The return to sports after COVID-19 will be different than just flipping a switch and starting a season.
This stoppage of sports due to the pandemic is unprecedented. Restrictions vary across the country from a strict stay at home orders to the shutdown of schools and organized sports.
Right now, most athletes aren’t going to practice or being coached in person. Team practices aren’t occurring. Almost all gyms and school weight rooms are closed as well.
All of this limits what types of training an athlete can be doing.
While many athletes are trying to stay fit with at-home workouts, it’s not the same stimulus to the body or mind. For water sport athletes like swimmers and water polo players, it’s even harder to train appropriately.
Athletes Are Detraining After COVID-19
Athletes improve their fitness, speed, strength, and tissue resilience through their practice, training, and competition. All of those induce stress, too which the athletes adapt.
When there is reduced stress, the body also adapts, back to lower levels.
Because of all this, we can reasonably assume that an athlete’s training adaptations are deteriorating during this time. This process is what we call detraining.
How bad the detraining will be is based on the individual athlete’s genetics, training history, and what they are doing now.
Nonetheless, we know that even with the best intentions, athletes arent getting the same stimulus to adapt.
Using bodyweight, resistance bands, lightweights, and modified programs help reduce the detraining, but they just won’t cut it. They don’t have the same effect as practicing their sport and comprehensive performance training.
Detraining is a bit like withdrawing money from a bank account. Think of training and practice time as money that’s been invested. The longer the restrictions last, the more athletes are withdrawing from their savings.
Training is a stimulus that helps athletes adapt. Going without training, practices and competitions is leading to reduced capacities for most athletes.
Their accounts are starting to dwindle.
Some of the effects of detraining are on whole systems like the cardiac, aerobic, and neuromuscular systems. They each have different rates of detraining.
In other cases, we have to consider specific structures and abilities in athletes. So, what will be different in the athletes after COVID-19 lockdowns?
Reopening sports after COVID-19 lockdowns needs to consider the implications of detraining.
Planning The Return To Sports
Plans for returning to sports after COVID-19 restrictions must consider the size of the detraining withdrawal that’s been made by athletes. The magnitude of the deconditioning will affect how quickly athletes are back to 100 percent.
It’s up to all of us in sports to make sure we work to return athletes to sport safely, successfully, and sustainably. understanding that they are in a different condition is the first step.
While COVID19 itself hasn’t shown any direct effects, the pandemic and our social distancing response probably will impact tendon injury risk for athletes. You need to understand what is happening with your tendons while you are away from sport and what they will endure when sports return.
As athletes return to sports practice and competition after lockdown, they will be susceptible to tendon injury as they undergo spikes in their training load. These acute increases in the volume of throwing, sprinting, jumping, and swinging can be a risk factor for tendon injury.
TENDONS NEED LOAD
Too much load and you get an injury, but too little and you get structural change. After just 2-4 weeks of unloading the tissues of tendons begin to lose their structure and ability to withstand big loads. That means athletes wont to be the same when sports return.
SHOCKS AND SPRINGS
Tendons improve athletic movement skills by transmitting muscle forces and by acting as springs. This means they need to be able to provide both elasticity and stiffness. To do this they need to be exposed to the right types of stimulus in training.
TOO MUCH, TOO FAST
Repetitive stress that overloads the tendon can create micro-injuries in the tissue that add up. These become overuse injuries. Runners and jumpers often experience this when they increase their volume too quickly. Throwers and volleyball players often experience this in the shoulder or elbows as well.
TENDONS ARE COMMON SPORTS INJURIES
Tendon injuries are common in sports. Tendon injuries you may have heard of include;
Achilles Tendon – Ankle
Patellar Tendon – Knee
Elbow Tendons – Tennis & Golfer’s elbow
These injuries can occur with either acute tears or chronic overuse. Tendon injury risk for athletes will be heightened as they haven’t been conditioned by normal sports practice.
