Tag Archive: injury

1. How can I stop my child getting injured?

   10th July 2016 11:50 am Leave a Comment

   “Injured young athletes are older, spend more time in organized sports, and specialize too early”

   

   Could this be prevented?

   The evidence is quite stark if your child is spending too much time in organised activity rather than free play, if they have specialised in one sport and if they have gone through their growth spurt, then they are more likely to get injured (1).

   • 34% of middle school sports participants get injured each year with an estimated medical bill of $2billion (5).
     
   • Talented (or early developing) children get asked to play more sport and therefore have higher injury risk (2).
   • The cumulative workload increases injury risk e.g. Cricketers who do more than 75 throws a week (3).
   • Early specialisation in one sport leads to an increase in injury risk (4).
   • Young athletes participating in more sports hrs/wk than their age  and participating in>2 times organized sports:free play are more likely to have a serious overuse injury (1).
   • Injury risk increases in teenage girls from 12-13 years old and teenage boys from 14-15 years old: at their growth spurts (6).

   Injury Prevention is always better than cure

   Why wait until your player is injured? I prefer to have healthy athletes available all year round.

   A 2 pronged approach is necessary to greatly reduce the risk of your child or player getting injured.

   1. Plan your schedule of training and competing. Include free play time.
   2. Implement a strength/ co-ordination exercise regime and stick to it.

   Planning: The best place to start is to look at the next 4 weeks. Use this free 4 weekly planner to help. Put in all the school p.e., games and matches, then club training and matches, plus other activities.

   You will probably see a lot of competing and travel, with very few rest days, and little planned physical preparation: running, speed or strength work.

   How much free play does your child do? That is “jumpers for goal posts” mucking about with friends in the local park or school playground? None? Then they are at greater risk of injury!

   Decisions will have to be made about what is a priority, what is “need to do” rather than “nice to do”. If you are playing more than one age group of a sport, then you should consider dropping the lower one.

   Coaches should look at the overall workload that their best players are undergoing: it is unsustainable! Can you afford to lose your best player mid-season?

   Strength/co-ordination training: It is the ability to control your own body throughout the match and the season that is the key to avoid getting injured. Your exercise programme has to be specific for young athletes: time spent on crosstrainers, exercise bikes and lying down on a bench is time wasted.

   They need to lunge, squat, brace, rotate, push and pull: in combination with braking, landing, jumping and moving from 2 legs to 1 leg, up, down and side to side.

   I get athletes to implement daily routines, at first only 5 minutes, then building up from there. This summer I have designed specific warm up routines for team sports players based on the recent research and my experience.

   Members of the Athletic Development Club have all been given my newly designed protocol cards to help them through the season.

   

   Leg strengthening work

   The 11-12 minute warm ups contains all the movements necessary to help reduce the likelihood of injury, as well as improve their sporting performance. If done before every training session and match, the cumulative positive effect will be huge.

   Coaches and teachers need to take responsibility

   “Quality does not just happen. People who believe so, are people who trust in miracles to make their way through life.  Quality excellence is an outcome of preparation and relentless practice. It is surely a given then, that there is time set aside routinely for this.” Frank Dick, Winning Matters.

   

   Resisted running drills

   I often hear coaches and teachers bemoan the fact that they are struggling to field a team by December due to injuries.  Are they still practicing warm up routines that are ineffective and full of time fillers such as jogging, or encourage incorrect mechanics such as high knees and heel flicks?

   Do they have a strength programme that helps improve performance and prevent injury? Or do they just use generic exercises that require little co-ordination and involve a lot of sitting or lying down?

   A lot of coaches say they are doing the right thing, but how do they know?

   Badminton coach James Elkin, Volleyball coach Denise Austin and the Fencing coaches at the SWFencing Hub have shown a great Growth Mindset by looking at what we are doing with their athletes and then changing their practice.

   Summary

   

   Technical drills

   Injuries are far from things “that just happen“. Chronic pain is abnormal in teenagers, it can be prevented.

   Parents, look at how much physical preparation and free play your child is involved in compared to organised camps, travel and competing.

