WOMEN’S FLAT TRACK ROLLER DERBY MAGAZINE ISSUE 19, SPRING 2013
proud partner of the WFTDA
fiveonfivemag.com
fiveonfive contents 34-35
4-5 advice
ask ms d’fiant and suzy hotrod!
WFTDA Shelly Shankya provides an in-depth explanation of WFTDA’s new Division playoff structure.
6-7 business running a functioning organization
8-15 health and fitness
16-23 games and coaching
Bob Ayers
derby super foods low back pain and derby yoga for derby girls
42-45 Deaf skaters
goal setting stats
The Border City Brawlers and Deaf skater Stormy share their experience growing together and learning to communicate.
26-32 gear 36-39 junior derby the next generation littles
Jules Doyle
knee pads check your gear
48-49 Traveling Light For Derby
40-41 rookie letter to my newbie self
50 international derby 52-58 art and media 63 classifieds
Traveling for derby presents its own set of unique problems. What should you take? What should you leave behind? Ivanna S. Pankin lays it all out for us.
health and fitness
low back pain and derby D R J, S I O U X FA L L S R O L L E R D O L L Z
I think every skater will experience low back pain at some point in her skating career. The crouched position alone is stressful on your spine. When you add to that the twisting involved in keeping an eye on what’s going on behind you, the shoving, and the falling, low back pain becomes pretty much ubiquitous for the skater. But – you can help yourself in minimizing the impact of low back pain on your skating career. So let’s talk about keeping your low back healthy for skating and some strategies to prevent low back injuries. Core strength is critical, people! Get those abdominal muscles and back muscles strengthened. Good core strength will also make you more stable on your skates and helps to prevent low back injuries. Some good core strengthening exercises are side planks and front planks. Basically, to do these you are contracting ab and core muscles to lift your trunk from the mat. The lat pull down machine is your friend, too. It works the latissimus dorsi muscle, which is a very large muscle that traverses from your upper arms all the way down to your low back. Modified sit-ups are good, too. One version has you bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor. Cross your arms over your chest and contract your abs and come up a ways from the mat with your head and shoulders keeping those abs tightened. Talk with a personal trainer at your gym to check your technique to help avoid injury and improve your routine. So you have figured out a strengthening program for your core. What is next? Stretching exercises are helpful too. Most skaters know to stretch before they skate. Most skaters though do not cool down and stretch after a skate. Doing lighter intensity exercise for a bit after a hard workout allows blood that has been pumping hard to your legs to redistribute, and a stretch after a workout helps muscles reset to normal activity. Skaters
should think about adding a cool down and after stretch to the usual workout and drills. Strengthening and stretching are a huge start to being a healthier skater. To be a really healthy skater, you need to be a healthy person. Athletes who have poor general conditioning get fatigued faster. They make errors in the basic biomechanics of doing sports activities. And then they get hurt! You cannot condition for derby only by strapping on skates and doing drills at the track. You must go to the gym separately to do general conditioning to be in optimal shape for derby. The better your general conditioning is, including your cardiovascular conditioning, the better skater you will be and the less likely to get yourself injured. So how do you get conditioned? A good goal for conditioning is to do 150 minutes or more of moderate activity per week. You could get there with 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise 5 days a week. Running, swimming, elliptical – all will get the job done. 50-85% of your heart maximal rate is a reasonable training zone – it is never a bad idea to consult with a personal trainer to help coordinate a program that will work and that you enjoy! Start at the low end and advance slowly. To calculate your maximal heart rate take 220 minus your age and multiply that by .50 and then by .85 – that will give you your maximal heart rate range. Conditioning for derby is like everything else in derby-you need to start with basics and keep adding. As your conditioning improves, you can do more intense exercise. Start slow and add to your conditioning program gradually to see your best results and to avoid injury. And of course, any skater with a significant past medical history, including asthma, should touch base with their primary care physician about optimal ways to train and exercise their heart. Another important topic in avoiding low back pain is smoking cessation. Smoking is generally terrible for your health and terrible for your skating. Think about it as a habit that is
Core strength is critical, people! Get those abdominal muscles and back muscles strengthened. Good core strength will also make you more stable on your skates and helps to prevent low back injuries.