PREPARING FOR THE RETURN TO SPORT AS WE REOPEN
Loading tendons enough to stimulate the structure and function is the key to being ready when sports return. At home, and before teams resume, proactive athletes can use isometrics, eccentrics and reactive plyometrics to train. These types of exercises are key ingredients to build resiliency and capacity in the tissue.
GRADUAL RETURN TO SPORTS
One of the biggest risk factors for tendons is how rapidly the volume of work increases. Muscles adapt faster than tendons and can overwhelm them. When an athlete has been doing very little and then starts full practice, the risk of injury to tendons is exponentially increased.
As we look to the future and reopening, returning to sports after COVID-19 is a challenge athletes and coaches need to be preparing for now.
Everyone who loves sports wants to see it return to normal.
Sport provides many benefits to our society. There is the encouragement of physical fitness and health. The joy of exercise and competition. The lessons it teaches us about life and ourselves. And the comradery and community it can provide.
However, if coaches and leaders don’t intelligently manage the return to sport process, the risks for injury will be increased.
Because of all those positives and financial incentives at some levels, there are a lot of people looking to get things back to normal ASAP. That’s understandable, but this isn’t normal.
The athletes that will be returning aren’t the same ones who left.
We Hit Pause on Sports
With the imposed stoppage of leagues and schools, athletes have not had the opportunity to practice, nor compete in most places.
The more dedicated athletes have found ways to carry on as best they can. From running outside to training at home, they are working to maintain their fitness.
Unfortunately, even if they are doing everything they can, they just can’t duplicate all the elements of their sport. Large spaces, high speed running and jumping, long throwing or hitting, high-intensity practice, hours upon hours of weekly practice. All of this is missing or severely limited.
With it being gone, the accompanying physical stresses on the body or lowered as well. There isn’t the same load on muscle, tendons, and the cardiovascular system. There isn’t the same cognitive demand on the brain and motor control system.
On the bright side of that rest is the opportunity to recover. Many athletes don’t have an offseason anymore, and this may be the first time off from their sport they’ve had in years.
That can allow some time to heal injuries. Overused muscles and tendons are getting rest from the constant stress. The time off gives them a mental and emotional break that just may have needed and can reinvigorate their motivation to play.
Some athletes have taken advantage of this window to not just rest but repair their bodies and eliminate problems. Rest is helpful to reduce pain, but proactively working to rehab those nagging injuries takes the athlete to a new level and helps protect them when sport returns.
Athletes Have Been Detraining
Without that stress, there is also a negative. Keep in mind “stress” in the general sense isn’t good or bad. When it is too much, things can break, but when it is too little, they become weaker and fragile.
For many young athletes, they don’t realize how much that constant practice has conditioned their bodies.
Every repetition puts small strains on the tissues. They help stimulate the body to keep them strong and functioning. When it is too much, things like tendons start to break down over time. But now, there is too little. Those tendons are not ready to withstand the same practice volume they did a two months ago.
The muscles don’t have the same strength or endurance. Those qualities normally protect them in practice day after day. Adequate levels of strength, power, and endurance keep them firing properly to move efficiently and react to the athlete’s environment.
The problem is they aren’t going to be at the same level for a lot of athletes. Even though many are trying to train at home, they aren’t exposing themselves to the same high-intensity loads they do at practice and in games.
Without the muscles’ same capacities, they will fatigue faster. Lower intensities than usual will challenge them. If practice plans and volumes are not managed with this in mind, the athletes will be at higher risk.
Sudden Retraining Increases Risks
We have evidence in the world of elite sport that a sudden increase in the training load on athletes is a factor in their risk of injury.
You see it’s not just the overall volume that matters, but how quickly it changes. Ramping up from no training to normal over several weeks is much different than returning to full practices in a week or two.
In elite sport the concept of acute to chronic workload has been accepted by professional teams and organizations worldwide. Basically, the concept is that if your acute workload is too high compared to your chronic workload, an athlete’s injury rish increases.
