For the Love of Health

Weekend Warriors Watching the World Stage with Dr. Elizabeth Barchi

• ChristianaCare • Season 3 • Episode 15

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0:00 | 16:40

The thrill of the Olympic Winter Games can make anyone believe a gold medal is just a weekend away. But before you start attempting those triple axels and backside rodeo 540s, make sure your body is ready.

ChristianaCare Sports Medicine specialist Dr. Elizabeth Barchi encourages us to stay active and try new things while channeling that Olympic spark into a smart path. Real progress starts with a simple mantra: start low and go slow. From the first wobbly steps on skates to a clean landing on a big jump, we break down why seemingly effortless performance is the final layer built on years of form, base fitness, and mental resilience.

Dr. Barchi also takes an honest look at injuries, explaining the most common weekend warrior issues—rotator cuff and elbow tendinitis, cranky knees—and how to prevent them with better mechanics, targeted strength, and realistic training loads. If you do get hurt, you’re not benched forever. We lay out the red flags that require urgent care, smart first steps like early icing, and the timeline to get evaluated so rehab can start quickly. We also discuss athlete longevity, and get practical about home safety—especially with kids—so the living room doesn’t turn into a highlight reel for the wrong reasons.

The big takeaway: joy fuels consistency, and consistency builds capacity. It’s never too late to pick up a new sport, protect your body, and get better fast by mastering the basics.

Elizabeth Barchi, M.D., is a sports medicine specialist who integrates a holistic approach into helping performance athletes. Dr. Barchi has an extensive history working with professional dancers. She regularly speaks to national media on ways that people can reduce their risk, and more effectively recover, from sports injuries.


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Welcome And Olympic Spark

SPEAKER_00

Start low and take it slow. Start with a good foundation and slowly build on that.

Start Low, Build A Foundation

SPEAKER_02

You're listening to For the Love of Health, a podcast about delivering care and creating health, brought to you by Christiana Care. Hello everyone, I'm Jason Tekarski.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm Megan McGerman. Welcome to For the Love of Health, brought to you by Christiana Care.

SPEAKER_02

It is Winter Olympics time again, and we know that you're sitting there on your couch with your bag of chips saying, Hey, I could do that.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I'm personally not. I don't trust that I could do any of it, but I think a lot of people at home might be thinking, I could be the next gold medal bobsledder, maybe some cross-country skiing.

SPEAKER_02

Or curling, maybe your speed.

SPEAKER_01

Curling seems less risky. Curling, we could do curling. Regardless of which sport you have your eye on, or if you're just a regular outdoor weekend warrior, we've brought in sports medicine specialist Dr. Elizabeth Barchie to help you achieve your sports dreams. Elizabeth, thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, so we are recording this about halfway through the Olympic Games. The episode will air closer to the weekend of the closing ceremonies. What is your message to kick off this conversation to those who have been watching every night thinking I could bobsled, I could ski down very scary mountains. And I may have never done it before, but how hard could it be?

SPEAKER_00

I'm very impressed with the bravery of some people who would hurl themselves down a mountain. And I say, more power to you. Most important thing to remember though is that all of these athletes, they started small. So the best figure skaters, they started just learning how to stand up in skates on the ice. They didn't start doing quadruple axles. The best skiers just learned how to stand up on skis and go forward instead of falling down. Day after day, what they did was they built on that foundation, that basic foundation, and they built those skills slowly over the course of, for some people, decades. And so if you're starting something new, I think that's amazing. I definitely encourage my patients to try new things, to keep an active lifestyle. But the biggest thing that we talk about is making sure you start small, start foundational, and really pay attention to your form and pay attention to your technique. And that's how you're gonna keep yourself safe. That's also how you're going to get to be really good at whatever new sport or activity you want to try. That's how you're gonna get really good a lot faster than trying to rush through and get to the end product.

SPEAKER_02

As Megan said, to begin with, here we're looking at it and saying, Well, I can certainly do that. And there's a little bit of the, oh, I'm suddenly an expert on this. Look, I can do a triple axle, whatever. It's that was not so good. I know what a good one is now. Let's look at what you just said from that perspective and from your sports medicine background. Get into some of those specifics about the skills and the training that these people are going through that makes it much harder than it looks to us when we're watching it on TV.

Age, Longevity, And Mental Grit

SPEAKER_00

That's because making it look easy is the hardest part and it's the last thing that comes. And so take something like a quadruple axle to make that look effortless takes an immense amount of power and strength off of your supporting leg. Because if you try to jump up in the air as high as possible, what happens? You raise your shoulders, you make a funny face, and a lot of things make you look like you're really putting in a lot of effort. And so that's the most important thing to remember is that these athletes are training so hard just to make it look effortless. That's the final step in when they have achieved mastery. The other thing to remember is that they're spending hours and hours a day, day in, day out, week after week, through illness, through injury, through setbacks, through losses. They just keep going. It's a way of life for them. And they built that very slowly. And so that's why they can make it look effortless under pressure, because they've done so much work to work on their nerves and their self to be able to perform under pressure. I don't know if you've been paying attention to the ages of these athletes. My husband points this out to me to make me feel better. Uh, he's a great husband. But if you've been looking at the ages, there's a lot of athletes in their 30s and 40s who are dominating many different disciplines.

