There we go. I'm even on
there. So thank you so much for joining. Just a couple of things as we wind ourselves up here, I said at the beginning of the show, but just a reminder, now's really the time to register. You can do all of that again, finding your schedules, your rules, all your questions answered at seniorgames.net. Take full advantage of our early bird pricing. Yes, that is in effect until August 1. So you've got plenty of time, but take advantage of it. Remember to tune in live next and every Thursday at 5:30pm Mountain Time on AM 1450 or FM 93.1 for the Huntsman World Senior Games Active Life. We take this live show and turn it into a podcast and you can subscribe anywhere that your favorite podcasts are found. If you are listening by podcast, take a moment, give us a rating, write a quick review. You can do that very easily on your iPhone by just scrolling down to the bottom of your Apple podcast app and shooting us some stars there. And then as I said, the website is where you get all that information. You can also find previous shows at seniorgames.net as well. Today's inspirational thought comes from Nelson Mandela. A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. Until next Thursday. Stay active!