Specificity in your programme - preventing injuries
THE PROBLEM
Have you changed your programme recently? Doing the same thing that you did last season? Copying what your friend or partner is doing?
We see people each week who continue to do the same old training regime year after year despite experiencing the same poor performance or repeated injury every time that they hit the high volume or even competition phase of their training.
Others are following advice from friends who offer free advice as a ‘training guru’ or the friend who has had ‘just the same injury’ stating ‘this is what I did to get it right’. My advice is to always get professional help from a physiotherapist. You and your coach will gain valuable insight into your key weaknesses by having a complete assessment regularly through out each year to first discover key limiters and then to monitor the effect of the corrective training programme.
Regardless of your chosen sport or sports you must be specific with your training. It is essential to have this focus early on each season, identifying weaknesses or imbalances and focusing to change. For each aspect of your training programme you must understand why you are doing it and what you should be focusing on. There is no joy in training for the sake of it – the key reason why many athletes get stale and give up the sport that they once loved.
I have just returned from the IHRSA conference in San Diego where the trade show covers all of the latest gym equipment available around the world. Despite the conference covering different areas of latest theory each year, the trade show continues to amaze me with the rubbish products that have the most convincing sales people. Despite our ever increasing knowledge base with appropriate training programmes to achieve top performance, we seem destined to have some form of gimmick creep into many programmes. Constant reflection of this is needed to avoid starting the latest fad.
What we all need to remember is:
Why am I doing this?
What is my overall goal and what do I need to do to get there?
How can I improve from where I am now?
This focus is essential and is often not even considered by the athlete. They are happy to go along with what the coach has suggested without taking the time to reflect on previous experiences or seasons and of course results. Please take the time, ask the questions and seek more information. Your performance will thank you for it.
THE ANSWER
I recommend that any athlete who is serious about their sport needs to get a full biomechanical analysis regularly in order to target the appropriate training to maximise performance (and minimise time wasted doing less productive activity).
At Habit we use a programme called Silicon Coach Professional that allows the physiotherapist to analyse the athlete over many frames per second regardless of your sport. Whether on the field, bike or treadmill within the gym you can slow each essential movement down and look at ways to improve. Few people have perfect form and by improving certain aspects of your sport you will unlock your potential. Being able to freeze someone’s form on screen and measure different joint angles or positions adds a whole new element to form analysis. We miss a lot with just the human eye.
To highlight this I want to present you with two examples:
RUNNING: One patient has been running for many years. She has trialled numerous running shoes, strength programmes and running styles in order to prevent repeated knee problems. This has been incredibly frustrating and was something that could have been corrected early on with the right assessment and correction. Instead she has wasted a huge amount of time effectively guessing at what may make a difference.
Video analysis showed that:
1. She landed with her knee fully extended
2. She had a slight posterior pelvic tilt
3. Her foot was in front of her hips in mid-stance
This resulted in a braking force through her legs with every foot strike, and due to weakness certain areas had to do a lot of work to stabilise the patella. This resulted in overuse and recurrent pain.
As a result we focused on showing her the difference between her current style and relaxing her excessively upright posture. The result involved landing with a flexed knee, greatly reducing force and allowed for functional application of running training both on the road and in the gym. Without the video analysis she would have not seen the problems and therefore struggled to change her aberrant movement pattern. We can then go back in 3, 6 or even 12 months’ time and reassess overlaying the initial image for reference.
CYLING: Bike set-up is critical. Typically people realise that and although they do not always get the best advice when choosing a new frame or achieving the correct cleat position, seat height etc they are aware of the importance of set-up. Few understand how each adjustment affects your overall set-up on the bike. Again just like running we can overlay videos to assess the effect of minor adjustments.
A cyclist recently presented to our Auckland Clinic who was training for the bike leg of the Coast to Coast. He had no injury issues or problems, but he wanted to check his bike set-up before he started to do any major volume.
Following video analysis we found his seat was too high. His leg did not over-extend, but he did have excessive movement of his hips and a lot of lateral movement through his spine. This was due to a combination of poor trunk stability and poor bike set-up.
Video is taken from behind and to the side in order to assess all aspects of form. In this example the above image shows excessive rocking movement and a lack of core control.
Following adjustment we can see a significant improvement in stability. This has the effect of translating every ounce of effort to going forward, not sideways!
Regardless of your sport please take the time to get the basics right. Doing sprint training for the last 500m of a road race is nowhere near as effective as improving your form and speed over the entire event. Don’t put it off any longer. Book an assessment with a physiotherapist near you today.
As always, please feel free to contact me with any specific questions that you may have. ben@habit.co.nz