Chronic workload is how much you’ve been doing over the last few weeks. Acute workload is how much you are doing this week and today. When your acute workload jumps a lot above your chronic workload your chance of injury os higher.
Unprecedented Return to Sport Process
For coaches, this is a big challenge. Most sport coaches have not had athletes this detrained in decades. The era of sport off-seasons ended a long time ago. Coaches are used to athletes who are doing too much, not too little.
They take for granted that the athletes have been having the number of foot contacts, the swings, the throws that they need to be ready for practice. Even the best intention coach hasn’t experienced bringing back all their athletes from near zero.
In fact, our closet parallel to this unprecedented situation is athletes return from major injury or surgery. While athletes in lockdown haven’t had the trauma of surgery, they do have the detraining. Safely returning athletes to sport is an area of great focus in elite sports. Now it’s going to be important for everyone.
Have a Plan To Prepare
Athletes that want to be successful aren’t sitting back and doing nothing right now. They are training as best they can. Those that had nagging injuries are hopefully getting help to repair them and remove the root causes.
Knowing that there are a lot of unknowns in how sport will return, it’s in an athlete’s best interest to prepare now and to prepare for the worst.
The worst being a return to sport period that’s too short, increases volume too fast, and has too much intensity too soon.
That scenario could happen, and that’s outside of an athlete’s control. So, what can they do to be proactive?
Stamina
“Fatigue makes cowards of us all,” is a quote from Vince Lombardi that still rings true. Not only that, but our coordination goes down, and injury risk goes up when we are fatigued.
Although an athlete might not be able to train their stamina exactly as they would need it in their sport, they can stay close. That’s good because stamina starts dropping off between 3 and 30 days, depending on the energy system.
By working on maintaining or improving different energy systems, it’s going to be a lot easier to regain their sports-specific stamina when sport returns after COVID-19.
When we say different energy systems, we are talking about stamina for different durations and intensities of work. A good aerobic capacity is what people think about often as stamina. It is an essential part of many sports, and helps in an athlete’s day-to-day, or even drill to drill recovery.
Don’t stop there, however. Athletes need to be able to produce repeat short 1-6 second, high-intensity efforts. An athlete also needs to be capable of sustaining efforts right above that anaerobic threshold for anywhere from 30 sec to 4 minutes in a lot of sports.
The key is to make sure you have a good base of stamina as you get ready to return to sport. Get a plan, get a heart rate monitor, and get to work now.
Muscle
Muscle strength will last for several weeks, even if it may not be at its very peak. If you’ve been training for some time, it lasts a little longer and will come back quicker.
Still, after months of not doing any heavy lifting, you may be losing strength. Athletes often stimulate or maintain strength by the high-intensity things they do in sport. Full speed sprinting and repeated full effort jumping is typical in many sports practices and help maintain strength through a type of ballistic and plyometric training.
Without that sport practice, you are probably losing maximum strength more than you know. Even worse, since you lose the neurological ability for speed in just a few days, that explosive strength is dropping off rapidly when you don’t use it.
So, an athlete that wants to be ready is going to hit both ends of that strength & speed spectrum. Using dumbbells, kettlebells, or even bands can help maintain that muscle’s ability to produce high forces.
Doing explosive jumping exercises will help maintain that explosive strength.
Tendon
Tendons connect muscles to bones to transmit the muscle’s force and create movement. They can also act like springs in many athletic movements, from running to jumping.
They lose their trained capabilities and structure between 2 – 4 weeks according to the research. They are also one of the first areas to flare up with increases in training volume. Add to that a slower readapting rate than muscle. That means you better use it, and not lose it if you can.
The achilles and patellar tendons are areas of concern for a lot of athletes. There are some things they can do to protect them. Lower body isometrics (holding a position for 30sec – 1:00min) with bodyweight or added resistance are an excellent first line of defense.
One of the best tools to keep them springy is a jump rope. Basic jump roping is a good start, and double-unders take this up a level in maintaining those tendons.