SPEAKER_02

And not just curling now.

SPEAKER_00

Not just curling, right? Not just curling, not just ice dancing, but we're and not just the endurance sports. We see that a lot with endurance sports, is as you get older, you actually are able to build on those adaptations. And we're starting to see it takes time to build those adaptations. But even things like the half pipe. We've got 30-year-olds holding their own up there, and it's great. And so, you know, when with those athletes, what's really special about them is that they have children, they have lives, they have families and responsibilities outside of their training. So they have so much mental toughness and mental grit to be able to get through those questions of what am I doing anymore? What am I doing with my life? Why am I still here? I could be home with my family, I could be doing any other thing besides this. And yet here I am continuing to go. And they're balancing that, those questions with this drive and that realization that they only have so much time left in their sport. I think that's one of the things that probably drives people like Lindsay Vaughn to keep going. You know, she had a joint replacement and knee replacement at age 39. The average is in your ideally late 60s, early 70s at the earliest.

SPEAKER_01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Because those implants sometimes they don't last as long. They only last maybe 20 years. And so, you know, if you get it really young, she's gonna have to have another one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, speaking of Lindsay Vaughn will transition into injuries, a devastating injury for Lindsay, so many other athletes, you know, Chloe Kim being injured leading up to the Olympics, still getting on the podium. In your professional opinion, so many injuries. Is that just to be expected?

SPEAKER_00

In some respects, yes, injuries go with the territory with sports. One thing to remember though is that these athletes are at the highest level and they are sacrificing themselves for a moment in time. So they have the Olympics, they have World Cup, they have one moment that they're willing to sacrifice their long-term health to be able to do at their best. That's not the rest of us. We have our lives to think about, and we have real responsibilities that we need our knees for, and our ribs and our shoulders, and they will live a life. You know, the denouma of their career will be marked by physical therapy and surgeries and injections and just general stiffness from old injuries, and that's gonna, they're going to carry that forward. And that's a sacrifice that they're willing to make. For the average person like you and me, I would not recommend those sacrifices. I would recommend focusing on joy in fitness and movement. Motion is lotion for the joints, and so whatever makes you happy is going to help keep you healthy.

Common Weekend Warrior Injuries

SPEAKER_01

What are the most common injuries you're seeing at your practice?

SPEAKER_00

I typically see weekend warrior type injuries. So we're all very busy, and a lot of my patients are trying to do the best they can to stay active, and that's amazing. But what that means is sometimes they don't always have the foundation of the fitness to do what they need to do, but they're trying to do over the weekend. And so I see a lot of overuse. So things like rotator cuff tendinitis, elbow tendinitis, knee tendinitis, or just plain knee flares if they have a little bit of early degeneration starting, that can flare similar to biting your lip. Um, and so they simply, it's really more of they just overdo it. They see the line in the rear view mirror, and then they call me.

Train Through Injury Safely

SPEAKER_02

As we can tell by the Lindsey Vunt and Chloe Kim's, even these people who have been going through all the proper training and foundation are sometimes still getting hurt. It's just the way that it goes. So let's say you're going down that path, you're training for something, maybe a 5K, and you do still manage to get hurt. Are you done until it heals? Or what can you do to keep that process going while you're letting that injury heal?

SPEAKER_00

This is a great question. I actually, with all athletes, I try never to pull them completely from their sport. I try to keep them doing something. So take your patient who got injured, say they got a tendonitis in their knee and they're training for a 5K. That's fine. We'll have them in physical therapy, working on strengthening, working on form. For the cardio fitness, we're gonna figure out what cardio doesn't hurt that knee. It might be swimming, it might be rowing, it might be the elliptical. We'll do something. The reason why is once you get into the habit of exercise, it's easy. You know, you keep going, it's part of your lifestyle. Once you break that habit, it is so hard to get started again. It's really difficult to rebuild those habits, especially the ones that take a lot of effort, especially when you just don't feel like it, like during the winter months when it's cold and it's dark and you're tired. So as much as possible, we try to keep our athletes, whether they're professional, amateur, or recreational, or they just started exercising because somebody told them that motion is lotion for the joints. We try to keep them moving in some way consistently so that they can maintain that habit and continue that active lifestyle.

First Aid And When To Seek Care

SPEAKER_02

All right. So we've been focusing on what to do in advance to make sure that you don't hurt yourself, that you get that foundation that you need to be able to do those activities that you're looking forward to. Let's say you didn't pay attention to that as well as you should have, and now you've got a little something that you're gonna have to deal with, or you know that that's probably your way. Maybe you're a little klutzy, you're not the most balanced. What should you be doing to make sure that you don't end up in the blooper reels that people are coming across on Instagram? Or what what do you need to do after the fact? What's the best way to deal with that sore knee or that sore elbow from that overuse?

