Tag Archive: injury prevention

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. Shoulder pain- how to get it better

   11th March 2015 10:28 am 1 Comment

   In response to Tommy’s question about persistent shoulder pain.
   If you have shoulder pain, then there are a few things you need to do:

   Diagnosis- what is actually wrong with it? Going to the GP and being told to rest and given some anti inflammatories may work in the immediate future, but not necessarily in the long term.

   Similarly if you have a serious tear or rupture, then doing any exercise will make it worse- so you need to understand how severe it is first. Book in for a Physiotherapy (based in Willand, Cullompton) appointment to get the correct diagnosis.

   Do not participate in sport until you are pain free.

   The Rehabilitation process

   Start to work on low level movement and control exercises. This includes extended press ups either against the wall or on the floor, shoulder rolls, shrugs, and protraction exercises.

   Isometric contractions are also useful in strengthening a specific weak point under control. So for a thrower/ striker/ racquet sport player, that might mean getting into your sport stance close to a wall and then pushing against that wall for 3-5 seconds quite hard. Rest for 10 seconds, then repeat 3-5 times. See how that react the next day and then you can increase that.

   If you have chronic shoulder pain, then it may mean you have to do these exercises on a daily basis as a preventative tool. (The same applies to chronic low back pain). Five minutes a day, every day will help stabilise that joint.
   From there you can start to add in multi joint exercises that use the shoulder in more functional ways- dips, press ups (lots of variety here), pull ups, dumbbell presses, and throwing lighter implements for short distances.

   Remember: Diagnose, move, stabilise, strengthen, function and consistency.

   However, this does not apply to healthy athletes- if it ain’t broke- don’t fix it.

   Instead try this series of healthy shoulder exercises to keep things working.

3. NFL Draft and the combine

   10th December 2014 9:18 am Leave a Comment

   Does the NFL combine predict future playing performance?

   The NFL draft happens later this month- for geeks like me it is quite exciting to see who the Green Bay Packers recruit.

   As a coach it is amazing to see how much emphasis is put on the combine results and the fitness scores that happen there.

   The furore around the NFL combine bench press record is an example. Physical tools can be trained and developed, Players who are winners and make great plays under pressure at college level are harder to find. I know who I would rather have in my team.

   There is a lot of money to be made from camps and workshops to help improve combine scores – this is the physical equivalent of “cramming for the test“.

   What is worrying is how many of these draft choices become “busts” despite a massive amount of research going into their background, video tape analysis and interviews. Remember these are 20-22 year olds with an extensive playing background, and it is still difficult to predict who is going to make it.

   Now, try telling me that as a regional coach you can safely say that the 14 year old in your squad is, or is not ever going to make it.

   I doubt if Brett Favre has ever scored highly on any fitness tests, but it does give the S&C coaches something to do and to justify their position within an organisation.