Maximal speed abilities include actions like; jumping, sprinting, throwing a ball, swinging a bat or racket, or hitting a volleyball. They all require coordination of high-speed muscle contraction, and they drop off in just a few days.
This will be one of the hardest things to maintain at home and/or on your own. If you can get out and sprint, it’s a fantastic way to stimulate these abilities for every athlete. Yes, even the upper body athlete will benefit from the neuromuscular stimulus. Think of sprinting as a high-intensity plyometric exercise.
Sprinting and plyometrics are great if you have a place. Don’t do this on the concrete or your patio. The grass is a much better surface if you can get out in a park.
Returning to Sport After COVID-19
If you want the best chance to return to sport after COVID 19 without injury and playing near your best, take action now. If you’re not sure how to achieve some of these things, find a performance coach who can help guide your training plan, so you’ll be ready.
Hopefully, coaches will get advice as well so they can create an intelligent return to sports plans that manage the volume and load on athletes.
This sports stoppage is unprecedented. We all need to step back and evaluate how we will train as sport returns. This isn’t just business as usual.
Winning Battles Is Essential To Winning Hockey Games
For every goal scoring play in a hockey game, there were two or three plays that came just before that made it possible. Often these plays take the form of battles along the wall or in the corners. These are the puck battles that every player has to be ready for.
Players that help their team score goals – or stop them – are the type of players coaches want on their teams. Winning 1-on-1 puck battles is one way to stand out in the eyes of these coaches, and helps the team.
As the level of play rises, it takes extraordinary skating skills, speed, puck control, and hockey sense to battle and compete 1-v-1 effectively.
Along with skill work on the ice, developing players can improve their ability to win puck battles by improving strength. Unfortunately, while any strength training will help some for a complete novice, it has to become more specific as the level of play increases.
So, how do players do the right type of strength training to battle harder?
Build The Core
Puck battles often look like a wrestling match on skates. Opposing players are battling to gain leverage and position so they can control the puck.
Any player that wants to be successful, as well as avoid injuries, needs a strong core.
We aren’t talking six-pack abs and sit-ups. The core strength a hockey player needs helps them to resist movement. Resist movement is what allows a player to transmit forces from the powerful lower body into an opponent. It’s what helps them resist being moved out of position by the other player.
Here are two exercises hockey players can use to build strength and resist movement.
Develop A Strong Foundation
While many players watch a puck battle and see the work in the upper body pushing and pulling, they need to realize the biggest forces are being generated by the lower body. To keep body position and gain leverage, the legs need to be really strong and powerful.
These three strength exercises build lower body strength and power that helps winning battles in hockey.
While trying to gain leverage, or resist an opposing player, large rotational forces are created during puck battles. That means a hockey player needs both the ability to generate and resist rotational forces.
But where do rotational forces occur?
The hips and thoracic (upper back/chest) spine are where rotation should occur. The large muscles of the hip generate torque to rotate, and a solid core transmits them to the upper body to battle with the opponent.
These exercises build rotational power hockey players can use.
Bulletproof Your Shoulders To Survive The Boards
Crashing into the boards while battling for the puck can add wear and tear to the shoulders of any hockey player. To build the durability for contact in the shoulders, hockey players need to develop their strength and stability.
While traditional strengthening like bench press, shoulder press, and side raises are useful, hockey players need functional strength. This means strength that ties together the glenohumeral joint, scapular stability, and thoracic mobility.
The Turkish getup ties together shoulder and core stability and is a staple for athletes. Additionally, a routine of basic stability exercises can be added to any program to promote more stability.
Coaches Want Players Who Battle Hard To Win The Puck
Developing players and their parents may be most impressed by scoring goals, but hockey teams must win battles to score. Coaches are impressed by players that battle hard in all three zones.
Building the right strength will help improve the confidence and resilience hockey players need. Battle harder and win the puck with improved strength.
People ask us almost daily, “is weight training good for kids.”
Let’s cut to the chase; It Is.
