EXPLAINING INJURIES

Being injury free as an athlete is the dream, the golden chalice, if you will.

The ability to train and compete at full potential is something all athletes pursue, but to achieve this
requires significant planning, preparation, access to a reliable support team and, importantly, a
consistent approach to all factors of your athletic and personal life.

Now, you may not have control over some of these factors, but I encourage you to take it upon
yourself to understand as much as you can about the explicit demands of your sport and how you can
set yourself up for success by doing everything you can on and off the field of play to minimise your
exposure to injuries and maximise your chances of competing at your best.

Remember, your body is the vehicle through which you get to showcase your talent.

If you look after it, it will look after you.

Unfortunately, injuries are an occasional side effect of participating in sport.

They can occur at any time to any part of your body, though often there are patterns of injuries
unique to particular sports, such as hamstring or groin strains in football, shoulder injuries in
swimmers and ankle sprains in jumping sports like basketball and volleyball.

However, the movement demands of the sport alone do not explain why some athletes get injured.

To understand why injuries occur, let’s picture this.

In front of you stands a pristine and invincible athlete, made specifically for this sport, the perfect
athlete.

We then add internal factors, so things that relate to the athlete and their body, things such as age,
gender, anatomical makeup, fitness levels, previous injury history and mindset.

Next, we add external factors, so the things that make up the world around them.

So, teammates, opposition players, referees, equipment, safety gear and finally, environmental
factors such as the weather, field conditions and visibility.

By adding these internal and external factors, we have turned the once invincible athlete to one that
is susceptible to injury.

With this said, this does not mean that the athlete is guaranteed to get injured, but rather the risk of
injury is somewhat higher.

In spite of this risk, many athletes still compete without issue and some have achieved fantastic
performances and world records.

For an injury to occur, we need an inciting event to happen.

For most people, this conjures up an image of someone landing awkwardly or colliding with another
player, but it is also important to remember that some injuries are the result of overtraining, poor
movement skills, a congested playing or travelling schedule, insufficient sleep and so on.

Understanding what factors predispose an athlete to injury is vital, particularly if we are to put
systems or strategies in place to minimise the risk of these injuries happening.

Let’s first look at internal risk factors.

Other non-modifiable factors may include congenital health problems and other genetic factors.

It is important to remember that age alone does not lead to an increased risk of injury.

Instead, as we get older, previous injuries, longer training loads and slow recovery, all predispose us
to injury.

Internal factors are those that we, as athletes or fitness professionals, have greater control over.

These are things like: physical fitness, such as strength, power, cardiovascular fitness, mobility and
stability; movement, skills and techniques; training load - so how much weight
is being moved per week or how much ground we are covering; wellbeing - so general sleep patterns,
hydration, readiness to train and soreness; body composition - so body weight, muscle mass, body fat
percentage.

In general, most of these factors can be influenced through well thought out preparation and well-
executed performance and lifestyle programmes.

Should these programmes fail to address each of the demands placed upon the modern-day athlete,
it is quite possible that this omission may predispose them to an injury.

So with this, it is important that you understand what you need from a performance perspective and
then create a programme that meets these needs.

To put this in context let’s look at a couple of examples.

When a soccer player strains their groin changing direction, the force going through their groin
muscle is more than the capacity of the muscle.

As such, the muscle can’t tolerate this force, thus leading to a strain.

Now, there could be multiple reasons why this injury happened.

However, if the programme had addressed strength of the muscle, fitness and these skills were then
integrated into a sporting context, it is quite possible that this injury could have been avoided.

Another example is when a handball player lands on their leg causing their knee to buckle and to tear
their anterior cruciate ligament.

The amount of force going through the ligament was more than what it could take, causing it to tear.

In this example, we cannot change the capacity of their ligament, however, we can try to change how
the force is dissipated or shared across the body.

This can be achieved through a structured approach to strengthening the legs, hips and torso,
working on jumping, landing and change of direction mechanics, and then finally integrating these
skills into a realistic sporting environment.
PREPARING TO COMPETE

The first step when preparing for your sport is to understand its explicit needs.

So what physical attributes do you need and what movement skills will be challenged?

Knowing this informs you and your coaches on how best to approach your preparation.

A well-structured programme should acknowledge both the sport and the individual.

Your capacity to meet the needs of your sport is fundamental to your success and fitness status.

If you want to compete, then you need to make sure you have the capacity to sustain a high level of
effort throughout the duration of the match, the race or the lift.

Understanding these needs and how best to meet them should not be something to take on alone.

This is where technical coaches, fitness coaches, nutritionists, physiologists and physiotherapists
come in.

It is their job to identify these and highlight whether any deficits exist.

An important part of this process is assessment and monitoring.

Fitness testing, strength testing as well as looking at technique and movement are essential to
recognising areas of deficit.

If a problem is found, a strategy is implemented to correct the deficit.

This might be a strength programme or working with a coach on improving technique.

To put this into context, let’s look at a simple example.

A soccer player turns up for their pre-season screening.

They are identified as having reduced hamstring strength on their left side.

The player also informs the staff they had a past injury on the same side two years ago.

In soccer, it is not uncommon for a player to run 11 to 13 kilometres and change direction hundreds
of times during a 90-minute game.

As such, a deficit in strength is a known risk factor for hamstring injury.

So to address this apparent deficit, we could introduce a progressive strengthening programme in an

Now think back to a time when you were injured.

What happened?

How long were you sidelined for?

Can you remember what your treatment was?

Do you think you regained all of the strength and confidence from before the injury?

And how have things changed since then?

Strength and power training forms the backbone of rehabilitation from sports injuries.

It is used to restore capacity of an injured area and in some cases, exceed their pre-injury strength
levels.

You can't go wrong with getting strong.

Unfortunately, some sports continue to have a culture where strengthening is seen to slow you down
or make your body grow bigger unnecessarily.

Neither of these things are true, and in fact adhering to a structured strength and conditioning
programme that highlights all physical attributes, energy pathways and movement skills has been
shown to offer many performance benefits.

Strength training can be tailored to each individual sport and is safe to complete from a young age.

A caveat to this statement, however, is that the coaching is delivered by trained, knowledgeable
professionals.

It is always recommended to seek advice prior to embarking on a new programme.

When writing a strengthening programme here are some recommendations.

Specific: it must be tailored to your sport from the type of movement to what position your body is in
while training and playing.

Heavy and challenging: many athletes fail to challenge their body enough in order for it to adapt.

Varied and interesting: training one movement gets you very good at one movement.

For athletes to be resilient to all conditions, programmes should be varied.

Monitored and followed up: strength needs to be re-evaluated to check for deficits or imbalances and
for programmes to be progressed.

Prehab programmes: prehab programmes are often given to athletes to complete before or after a
training session.

The programmes, tailored specifically for the individual, focus not only on strength but movement
patterning, for example, jumping and landing skills, some stability exercises or even a challenging,
balanced based exercise.

The aim here is to supplement their main programme with some extra work specific to them.

Athletes often talk about the challenge of finding time for strength programmes and injury
prevention exercises, especially in season.

While this may be difficult, the burden of an injury far outweighs the short amount of time required
to prepare and maintain you for competition.

Often, as little as five to 10 minutes before a session can be effective and exercises can often be done
with teammates or made into small games.

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