Dr. Riley:
Today we have kind of a neat opportunity. We’ve brought a special guest in today that we’re going to chat about a topic here at Tulsa Spine and Rehab. I’m joined by Callum Crawford. Callum is the professional box player… Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this. He’s played professionally for 18 years, plays professionally for the Panther City Lacrosse Club. We had an opportunity this past weekend to go down and it was a really neat experience. But as a professional athlete, he has dealt with many injuries throughout his career. Something that we have actually been kind of helping him manage of late was a… Correct me here if I’m wrong, too, a lower kind of gastroc-soleus, which is a calf strain. But is it correct, it’s in your lower kind of portion?
Callum Crawford:
Yeah, it’s been diagnosed as the soleus.
Dr. Riley:
Yeah. And so, as we have started to see more young athletes and kids and active people, muscle strain is something that we commonly treat here at Tulsa Spine and Rehab. But I thought it would be kind of interesting, neat experience to have Callum kind of talk about the injury. Maybe some things obviously we could all figure out maybe would contributed to it, some things which he has done for it at a professional level, and then I’d like to kind of visit about maybe some of those things that we have here at Tulsa Spine and Rehab. So you probably don’t like to talk about your injuries, but if you could kind of just, this recent one, I know it’s been hanging on, if you could kind of chat a little bit about the injury itself and some things that you’ve done for it.
Callum Crawford:
Yeah, so the current one right now is a right soleus strain, calf strain. It’s something I’ve been dealing with, this right leg specifically, since the first game of the season. I did a pretty good job on it. But it’s something that I was familiar with. I’ve done it back and forth from each ones. I don’t know if there’s something going on specifically with my body or my training routine that’s caused issues with my calves and my soleus as of the last few years, but this season’s really been getting at me.
So yeah, it was just a strain in the lower body. I’ve been dealing with it off and on, obviously with you since it happened the start of this season. But yeah, the diagnosis was originally from my team trainer in New York was he blames the loaded plyos that I do a ton of jump training and plyometric work, even at my old age, and he thinks that’s a culprit to kind of put me there and just be in a situation now that I haven’t been able to give it adequate rest, having to be in season and try to be ready to go every weekend, just kind of, it’s more about dealing with it and trying to manage it versus fixing it right now.
Dr. Riley:
Yeah so, at the professional level, I know that you guys have medical staff there in Fort Worth, training staff. What are some things that they do for you there to help manage the [inaudible 00:03:01] plan to make you feel better to rehab it? And then could you also talk maybe some things that you do preemptively to get that tissue warmed up, some things that you can hopefully do in the future to prevent the injury or exacerbation?
Callum Crawford:
Yeah, for sure. So in Panther City this weekend, we went at it pretty hard. I strained it a little bit in the first half of the game, so at halftime we kind of dug into it. So prepare for the game, just a ton of soft tissue work. The massage guns have been kind of a tool of choice over there. At halftime, actually at pre-game, we used a new thing I’ve never used before. I don’t know the name of it, but it comes from Chinese medicine. It’s not acupuncture, but it was these two needles, and you may know this device, you put them in certain pressure points and it puts a current, but it feels like you’re being stuck. I’ve got to find the name of it. It was interesting.
Dr. Riley:
Interesting.
Callum Crawford:
I don’t know whether it works or not, but it was interesting to feel because it would up the current in it. And when you start, it feels like you’re just being stuck with a fork, and then if you really need it, it will hurt significantly more. It feels like you’re getting stabbed more based off of-
Dr. Riley:
Hmm.
Callum Crawford:
… I don’t know what it is, I’ll get a name and we’ll talk about it another time.
Dr. Riley:
Sure.
Callum Crawford:
But that was a new treatment that we used this weekend, and then we went pretty heavy at halftime with ART-
Dr. Riley:
Good.
Callum Crawford:
… once it kind of was bothering me in the first half, tried to dig in there. They think it could be something that goes all the way through from my piriformis-
Dr. Riley:
Yep.
Callum Crawford:
… all the way down and everything. So nothing crazy unique, just ultimately trying to put a ton of soft tissue work in it. One thing that we’re doing and I’ve been trying to work on is strengthening. Obviously mobility needs to stay there, working on mobility and stretching and all that stuff, but a ton of eccentric movements to try to really strengthen the muscles, the Achilles and all that stuff in there has been kind of my go-to pregame and throughout the week and everything, trying to make it strong enough that it can support itself.
Dr. Riley:
It’s very interesting, Callum. As a professional athlete, I’m listening to what you’re saying about, obviously treatment modalities to help rehab that injury. Many of the things that we do here at Tulsa Spine and Rehab, active release therapy, needling, cupping, deep tissue work to the soft tissue… High-intensity laser has been really good for us to reduce the inflammatory process, reduce spasm and so forth. But what I heard you say, and I talk to a lot of my patients that might not even be an athlete, it’s about compensation.
Callum Crawford:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Riley:
And you had mentioned they’re unsure. Obviously as a professional athlete with the plyo and the load and the overuse aspect, I mean surely… I mean, you’re training on it, there’s a lot going on there. But there’s also, I think, value in recognizing if there’s a breakdown somewhere else, whether, you talked about way up here in your piriformis or potentially weakness in a glute medias, way upstream, it could affect that tissue. If there’s not enough ankle mobility, once again, you could compensate in that tissue. And so I think that a lot of my patients will really appreciate to hear that as a professional athlete, you’re paying attention to biomechanics. It’s important not only that we’re looking at the area of injury, but where else may there might be a breakdown in mobility or stability. And we’ve talked about that for years here at Tulsa Spine and Rehab, it’s in a mobility bucket or a stability bucket, and then I want to make sure that we check all those boxes.
So I just thought it’d be cool to bring you on, like I said, it’s something we’ve been managing. Hopefully we can kind of get you over the hump on this. And a lot of our patients, too, we kind of forgot, just, you don’t have the capacity to rest as much as we would like, but ice, rest, those are kind of first line defense for any type of a soft tissue strain. Callum spoke about the soleus. The soleus is the lower portion of the calf muscle, so the big heads are the gastrocnemius, and then that transitions more into the soleus, then ultimately your Achilles, and you know this, if you don’t pay attention to that soleus, you could run into some Achilles injuries and so forth from there. So diagnosis is important. Make sure that biomechanically you’re getting checked out, mobility, stability and rest, ice initially, and kind of utilize different conservative options to help manage that tissue. So I appreciate you coming on. Where are you guys playing this weekend?
Callum Crawford:
We’re back home in Fort Worth.
Dr. Riley:
Nice. Good luck this weekend.
Callum Crawford:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