   Coaches and teachers either come to one of our strength and conditioning coaching courses or I can run a workshop for your staff that will help all your players and teams.

   Let’s work together to help produce healthy, happy and thriving young sportspeople.

   This video discussion with Brian McCormick gives more of an overview and guide for parents.

   References

   1. Br J Sports Med 2014 48: 611
   2. Br J Sports Med 2014;48:1265–1267.
   3. Br J Sports Med 2011;45:805–8.
   4. Br J Sports Med 2013;47:503–7.
   5. The Physician and Sportsmedicine 42(2): p146-153 (2014).
   6. Acta Orthop. 80(5) p563–567 (2009).

2. 10 Fitness Tips and Myths for Rugby: Simon Worsnop

   13th May 2014 8:55 am 11 Comments

   

   Top level rugby is a complex multi faceted sport.

   Rugby union has more individual position specific requirements than rugby league.

   At top level training will need to reflect this e.g. static strength and neck strength requirements in scrimmaging forwards that are not required to such an extent in rugby league. 

   Why have I said at “top level”? This is because this specific type of training should only be a small fraction of training time once a player has achieved basic fitness across a wide range of attributes.  

   Too much icing and not enough cake: players/coaches wanting the latest fancy programme/psychobabble/technology/diet etc before they have adequate rugby and fitness skills.

    The Top Ten Myths

   1. All singing all dancing circus programmes e.g. doing dumbbell curls whilst standing on a “sit fit” will NOT improve performance. Choose multi joint exercises and WORK HARD; this will make you strong. Work on your individual weaknesses using predominantly dumb bell and body weight exercises.
   2. Liberal use of the word “strong”. Field athletes are strong, weightlifters are strong; some elite rugby players are now becoming strong but many are NOT STRONG. A simple formula used by old timers for strength was 3,4,5 i.e. bench 300lb, squat 400lb, deadlift 500lb.
   3. Liberal uses of “world class” and “fit” etc see above.
   4. Lat machines are for people who are too fat to do pull ups.
   5. Excuses for poor physique e.g. “he’s young, he’s got puppy fat”- NO “he is FAT, probably caused by a combination of POOR DIET, LACK OF EXERCISE, WEAK WILLPOWER and POOR EDUCATION”
   6. There is nothing wrong with drinking lots of beer and eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, pork pies etc so long as you only want to watch sport and not participate.
   7. Moaning about being tired; players used to work for 8 hours down the pit catch a bus to training arrive back home at midnight and get up for the next shift at 6am!! 13 year old swimmers do 60 minute sessions at 5am!!  
   8. Wanting to run before we can walk, i.e. “can you do a minimum of 8 pull ups, 20 twenty press ups and 50 lunges plus 50 body weight squats and 30 crunches rest for a minute and repeat three times?” If not, why are asking for an advanced programme?
   9. Lack of general fitness; see point above plus can you overhead squat with a dowel, can you overhead lunge with a dowel, can you run at least 1300m in 5 minutes? If not you are OUT OF SHAPE in some form or another.
   10. “Off -feet conditioning”; this is often used as an excuse to avoid hard work. Players do not get fit for rugby on stationary bikes!!!

   Simon Worsnop is the Fitness Coach for the England Under-20s squad (Rugby Union)

   Read “How to take charge of your fitness training”

3. Summer reading list for Coaches

   8th August 2011 2:48 pm Leave a Comment

   What books are you reading this summer?

   What are you reading this summer? Is it a book, a journal or just stuff on the internet?

   Ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown on his recent trip to Africa encouraged African countries to expand their internet coverage. This is similar to a laptop to every pupil schemes by US philanthropists.

   However, giving kids or families a computer and internet access without them having an educational bent has not improved learning ability in the Western World. Low income and low education families use the internet for: porn or games depending on their age group.

   Giving pupils access to cheap or free books over the summer vacation actually increases educational achievement the next academic year. It prevents them for having dips in learning which can’t be made up. Other recent research states that having 20 books in the house is the number that differentiates later academic learning from early school leavers.

   One theory is that teach someone how to read and then give them a book and they become a “reader”. This is a different class of person from someone who doesn’t read. Reading allows you to access the thoughts of minds and experiences greater than your own and encourages ambition and further learning. Having a computer and internet connection allows you access to entertainment and information- that is different from an ability to learn.

