Eastern Michigan football at forefront of concussion prevention through neck strengthening
The Eastern Michigan football program is at the forefront of a new effort to decrease concussions by strengthening players’ necks.
Eastern Michigan head coach Ron English with his team before the Illinois State game.
Joseph Tobianski | AnnArbor.com
Research has suggested that increased neck strength can lead to fewer instances of concussions, and data at EMU seems to bear that out. The Eagles had 55 “occurrences of neck trauma” in 2010, and only 35 last year. The team suffered three concussions in 2011.
EMU’s program has been in conjunction with Mike Gittleson, who spent 30 years as the strength and conditioning coach at the University of Michigan and is now a strong proponent of increasing neck strength to decrease concussions.
Gittleson calls EMU’s neck-strengthening program "the one program in America that you can really embrace."
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Mon, Oct 1, 2012 : 12:48 a.m.
Just slightly off topic but Eastern did a poor job of scheduling. Michigan has their bye week so EMU could have the local spotlight to themselves. Instead, they too have a bye week. Michigan's bye week would be the perfect opportunity to bring in a 'bigger' opponent to EMU like their home-and-home with MSU.
cmadler
Wed, Oct 3, 2012 : 4:38 a.m.
EMU -- in fact, most schools -- only control their non-conference schedule. After that part of the schedule is set, the conference (in this case, the MAC) fills in the rest of the games and the bye week. So yes, it would have been nice, but that failure is on the Mid-American Conference, not EMU.
greg, too
Mon, Oct 1, 2012 : 1:11 a.m.
Th spotlight might be the last thing English wants for this team...strong necks and all.
djacks24
Sun, Sep 30, 2012 : 11:02 p.m.
That's great news. Now they just have to figure out how to win games.