Velocity coaches from Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System instruct young athletes on proper technique
We believe in using strength training of various methods to increase neuromuscular recruitment, increase bone density, increase range of motion and strengthen the tendons and joints of the body.
Don’t just take our word on whether weight training is good for kids, ask the medical experts. According to a 2018 MAYO Clinic statement
“Done properly, strength training can:
Increase your child’s muscle strength and endurance
Help protect your child’s muscles and joints from sports-related injuries
Help improve your child’s performance in nearly any sport, from dancing and figure skating to football and soccer
Develop proper techniques that your child can continue to use as he or she grows older
And hen it comes to answering why strength training is good for kids they add;
“Keep in mind that strength training isn’t only for athletes. Even if your child isn’t interested in sports, strength training can:
Strengthen your child’s bones
Help promote healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels
“Kids, in other words, many of us believe, won’t get stronger by lifting weights and will probably hurt themselves. But a major new review just published in Pediatrics, together with a growing body of other scientific reports, suggest that, in fact, weight training can be not only safe for young people, it can also be beneficial, even essential.”
What is “strength training”?
This is one of the key questions we need to understand. Lot’s of confusion starts with the concepts of strength training versus weight training.
When people say strength training, they often imagine someone in a squat rack lifting barbells.
People often imagine Olympic weightlifting when strength training is brought up
Or maybe that weightlifter at the Olympics performing at the edge of human capacity.
Yes. Those can be strength training, but there’s a whole lot
more.
Strength training is basically any exercise that relies on
some form of resistance to stimulate your body to get stronger.
Why so many different things? For one, to do it properly we need a range of
resistance levels.
We need things that are light so we can learn to do it
properly and start at the right level.
We need things that are heavy so we can progress and
stimulate the body to adapt.
Are bodyweight exercises safer?
So, when they are wondering if weight training is good for kids, many people look at bodyweight exercises as inherently safer. After all, you don’t have that extra weight to lift.
Except they forgot about the bodyweight. A coach using proper exercise selection and regressions can actually allow an athlete to lift less than bodyweight.
A push-up is 64% of your bodyweight. Sometimes that’s too much for a young athlete.
Have you ever watched young athletes struggle to do a push-up well? Their bodyweight is just too much for their strength level. It’s no different than lifting a barbell that’s too heavy.
When doing a push-up, an athlete is actually lifting about 64% of their body weight. For a 120 lb. young female, that would mean they are lifting 77 lbs.
Imagine if the athlete was laying on a bench press, struggling with 77 lbs. Its the same with a push-up. In this case, if the coach gave the athlete two twenty pound dumbbells or an empty bar, the weight would be significantly less.
Who knew? bench pressing weights is a regression. Push-ups are actually more advanced and heavier!
Don’t even get started on pull-ups.
Is weight training necessary?
This question doesn’t come up often, but it’s in the back of a lot of people’s minds. The reality is that the data, the medical experts and decades of experience tell us it’s safe.
However, to be honest, we often follow our preconceived ideas.
If you’ve believed strength training with weights is
dangerous for decades, it’s hard to instantly change that. And that’s fair.
So then the question is; can you get better without lifting weights?
Yes, you can.
However, you can’t stimulate the body to adapt as efficiently or as much.
You don’t stimulate the neuromuscular system to recruit muscle and protect the joints and ligaments as well.
Athletes won’t improve the tendon tissue as well to reduce the risk of tendonitis and overuse injuries.
They won’t stimulate bone density during this crucial youth growth period and have the same life long positive effects.
You won’t build the same level of explosive strength
Young athletes won’t learn how to do the movements and be prepared if you start training with your team
You will miss out on the proven reduction in overall injury risk for athletes
How cankids train the right way?
Here’s the key to safely strength training for young
athletes; Do It Right.
That means learning the movement patterns and habits that
lead to safe weight training. Have a
qualified coach teaching it.
That’s not necessarily a bunch of kids in the garage with
the weight bench trying to max out. It’s
not joining an adult class with a weekend certified coach who is cheering them
on to do more.