   It is not about money- why not join your local library this summer and see what you can find?

   It seems to be the time to read more books, not sure whether that is due to rubbish tv, more people on holiday, or less email traffic. Here are some of mine.

   “How to help Children find the Champion within themselves”. David Hemery

   This is a great little book, easy to read, but with valuable insights into coaching young people. A must read for the enthusiastic parent, or coach of yongsters.

   It is broken down into sections for the parent and for the coach- how to do things at home as well as on the field. The cartoons throughout aid the process. Useful tips on the communication process.

   Beyond Winning: The timeless wisdom of great philosopher coaches. Gary Walton

   A biographical book of 6 great  (mostly American) coaches: Woody Hayes, John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, James “Doc” Counsilman, Brutus Hamilton and Percy Cerutty.

   The premise here is that these coaches added something more than just tactical and technical nouse to the field of coaching.The book has a chapter on each and a summary chapter of the essence of philosopher coaching.

   A useful book for more experienced coaches on how they are developing their practice.

   This isn’t a textbook: A somewhat intemperate look at sport, teaching, Coaching and life. Kelvin Giles

   A collection of thoughts, blogs and experiences from the past 20 years or so from this very experienced coach. Another easy read, although I made the mistake of taking it on holiday and kept reflecting on my own practices rather than relaxing. (Not to self, only take fiction and hisory books again).

   It is interspersed with good motivational quotes, that break up the reading. The format may not suit a beginner, as there is no progression. I found it useful as I could relate to a lot of it. It does offer some training principles and reinforces the need for movement efficency before metabolic conditioning.

   “Don’t let the music die within you.” Wayne Bennett

   I read the updated version by this great rugby league coach. It has insights into how he deals with the media, young players, loyalty and leadership. The writing is quite simplistic (maybe aimed at rugby league players) and is pleasant enough, but not ground breaking.

   The chapter on “duty of care” is recently added and very relevant to today.

   One for the fans maybe, or perhaps I have just read a lot of these types of books.

    Have you got any favourites you could recommend?

4. Injury Prevention in the gym: Roy Headey

   6th March 2010 12:01 pm Leave a Comment

   

   Do any of the following rugby-related comments sound familiar?

   • “There’s a gym culture in rugby that produces ‘gym monkeys’ and that’s what’s spoiling the game”
   • “Nowadays, players spend too much time in the gym and not enough time practicing skills”
   • “They’re supposed to be rugby players, not weight-lifters” 
   • “Weight training is dangerous for young players”

   All of these are gross oversimplifications and in the last case, plain wrong.

   Elite players certainly spend more time in the gym now than they did in the past.  But their training is more than simply about getting “bigger” (hypertrophy).  An over-emphasis on size alone can result in players who are bigger, but often fatter and slower too; they’re not much use for a dynamic game like rugby.

   It’s also true that a bigger guy moving fast will exert more force in a collision than a smaller one moving at the same speed, but better conditioning and specific strength training can help players of all shapes and sizes to protect themselves against injuries.

   A lot of work players do in the gym nowadays is actually improving their resistance to injury, so spending time in the gym doing the right things can have a beneficial effect.

   That being said, things can go wrong in the gym if players aren’t following well-designed programmes.

   Generating a muscle imbalance through poor training is a one example.  Muscles work in a complimentary fashion around joints; if there’s an imbalance in the way those muscles interact, one or more of the major muscles can exert extreme forces on a joint that is less able to protect itself.

   For example, if a player does a lot of bench press work but not enough complimentary pulling and shoulder stability training, he can create instability in the shoulders that dramatically increases his predisposition to shoulder injuries.

   So that’s definitely the sort of gym culture and gym monkey we don’t want to encourage.  Information is also available about strength and conditioning coaching certificates, designed to provide accessible, practical training for sports coaches in the specifics of fitness development.

   Roy Headey: RFU Head of Sports Science

   Read more

   • 10 fitness tips and myths of rugby fitness training 
   • Strength and power developments in rugby over the last 10 years

   (more…)