Q&A: Saki Oyama, UTSA Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition

(April 26, 2018) – Saki Oyama, an assistant professor of kinesiology in the UTSA College of Education and Human Development, is conducting innovative research about athletic injuries in youth and adolescents in her Applied Biomechanics Research Laboratory on the Main Campus.

Oyama, who is a nationally certified athletic trainer, became interested in studying athletic injuries in young athletes after she sustained injuries while playing sports in high school.

Oyama told us about her current research and how she’s working with UTSA students to prepare them to become clinicians.

Can you talk about your research and the project that excites you most?

My main research interest is the analysis of pitching motion and how it relates to the shoulder and elbow injuries commonly seen in youth and adolescent baseball pitchers. One of my current projects involves studying how the group of muscles that control the hip/trunk motion affect pitchers’ throwing motion and the stress on the shoulder and elbow joints. While the shoulder and elbow are where the most of the injuries in baseball pitchers occur, we now believe that the way pitchers use their legs, hips and trunk to transfer the momentum to the arm has a lot to do with how much stress is being put on the joints, and therefore the risk of injury.

I am also working on a project to study how pitchers’ throwing motions change as they start to get fatigued from repetitive pitching. I am interested in seeing how and when the throwing motion changes, and developing an objective way to detect when the pitchers are getting tired so that we can help prevent injuries that result from overuse.

What impact do you hope your research has?

My hope is that my research would help reduce the number of youth and adolescents who must sit out or retire from sports from nagging injuries. Sports participation is a part of an important early life experience that improves health and fitness, provides an opportunity to socialize and learn various life skills. It would be a shame for kids to miss out on these opportunities because of injuries.

What is the most important thing going on in your field that no one is talking about?

One of the hot topics in my field of athletic training is the potential harm of athletes specializing in a single sport too early. This is particularly interesting because it raises a caution against an anecdotal trend that young athletes are specializing in one sport at younger and younger ages.

Studies have shown that youth and adolescents who are highly specialized in one sport (i.e. trains in one sport for more than eight months out of the year) are more likely to sustain hip and knee injuries. Also, another study reported that NBA players who only played basketball as an adolescent were more likely to have a major injury during their professional career compared to the players who were multi-sports athletes. These studies suggest the benefit of participating in a variety of sports in preventing overuse injuries.

How has your personal journey influenced your work?

I started out as a clinical certified athletic trainer to help college athletes from getting injured and recover from injuries. I sustained multiple ankle sprains in high school playing sports and that got me interested in sports injuries. Even after changing my career from being a clinician to becoming a researcher and teacher, my interest and passion has not changed. Instead of working directly with athletes, I conduct research that I hope will improve the way coaches and clinicians treat athletes and teach courses that help students become excellent clinicians one day.

What do you think makes your department in COEHD unique?

The Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition is made up of faculty from three separate areas that work for the common goal of improving people’s quality of life. The faculty in kinesiology study various factors that affect how we move our body and the body’s response to exercise. Keeping our bodies healthy through exercise and being able to perform skills that are necessary in our day-to-day life and in recreational activities that bring enjoyment improves quality of life. Our health faculty study lifestyle choices, behavior that affects various aspects of health and how to promote good health behavior to prevent certain diseases that are strongly tied to the way we live. The nutrition faculty study how we prepare and consume food and how nutrients affect our body and risk of diseases. Taking good care of the body and reducing the risk of preventable diseases allows us not only to live longer but also better lives. Because of the common goal that we have, I see many faculty collaborating with each other on research projects.    

What advice do you usually give to your students?

When I was going through an undergraduate program, my goal was to become a certified athletic trainer. Having that goal helped me stay focused on my coursework and seek out opportunities that would help me achieve the goal. Based on this experience, I advise my students to have a goal in sight and structure their educational experience around it. Having a goal helps us see the small steps we need to take to get to that goal. I think this is very important for my students because college education can be overwhelming at times. I also think that having a goal will help them appreciate the importance of what they learn in class, which makes it fun and easier to learn and retain the course material.

— Kara Soria

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