Teaching the fundamentals of good body positions is part of Velocity coaching.
It’s also not about moving “perfect”. Young athletes need to learn proper movement patterns. However, trying to enforce a robotic standard of “perfect” actually takes away from the learning.
This is where professional coaches standout. They know how to put the athlete into positions
where they are safe to learn how to move.
Coaches use regressions of exercises to teach. These are simpler movement patterns that reinforce the right movement safely. They lead to a progression in movement patterns or weight lifted.
Is Weight Training Good for Kids; YES
Strength training for youth is endorsed by all major medic and professional organizations. While the old myths of it stunting growth or being dangerous slowly die, it is understandable that some people are hesitant.
The benefits are large and necessary to prevent injury in athletes. Weight training is an efficient and effective method for athletes. Do it right and reap the benefits.
People are often confused about the differences between mobility vs
flexibility. It matters because it affects your athleticism
and injury risk. Hope that gets your
attention because it’s often the neglected and mis-understood step-child of
training.
You probably recognize that athleticism has multiple facets. Strength, speed, and stamina are a few. To be fair, most people would probably
include flexibility in there as well.
Maybe you were taught to stretch in gym class back in the day. Maybe you’ve read enough articles from trainers to know about foam rolling. How about endless pics of yoga and mobility work on social media?
You know there’s something that you should probably be doing, but
why are some people talking about mobility and others flexibility. Aren’t these the same thing?
Mobility vs
flexibility: Is there really a difference?
Yes. Mobility and
flexibility are related but different things.
However, as you scroll through feed and listen to trainers talk,
they are often used interchangeably. Most
trainers in the fitness and performance training fields don’t even know they
are different.
Traditional definition in sports medicine they would be;
FLEXIBILITY: The ability of a muscle to be lengthened.
MOBILITY: The ability of a joint to move through a range of motion
However, this is not what we are discussing here. We are not as interested in the traditional definition. We are more interested in the modern concepts that apply to injury prevention and performance.
Modern concept definition:
FLEXIBILITY: The ability of a muscle to be lengthened.
MOBILITY: The ability to control movement through a range of motion
Similar, but some key differences.
The concept of mobility incorporates flexibility, but not necessarily
vice-versa. The key for athletes is
mobility. Flexibility isn’t enough.
Mobility is a term and concept that encompasses a range of factors
affecting your movement including:
The tissues ability to lengthen
The joint ability to move
The nervous systems ability to relax and allow
movement
The neuromuscular systems ability to activate
muscles and control movement through all ranges of motion.
Flexibility
is Important for Mobility
You do need enough flexibility in your muscles to obtain
functional and sport specific mobility. This matters, as you are considering whether
to work on mobility vs flexibility.
Flexibility is passive. It’s your ability to move your connective
tissue with the help of another person or tool, or gravity. Your muscles passively allow the movement to
happen.
Think of flexibility
like a rubber band. When you pull both ends, it stretches. It’s flexible. If it doesn’t stretch, it’s
inflexible. If it’s too inflexible, it could even snap. It’s the same thing
with muscles. They have elastic
components and are designed to move through a stretch.
Flexibility
also requires your joint capsule have a full range of motion as well. It doesn’t matter how stretchy your muscles
are if the joint itself won’t allow the movement.
Since. mobility includes moving through a full range of motion,
you are going to need to have some flexibility in those muscles to be mobile.
Mobility for Better Movement
The problem comes in when people think being flexible is
enough. Sure you can stretch your body
into all kinds of positions. Your muscle
clearly have flexibility, but can they control it?
A person
with great mobility is able to perform movement patterns with no restrictions. The
movement is efficient and there aren’t any compensations. They have the range of motion and the
neuromuscular control and strength to move through the pattern.
On the other
hand, some people can perform a movement pattern successfully, but they compensate. They may fire some muscles in a different sequence,
use different muscle for stability or avoid certain joint position.