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nocklebeast
bad for your heart and your lungs. Smoking also makes back pain worse. Back pain has been associated with smoking in medical literature and it seems generally wise to discontinue this bad habit to prolong your skating career. The above are some general thoughts on avoiding low back pain. What about if you have low back pain? What are some simple home treatments you can try? Ice helps many people with low back pain. Don’t put ice directly on your skin though. Some people do better with heat, however, make sure not to go sleep with a heating pad on. The over-the-counter medications, such as acetaminophen, can be helpful. Follow directions and don’t mix medications together or with alcohol. Let your doctor know what you are taking. Not all low back pain is the same. Some people really need to see a doctor to get the treatment they need. If every single time you skate, you have low back pain, you need to see a doctor. If you have low back pain and any burning when you urinate, you need to see a doctor to be sure you don’t have a kidney infection. Any skater with severe back pain or low back pain after direct trauma needs to see a medical doctor. Any
skater with low back pain and fever or a rash needs to see a doctor. Any skater with low back pain and pain or numbness down her leg needs to see a doctor. If your leg feels weak or you have abdominal pains – go see your doctor. Any skater whose low back pain is not resolving a day or two after a skate needs to see a doctor. Any skater with low back pain and loss of control of bowel or bladder function needs to see a doctor emergently. Like we said earlier in this article, low back pain prevention is the key. Who wants to lose time from the greatest sport ever? Be a smart and healthy skater. If you smoke, quit. Improve your cardiovascular fitness to increase your endurance for skating and decrease your risk of injury. Warm up and cool down. If you are injured or in pain, get yourself medical help. That way, you will stay on track and on your skates. This article is intended to provide general medical information for educational purposes and does not provide professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is not intended to be and should not be used as a substitute for informed medical advice from a health care professional. Please consult your personal health care practitioner with any questions you may have about a particular medical condition or treatment plan.
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gear
6. Check your bearings. If they roll slowly, stop rolling right away, or you can hear or feel debris, clean or replace them. If after cleaning your bearings, you still have a bad one and no time to replace it, you can move that bearing to your shittiest wheel and rotate that out of your high-wear spots on your skates (until you have time to get new ones). 7. Check your wheels. Right – this is a good time to rotate them, so that your most worn wheels end up in the places you use the least, and the ones with the least wear end up in the spots you really use – for most of us who learned to skate for derby, the wear spots are going to be the front left (inside) wheel of both skates, where you dig to make those left turns. The wheels you use least are likely to be the exact opposite, back rights. If you do a lot of hockey stop or single-foot plows, skate outside, or wear soft wheels, you might notice coning on some wheels. Rotating is often still fine until it gets so misshapen that you can tell when you’re skating, in my opinion. Hand-tighten the nuts when you replace your wheels, until you get to the nylon on the nut – then use a tool to finish tightening. If you can hand-tighten past the nylon ring, that nut is FINISHED. Replace it now, rather than after your wheel comes flying off during a jam. 8. Check your laces. It may sound stupid, but would you rather change the almost shredded one now or let it break and flap around tangling in your wheels during a jam? bench check The fast check over is especially important for multi-game tournaments, which can take a toll even on parts that were fine last week. You can do this 30-second check on your bench right before the game – ideally right before warm ups start, so you have time to deal with problems. Check for movement and tighten, if needed: - toe stops - axle nuts (that hold wheels on) - mounting nuts (that hold plate to boot) - kingpin nuts, both top and bottom
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Check your trucks again for cracks and stress fractures (especially the rings around the bushings) carry in your bag 1. An extra toe stop 2. Extra axle nuts 3. An extra truck 4. Tools that fit YOUR skates/plates 5. Extra laces Jason Ruffell 6. A Spare Favorite Wheel 7. Optional but great: extra pivot cups / bushings. Okay, you’re probably not going to have that, but don’t worry, we do. If you’re the type to check your skates before a game, you may not need to carry any of that stuff for yourself. But believe me, the gear always comes in handy, and your best jammer (you know, that one who freaks out if her gear is even slightly different than usual) is sure to blow out a stop or break a truck when you really need her on the track. I carry an entire set of super grippy Sugars just so my jammers can borrow them at away games. Of all the stuff listed, an extra truck and tools that fit your plates is DEFINITELY the most important, especially if you have an unusual setup, or one of the plate models that suffers relatively routine truck failure. None of it takes much room in your bag, and you will be SO happy to have it when you need it. I am a pessimist, so I also carry spare helmet panties and my uniform in my skate bag for away games, just in case the airline loses my luggage. You never know. Want more? • You can find a lot more detailed advice here: sincityskates.com/blog.aspx • This diagram may help you identify parts of your skates: sincityskates.com/images/downloads/sincity_anatomy_of_a_skate.pdf • The second page of the link above is an easy how-to for bearing cleaning. A more detailed set of instructions for bearing and wheel cleaning and rotation can be found here: sincityskates.com/images/downloads/sincity_cleaning_bearings_and_wheels.pdf
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