5 injuries American Football players get that can be helped heal with Yoga

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It’s well-known that American Footballers are at high risk of injury any time they are involved in the game and more often than not the inevitable happens. When NFL players get a wide variety of injuries that side line them for months on end means they have to go through certain rehabilitation procedures depending on the extent of their specific injury. Most of the time, players only sustain injuries that might keep them off the field for a couple of weeks and those injuries can usually be helped heal by taking advantage of yoga exercises. Have a look below at 5 of the common injuries players get and how yoga can help them heal:

  1. Back injury – If players sustain a back injury such as a spinal one, then the chances are they will be side lined for months, if not for the whole season. But there are cases in which they might sustain a lower back injury which is more or less just a stretch. With the use of yoga exercises players will be able to stretch their lower back to the extent that it will help repair it. Doing this for a couple of weeks is always beneficial and club doctors will usually recommend these exercises. Even in cases of spinal injuries when it’s not so serious, light yoga exercises can help stretch the spine to help that heal as well.
  2. Hamstring injury – A lot of the players will have this injury from time to time because of the physical nature of the game and the running that is required. When the hamstring is pulled, players are often out for at least a few weeks and there are plenty of light yoga exercises that they can do to not only help repair their hamstring, but to also help prevent it from happening in the future. The chances are it will happen again in the future, but nowhere near as much. What is great is that players can do this pose anywhere and all they need is a towel and a thick yoga mat like this one to cushion their often larger than normal bodies will doing the workout.
  3. Wrist injury – Players often find themselves on the received end of wrist injuries because of the throwing and catching involved, and of course the tackling side of the game. There are plenty of yoga exercises that do not cater for the hand or wrist, but there are some such as the Cat-Cow yoga exercise that requires the hand to be flat on the floor, thus stretching the wrist area and helping it heal. Most wrist injuries require the hand doctor to take care of during physiotherapy, but yoga has been known to help in a lot of cases.
  4. Foot/leg injuries – Depending on the type of foot/leg injury sustained, yoga can sometimes help in the case that one of those gets broken during play. It will require weeks/months of physiotherapy first, but after a while when the bones have healed the joints will tighten, and they will need to be loosened slightly and a great way of doing this is to undertake some light yoga exercises.
  5. Neck injuries – Sometimes players pull muscles in their neck, or at worse break them. Yoga has plenty of exercises that can help heal the neck area depending on the severity of the injury.

In conclusion, yoga exercises can help a lot with a variety of injuries depending on their severity. More often than not, yoga is a great way of keeping fit even when injured which is why a lot of players undertake it when they are on the side lines. Yoga is well-known for its light exercises and the help to release joint pain and provide a way of healing the muscles slowly.

5 healthy Eating Rules for American Football Players

There are a lot of food that American Football players eat during their daily routines to ensure they carry on bulking up and turning all the good fats into lean muscle. When you look at some of the NFL players you instantly think “he is huge; he looks fatter than he is anything else” but then you would be wrong, because that would be muscle, or at least close to it. Some NFL players look fat but that’s just how they are built and you will find that they are the ones that spend most of the time in the gym. Although in some cases certainly football players do eat badly, even junk food, in general they take care of themselves. American Football players live by certain eating rules on a day to day basis and below you will find 5 of them.

  1. Eat loads of calories – It’s important for footballers that they get a mass amount of calories on a daily basis, and when they are in the gym they turn the fat into muscle. They will start off their eating habits with a big breakfast, then a snack, then lunch, then another snack, then tea, and possibly another snack before doing it all again. So that would suggest that they consume thousands of calories on a day to day basis because they know they are going to spend their days working it off or turning it into muscle. It’s important for players to get fat to be able to get muscle, and that’s how they work.
  2. Plenty of protein – Players thrive on eating plenty of food such as chicken that is high in protein, because that will help them to build muscle. Players will often get their daily fix of protein before and after a workout which is when it is of most value to them. You will find that even players that aren’t trying to bulk up such as punters in the game will still try and eat at least 200g worth of protein on a daily basis.
  3. Healthy fatty foods – There are plenty of foods that players eat such as nuts and meat products that provide healthy fat. This is important for those that need to eat thousands of calories per day because otherwise they would be eating a tonne of food that would take them forever to eat.
  4. Fibre and vitamins – Fruit and vegetables are especially important to players because they contain the most fibres and vitamins, and plenty of other goodness. There are plenty of players in the league that consume a stupid amount of fruit and veg on a weekly basis and they feel it has made them faster and stronger. There are rumours that some teams put on a basis fruit and vegetable stand during lunch so players can dig in, and apparently they consume over 500 pounds of the stuff on a weekly basis.
  5. Players always start their day with breakfast – Breakfast isn’t for everyone, but it is if you are an NFL player. Players get told they have to eat as much as they can during breakfast as it is the most important meal of the day, especially if they are going to be training hard and weight lifting for the majority of it. This is the point in the day when players consume a lot of eggs and fruit, and foods such as nuts and seeds.

These are 5 of the many eating rules NFL players live by on their daily eating habits as they are very important for their workout regimes. You will often find that many of them are even more strict in the sense that they will never eat any cheat food for as long as they are playing the game.

Why do American Football players get Stressed?

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American Football is getting bigger than ever, and it’s even getting big in the UK thanks to the odd NFL game being played over there in London. It’s getting so big in fact that the players are getting even more money, and are expected to perform in every game. The problem with that now is that all players have a certain weight on their shoulders to carry everywhere they go with them, and some might say “well they get paid enough money” – but sometimes that is irrelevant. Even fans are becoming stressed over the outcomes of games and its starting to affect their health. All people work in the same way no matter how much money they earn, and American Football players are no different.

There are so many things that can cause stress, and in actual fact American Football players get more stressed about things than the general public and there are plenty of reasons for that. One reason is of course the money, these players have a lot of weight on their shoulders and are expected to be the best player in the world every game they play, but that’s just not possible. So when they do play a game and don’t perform to the best of their abilities, they will often feel useless. Another reason could be that they aren’t getting picked for a game and again, feel useless and end up getting stressed about it. It can be a very emotional rollercoaster as an American Football player as there are so many things to worry about.

A lot of the negative publicity for the American Football players comes because they earn so much money, they shouldn’t have anything to be stressed about. That could well be the case because but if you don’t have much money, it’s very easy to judge them and say “if I had that much money I would be doing this and that”. But the fact is, half the time these players can’t go out and do what they want with their money because they are always in the spotlight, and if they do anything out of the ordinary the media will usually eat them for breakfast.

Another thing the general public say about players is that they get injured on purpose just so they can sit on the side-lines and get paid for doing nothing. But again, that is not the case because when they are injured they have to put in even more work than everybody else to get fit again – this once again causes them stress because they aren’t playing the game they know and love. When they are injured, they often have to take medication for their injuries which do have side effects, which again can cause further stress. Even the American Football players that are playing every week still take performance enhancing drugs to better their playing abilities which all have nasty side effects, even though they are legal drugs.

American Football players are also known to get severe head injuries which can cause them stress without them even knowing about it – it’s a dangerous sport where many players have died from their injuries even though they wear helmets and padded clothing. This can ultimately be a stress factor for American Football players, even though they don’t show or feel worried about their health or life sometimes their mind can be in a different place and that can again cause plenty of stress.

The fact is, there are an unlimited amount of stress related problems in American Football and even though most of the players can live their great lives without feeling too stressed about it, there are a plenty of others that do get stressed without even showing it – which can be dangerous to anyone.