A flexible
person may or may not have the stabilizer strength, balance, or coordination to
perform the same functional movements as the person with great mobility. This goes back to some of the fundamental differences
of flexibility vs mobility.
Control. Control comes through the strength in your
muscles. Control comes through
coordination of those muscles. Control
comes from properly functioning stabilizers.
Mobility
is important, and flexibility is a part of that. That doesn’t usaully mean you
need to spend an extra hour in the gym every day. Incorporating a steady stream of exercises for
both flexibility and mobility into you training plan will go a long way.
In
addition to a general approach you should prioritize extra time for certain
areas. You may already know the areas or
your body that need to improve. Or maybe
its specific to your sport. A
comprehensive profile from a professional goes a long way towards targeting the
areas that will get you the most bang for your buck.
Methods To Increase Mobility
Self
Myo-Fascial techniques: Sometimes these may be excruciating but can be very effective. Foam rolling, lacrosse balls and other tools are
basically a type of self-massage. These techniques help you release tight spots
in your muscles.
Mobility
Drills: These
are exercises that are specifically geared towards training your range of
motion around joints. They involve actively moving, contracting and relaxing
muscles through the joints range of motion.
Some of these may isolate, while others involve multi-joint movement
patterns.
Stretching: This may or may not be necessary.
If you’re naturally a very flexible person, stretching can make your joints more
vulnerable to injury. However, if you’ve always been stiff, and it’s stopping
you from moving well, you may benefit.
Some targeted stretches may be enough both as part of the warm-up and separate
from it.
Dynamic
Warm-Up: Whether
its 5 minutes or 30, a good dynamic warm-up can work wonders. This type of warm-up does more then only
increase muscle temperature and blood. It incorporates all of the above with
movement. You actually prep the elements
of mobility as you prepare for the workout or competition.
Mobility Matters
Most
athletes need to work on maintaining or improving their mobility. The strains and stresses of playing a sport add
up. Repetitive motion puts uneven stress
on your body and it adapts.
Mobility allows you to move as efficiently as possible. That means better performance and less risk of injury. In the end it not a question of mobility vs flexibility, but how you are going to maintain or improve them. Get it right so you can move your best.
In the immediate aftermath of the injuries to the Golden State Warriors, the finger was being pointed. Being pointed with blame. Whose fault is a major injury like the Achilles tendon rupture of Kevin Durant?
However, instead of focusing on the chatter about blame, what
can young athletes, their parents and coaches take away from this?
I’d say it’s responsibility and perspective.
Blame for Kevin Durant’s Injury
Whose fault is it?
After all it must be someone’s, right?
Maybe KD himself?
Is it the Golden State Warriors staff? The team’s coaches or
management?
What about the press and sports talk media, or just plain
old social media?
Opinions aren’t hard to come by right now. Sports talk shows and twitter are pointing
fingers.
In the end, 99% of these guesses (and that’s all they are
unless you were part of that process) are clueless.
Velocity Knows About Injury Decisions
We are routinely part of these decisions in elite sports
around the world. We’ve seen both
sides. We’ve been part of the team or
organization and on the outside as independent consultants for players. We’ve had to give depositions on player/
management issues. We’ve seen teams that
are trying to better protect players and one’s that are just trying to win now.
Velocity’s staff has trained KD himself in the off-season.
I’ve also personally watched an international player go down
with an Achilles tear in our own training facility. Devastating when it was just 6 months before
the World Cup. The player had no
history, no symptoms.
It made no sense.
Until we learned a few weeks later that several other of the
national team players also had recent tendon and ligament injuries in a few
weeks span.
Turns out, the team doc used a particular anti-malaria
medication for a trip to a third world country.
That medication put them at a higher risk of that type of injury. The players weren’t informed of the risk. That’s not cool.
Sports Injuries Are Complex
So from our elite sport perspective, here’s what you should
know when it comes to answers why it happened; it’s complex.
Nobody likes to hear that.
They want black/white answers and someone to blame. There could be someone to blame, we don’t know
from the outside. More likely, it’s a complex
mix of factors.
