It was a privilege to be asked to present at the 16th EMORY Sports Medicine Symposium hosted by Emory Sports Medicine and this year we had the unique opportunity to be at the Georgia Tech Basketball Arena. What a great collaboration between two major Atlanta Institutions. I have presented at this symposium on multiple occasions and this year had nearly 600 physicians, athletic trainers, physical therapists and other healthcare providers. It was an outstanding educational event with over 80 world class presenters. So I was able to learn a lot about some of the latest aspects of sports medicine, injury prevention and treatment from the leaders in the field. Most of the presenters work with world class professional athletes, collegiate programs and many top junior development athletes across dozens of sports.
I was asked to present based on my experience working with some of the top athletes in tennis and baseball. The topic was Training Differences & Similarities Between Elite Level Tennis Athlete vs Baseball Athletes. It was an honor be part of a mini-symposium with some world class researchers and clinicians in both baseball and tennis. The discussion was around a comparison of some of the training that was done with Frances Tiafoe (ATP Top 10 in the World) and Dansby Swanson (Major League Baseball Shortstop, All-Star and one of the best in the league). Many similarities exist in how both were trained, but many more differences exist. It is important to understand the core aspects of training (strength, power, speed, agility, endurance, coordination, stability and mobility etc), but how to personalize the be highly specific for the athletes that you work with. A lot is built around the testing protocols and assessments to ensure the right types of training. In tennis the importance of conditioning is paramount. The movements and exercises that need to be incorporated to be able to play 11 months of the year, more than 100 matches per year (singles, doubles and exhibitions) is one of the big challenges for the better players.
Here is a link to the many articles, videos and content on Kovacs Academy on the topic of Tennis Specific Endurance (TSE). This is a good resource for anyone looking for more details about this specific area. I also talked about some of the postural training and sport specific stability work we do at the Institute with our athletes focused on the positions these players need to be in during competition.
The mini-symposium included doctors from the Atlanta Braves and Georgia Tech Baseball discussing some of the treatment techniques for the most common baseball injuries. These doctors are some of the best in the country and we work closely with them on a regular basis with many of our athletes. We also had Dr. Alexis Colvin (Chief Medical Officer for the USTA and US Open) and Dr. Neeru Jayanthi (Head of Tennis Medicine for Emory University). They both gave great presentations on treating tennis athletes and also some differences between working with tennis and baseball.
The Kovacs Institute and the EMORY Tennis Medicine/Sports Medicine Center are one of only 2 Centers of Excellence in the United States through the Society of Tennis Medicine & Science. This allows us to collaborate on many projects from research, education and clinical practice. We work together with the athletes we work with to provide the best possible care.
Below are a few photos from the event.
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