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14 UPDATE... USPTA and ThanksUSA continue campaign to Thank the Troops As part of “Tennis Thanks the Troops,” the United States Professional Tennis Association and ThanksUSA will continue to team up to encourage USPTA professionals to fund scholarships for the families of military men and women. The nationwide campaign which was launched in 2012, has the support of Men’s Doubles Champions and No. 1- ranked doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan and WTA Tour’s previously No. 1-ranked doubles player and US Open Doubles Champion Lisa Raymond as spokespersons. Click here for a public service announcement created by the Bryan Brothers to support Tennis Thanks The Troops that was featured on Tennis Channel. USPTA members can help by donating a portion of their lessons or clinic fees taught during Memorial Day Weekend 2013 (or any other weekend/ date). USPTA Professionals can provide the opportunity for their students and club members to donate $5 for the cause or they can run a simple round robin or other event with all or a portion of the proceeds being donated to ThanksUSA. The club raising the most money for the ThanksUSA charity will receive two tickets to the US Open and the opportunity to send their pro to New York, including airlines and hotel. For more information visit uspta.com or ThanksUSA.org. “There’s certainly lots of attention on supporting those initiatives that help our troops of late and rightfully so,” said USPTA CEO John Embree. “As an association, we intend to do our part using pros who are community-minded and want to show their dedication to the military by making a valuable contribution to those efforts.” Through Lessons for Life, which became USPTA’s national charitable program in 1999, the USPTA encourages its members to use tennis as a vehicle to help others through fundraising activities in their communities. The collaboration with ThanksUSA is an added component of the program, and one that strives to mobilize USPTA members to raise funds to help families of military personnel, specifically by providing scholarships. “ThanksUSA’s partnership with the USPTA is a profound example of how much Americans treasure our troops and recognize the sacrifices they and their families make to keep those of us here at home safe,” said ThanksUSA CEO and Chair Bob Okun. “Your help gives our returning soldiers and those still in danger zones the ability to ensure that the futures of their children and spouses are made equally secure through education.” In the past year alone, ThanksUSA received 1,800 applications from the spouses and children of our armed forces. While ThanksUSA was able to provide 300 scholarships valued at $3,000 each, the organization could only meet a small portion of the need among deserving applicants. In 2013, ThanksUSA seeks to award at least 500 scholarships totaling $1.5 million. ThanksUSA’s scholarship program is unique in that both spouses and children of active-duty men and women can apply to the same organization for support.
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS Columnist. When Dr. Douglas Brown, a radiologist in Provo, Utah, noticed an uptick recently in the number of barefoot runners he was seeing with heel and foot problems, he wondered if there might be a connection between their unshod training and their sore feet. But he couldn’t find any scientific studies that had examined the issue. So he approached Sarah Ridge, a professor of exercise science at Brigham Young University in Provo who studies impact injuries in sports, and suggested she undertake one. The resulting study, published last month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, will probably add fuel to the continuing debate about the benefits of running barefoot or wearing minimalist “barefoot” shoes. Does the barefoot style reduce a runner’s risk of pain and injury (as enthusiasts believe)? Or does barefoot running simply contribute to the development of a different set of injuries in some runners? To find out, Dr. Ridge began by recruiting 36 experienced runners, men and women, who, until then, had run between 15 and 30 miles a week while wearing normal running shoes. She sent them to Dr. Brown for baseline M.R.I. scans of their feet and lower legs to check for any injuries or problems. Those who believe in barefoot running often point out that humans ran and walked without shoes for millenniums before footwear was invented. They argue that being unshod is normal for humans and should reverse past injuries related to modern running shoes and prevent future ones. But anecdotal evidence, including from physicians who treat runners, indicates that some people who take up barefoot running develop entirely new aches and injuries. Dr. Ridge’s volunteers all started the study with normal feet and lower legs, according to their M.R.I. scans, which were read by multiple radiologists. Half of the group members were randomly assigned to continue running as they had: same mileage, same shoes. The other runners were given a pair of Vibram Five Fingers barefoot-style shoes and asked to begin incorporating some barefoot-like mileage into their runs, but gradually. They were told to wear the minimalist shoes for one mile during the first week of the study, two miles the second, three the third, and then as much as they liked, which is what the Vibram Web site recommended at the time of the 2011 study. After 10 weeks, both groups of runners received a follow-up M.R.I. There was no evidence of injuries to or changes in the tissues of the lower leg, like the Achilles’ tendon, in any of the runners. But more than half of the runners wearing the minimalist shoes now showed early signs of bone injuries in their feet. Specifically, most had developed bone marrow edema, an accumulation of fluid, similar to what happens during bruising, in their foot bones. The radiologists graded the edema on a scale of 0 to 4, with 0 representing no edema and 1 the slight bone damage caused by simply moving around on and loading the foot. This amount of edema is considered healthy, a sign that the bone is responding to training and growing stronger. Most of the runners in HEALTHY HABITS… Barefoot Running Can Cause Injuries, Too the control group, who were wearing their normal shoes, had edema levels of 1 throughout their feet. But a majority of the runners in the minimalist-shoe group had developed at least a level 2 edema, “which indicates early bone injury,” Dr. Ridge said, and three had signs of more-extensive level 3 bone edema, “which constitutes an actual injury.” Two even had full stress fractures or level 4 edema, one in her heel bone and one in his metatarsal, one of the long foot bones. Almost all of the runners in the minimalist shoe group were spontaneously running fewer miles at the end of the 10 weeks than they had been at the start, “probably,” Dr. Ridge said, “because their feet hurt.” Why some of the barefootstyle runners developed serious foot problems and others did not is not yet clear, but Dr. Ridge is now analyzing additional data about the volunteers, which includes information about each runner’s mileage, running form, body weight and other variables. “What we hope to see is whether there are some runners who, because of their biomechanics or other factors” seem to be particularly predisposed to foot injuries during the transition to barefoot-style running and “perhaps shouldn’t” make the switch at all from normal running shoes, she said. She hopes to have findings ready to publish by this summer. The results don’t mean that everyone who chooses to switch to minimal or no footwear will court foot injury, Dr. Ridge said. “But I would tell anyone who wants to try” kicking off their normal shoes, “to be extremely cautious during the transition period.” In her study, substituting a mere mile per week of normal running at the start with one in minimal shoes “was probably too much,” she says. So go slow. Barefoot-style running may have been natural for our ancestors, Dr. Ridge points out, but it’s a new experience for most of our feet. www.nytimes.com 15
Page 1 and 2: The Official Publication of the USP
Page 3 and 4: Committee Chairpersons Awards Ron W
Page 5 and 6: Beat the summer heat by floating th
Page 7 and 8: 2013 Southwest Buying Show The 2013
Page 9 and 10: Pro of the Year Joe Dinoffer Texas
Page 11: ADULT LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS The 2013
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