SPEAKER_00

Well, to begin with, maybe not film it. Valid. You can't be a blooper reel if no one knows it happened. If no one knows it happened.

SPEAKER_02

Unless that's your goal. I mean, we're not judging. We're not judging.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if it is, then that would be very helpful for me because you can show me the video of the injury and that'll help me understand what happened.

SPEAKER_02

That's much easier to do the diagnosis and the help.

SPEAKER_01

If you're doing a backyard bobsled this weekend, set up the camera just in case. Just in case. And then afterwards, give me a call.

Kid Play, Home Safety Tips

SPEAKER_00

We'll take a look at the, you know, post footage. Yeah. But all jokes aside, common sense is really important. Look at your surroundings. Make sure when you do go bobsledding in your backyard, you're not going to run into a pond or a fence or something where you can get seriously injured. Making sure that uh if you do happen to get injured, if it's something serious where you can't walk afterwards, you're going to need to go to an urgent care to get x-rays right away. If nobody is around to drive you, please call 911. Don't try to drive yourself. Just get yourself somewhere where you can get immediately evaluated. If you don't have a bone sticking out of your leg and you can walk, albeit sorely, then the next best thing is to start with icing the injury immediately. Ice it for about 20 minutes immediately after injury, and then give our office a call and we'll get you in as soon as possible so that we can get x-rays. Ideally, we're getting you in within a week because the earlier we start on the rehabilitation, the sooner we can get you back to your next Olympic sport. The other thing that you can do is uh you can always take some anti-inflammatories if you're able to. If you don't have any uh medical conditions that prohibit taking anti-inflammatories, you can take that too. But most importantly, immediately start icing and then give us a call.

SPEAKER_01

What about people who have kids and you decide you want to do ice hockey in your living room? How do you make that safe? What is kind of your recommendation for making sure you don't end up with a child with a broken arm, leg, etc.?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, that's part of childhood, I think. Do your best, look at the surroundings, make sure nobody's jumping off huge ledges or anything like uh get sharp uh corners, like coffee table corners, clear those out of the way, make sure everything's soft so that if it, you know, you do fall, which happens, that you're not hitting your head, hitting your eye. And then just try to keep everyone from getting a little too carried away, which good luck with that one. But as best as you can, keep it, keep everyone focused on the goal, the game, rather than getting silly and getting into look what I can do, or let me go tackle you now.

SPEAKER_02

Which is a bit of a problem if what you're going for is the bobsled, so you're in the laundry basket going down the stairs.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, no laundry baskets on the stairs. Elizabeth says no, Jason.

SPEAKER_02

Please.

SPEAKER_00

Those injuries could be uh can be gnarly because first you have the concussion and then you have the neck injury. And the the two of them, they like to uh instigate each other.

Spring Goals And Final Advice

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Elizabeth, obviously the Olympic Games are wrapping up, but it will be spring soon and then summer, and we run into all of the sports that everyone will be working on. So, what is your closing message to those weekend warriors about what they should be focusing on now?

SPEAKER_00

Keep moving. Don't give up. You can continue to be active even as you're getting older. You can continue to try new sports and learn new things. Make sure that you're building a foundation of fitness. So focus on getting your cardio in, whether that's elliptical, biking, swimming, walking, make sure you have some sort of cardiovascular foundation to your new endeavor. Make sure you're focusing on form. Make sure you're getting that strength training in. So, say if you're playing a racket sport, that you have the upper body strength so that not everything is going straight to your poor little elbow. And make sure that you're working with someone who can look at your form and say, hey, you're diving for that ball in a really strange way, or your knees going sideways as you're stepping down. You might not want to think about that. Because, and if you're concerned, you can always give us a call. We can always do, you know, see you, have you work with a physical therapist to be able to improve upon your form so that you don't actually end up getting injured and you're able to build your technique over time and be really successful in whatever new sport activity you feel like doing. It's never too late to start. We have people who will start point work at age 70, they'll pick up running. They can do anything. You can do anything that you set your mind to. Just start low and take it slow. Start with a good foundation and slowly build on that. Remember, all of these athletes have been working their entire lives for these moments. And for some people, that's decades. And so we're no different from that. And so it'll take time.

Closing And Resources

SPEAKER_01

Elizabeth, thank you so much for all of your insight. I personally am very terrified of pretty much every Winter Olympic sport, so I will not be doing it. Jason, a reminder: no bob sliding down your stairs in your laundry basket this weekend. Or maybe you'll be Elizabeth's new patient. We will get back to you. We'll report back. Yes, we do. Thank you so much. Absolutely my pleasure. Check out the show notes for this episode for more information on Christiana Care Sports Medicine.

SPEAKER_02

You can always follow for the love of health on your favorite social media platform. Just search for Christiana Care.

SPEAKER_01

We'll be back in two weeks with another great conversation.

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Until then, thanks again for joining us for The Love of Health.

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Megan McGuriman

Co-host