Diagnosing and managing injuries has many factors and we are
dealing with humans who don’t all go through the same process.
Most of the people we know on the staff of NBA teams are
good practitioners working hard to help their athletes.
Most athletes are trying to balance their competitive drive,
social pressures and the goal of preserving their financial future.
The Responsibility For Preventing Injury
Players have to make choices about whether to play or
not. Although many people would paint athletes
as spoiled, undeserving millionaires playing a kids game, that is an unjust
portrayal.
A player like KD loves the game. He’s a competitor. He wants to be competing on the biggest stage
injured or not. He want his team to
win.
He also wants to protect his family and their future. He wants to protect his greatest asset, his
athleticism, skill and body.
Injuries are part of sports and they are a threat to any
athlete pro of amateur. For talent pros
and amateurs, injuries are a threat to financial stability from pro contracts,
endorsements and college scholarships. If you get hurt, you could lose it.
It’s also a threat to lifelong health and function. Injuries can take a lifelong toll on your
physical well-being. They can threaten your
enjoyment of a sport and physical activity.
So, on every level players need to also take responsibility for themselves.
But any athlete can be responsible. It’s one of the great lessons sports can help
teach.
Of course this is different for a highly paid pro who comes
to us and spends thousands of dollars on training, rehab, recovery and
more. That’s basically a business
investment.
Want to play better and recover faster, be responsible and
get to sleep.
Want to be a little bit more fit or gain more muscle, eat better.
In fact, this is one of the most rewarding things we see
working with young athletes. The choices
they make, on their own to be self reliant.
Young men and women being proactive in their life.
Not blaming, and not waiting. They start eating a little better at
school. They go out for that extra run
on their own. They put down their phone
and go to bed a little earlier than their peers.
The types of injuries that struck Golden State were
devastating. The fear is that the team didn’t
do enough (which appears unfounded from our knowledge). This should be a reminder or wake-up call that
you need to be responsible to take care of yourself.
Don’t count only on your team, your staff, your school, etc… Be proactive in taking steps to reduce your
risk of injury. Be proactive if injured
in managing your treatment and recovery.
KD’s Decision To Play Injured
Whether or not the risk was worth it for KD to go into that
game can truly only be answered by KD.
What was the importance of competing to win versus the risk of injury to
his career?
Did pressure from the media or team mates sway his decision?
Did he just want to be the hero? The one we idolize in sports for overcoming
pain and injury.
Even the most rational person would be hard pressed to not absorb
some of that pressure.
We don’t know.
Young Athletes Need Perspective On Playing Injured
However, I’d like to see this as a lesson for young athletes. For their parents and coaches.
We are questioning if it was a good decision for him. He’s an adult and one who has experience. He has advisors and got outside
opinions. He’s won before and
financially sound.
Yet, too often, young athletes feel that same pressure. Kids, high school and college players. They don’t have the same experience tor wisdom
to draw from. They don’t have millions
in the bank already. They haven’t reached
the pinnacle of their sport.
I’ve watched as we evaluated young athletes for functional
after returning from injury. They were
clearly not ready to go back.
But they did…
Because the parent really wanted them to overcome and
play.
Because a medical professional was negligent in confirming
if this player was functional, didn’t and cleared them anyway.
Because the team, teammates or even other parents pressured
them.
Some of them were all right.
Some ended up with another surgery.
So how come there is so much outcry and questioning of KD’s
decision, when we see young athletes risking so much all the time?
Let’s improve the conversation about risk. Young athletes don’t have the perspective
that parents and coaches should. All of
us can improve this.
What Next For Youth Sports Injuries
The injury to Kevin Durant is horrific and has made people speculate
and talk about responsibility. Let’s use
this as an opportunity to expand the conversation about responsibility and
perspective in youth sports injuries.
There are serious risks when playing hurt and trying to compete
when the body isn’t ready. Every young
athlete, coach and parent have a responsibility to truly consider this as well
as being proactive in lowering the risk of injury.
