How to beat injury
August 14th 2007 01:30
Link: www.arpprogram.com/
Now I’m aware that it’s much easier to pinpoint the problem than it is to actually solve it so here’s my attempt at keeping our top athletes fit enough to get onto the podium.
Very rarely in track and field does an injury occur without prior warning.
Nearly all muscular injuries happen as a result of a weakening of the muscle before a tear - be that by over stretching, a particularly hard session on the body, prior tightness etc.
People simply don’t get injured as a result of bad luck.
So what makes GB athletes so fragile?
The first culprit is their training and the story is always the same.
An athlete makes a significant break through into the ranks of the world class. They then resolve to train harder next year in order to improve still further.
However, this increase in training only leads to them developing long term problems like stress fractures as their bodies simply cannot cope with the additional work load.
Tim Benjamin, Abi Oyepitan, Ricky Soos, Becky Lynn, Greg Rutherford, Sam Ellis, Robert Tobin etc have all suffered this ‘second season’ syndrome in their careers.
The second problem with training is that the athlete might not be well enough conditioned to cope with it.
A well known sprint coach who has several world class athletes under his wing makes his athletes run lots of long distance volume stuff during the winter resulting in them running well indoors but then suddenly drops the training into pure speed work at the beginning of the spring.
The result is more often than not the athletes develop problems to do with their Achilles, knee, Hamstring, Calf etc as the body is not conditioned for the training it is being asked to perform.
This is a result of the woeful lack of knowledge that most coaches in the UK seem to exhibit with regard to the physicality and theory of training.
Their idea is to train harder – not smarter.
The second point is to get up-to-date with the latest technology to combat injury and aid recovery.
A good example of this is the ARP (Accelerated Recovery Performance) trainer. A machine that has revolutionised sport in the United States, it allows sportsmen and women to recovery from all sorts of injuries in days rather than months.
On the website the manufacturers claim to have helped an American footballer recover from a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in a matter of 10 weeks (it usually takes almost a year).
The machine is used by Italian football sides Parma and Inter Milan and most American footballers own one.
The machine costs around £7000 – well within reach of your top level lottery funded athlete but currently there is just one in the UK.
Athletes seem to be more inclined to spend how ever many thousands of pounds on a sports car than invest in their own future and not look after their bodies.
Does a builder leave his tools out in the rain? Does a surgeon leave his scalpel dirty? Does a cab driver let his vehicle fall apart?
An athlete’s tool of the trade is their body and without proper maintenance it cannot do all that is required of it.
(This image has been taken by Mathew J. Townsend of www.flickr.com under the GNU Free Document License.)
Very rarely in track and field does an injury occur without prior warning.
Nearly all muscular injuries happen as a result of a weakening of the muscle before a tear - be that by over stretching, a particularly hard session on the body, prior tightness etc.
People simply don’t get injured as a result of bad luck.
So what makes GB athletes so fragile?
Tim Benjamin has suffered many injuries that have hampered his progression
An athlete makes a significant break through into the ranks of the world class. They then resolve to train harder next year in order to improve still further.
However, this increase in training only leads to them developing long term problems like stress fractures as their bodies simply cannot cope with the additional work load.
Tim Benjamin, Abi Oyepitan, Ricky Soos, Becky Lynn, Greg Rutherford, Sam Ellis, Robert Tobin etc have all suffered this ‘second season’ syndrome in their careers.
The second problem with training is that the athlete might not be well enough conditioned to cope with it.
A well known sprint coach who has several world class athletes under his wing makes his athletes run lots of long distance volume stuff during the winter resulting in them running well indoors but then suddenly drops the training into pure speed work at the beginning of the spring.
The result is more often than not the athletes develop problems to do with their Achilles, knee, Hamstring, Calf etc as the body is not conditioned for the training it is being asked to perform.
This is a result of the woeful lack of knowledge that most coaches in the UK seem to exhibit with regard to the physicality and theory of training.
Their idea is to train harder – not smarter.
The second point is to get up-to-date with the latest technology to combat injury and aid recovery.
A good example of this is the ARP (Accelerated Recovery Performance) trainer. A machine that has revolutionised sport in the United States, it allows sportsmen and women to recovery from all sorts of injuries in days rather than months.
On the website the manufacturers claim to have helped an American footballer recover from a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in a matter of 10 weeks (it usually takes almost a year).
The machine is used by Italian football sides Parma and Inter Milan and most American footballers own one.
The machine costs around £7000 – well within reach of your top level lottery funded athlete but currently there is just one in the UK.
Athletes seem to be more inclined to spend how ever many thousands of pounds on a sports car than invest in their own future and not look after their bodies.
Does a builder leave his tools out in the rain? Does a surgeon leave his scalpel dirty? Does a cab driver let his vehicle fall apart?
An athlete’s tool of the trade is their body and without proper maintenance it cannot do all that is required of it.
(This image has been taken by Mathew J. Townsend of www.flickr.com under the GNU Free Document License.)
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