The Athlete and Injuries

Half the battle of being successful as an athlete is managing injuries. With a background in physiotherapy, I try and apply my knowledge to my training.

From experience, as an athlete and professionally, it is much better to prevent injuries than to have to manage them and miss training. Together with my coach, Gary Bourne, we have implemented a number of strategies to minimise injuries. Although I have had my fair share of injuries, the majority of my injuries would not have been easily preventable (eg growing a tumour or hyperextending my knee on landing).

Some ideas that you might also like to try include:

1. Training smart / applying appropriate training volumes: This is often the biggest battle as you always have to push the boundaries. Generally if you are always experiencing niggly injuries you could be pushing the boundaries too much.

2. Training as technically perfect as possible: So many injuries are caused by bad technique - eg leaning back at the board when you long jump puts more load through your joints and back as you take off; bad bounding / hopping technique (at critical volumes) generally leads to shin splints; and another common mistake is bad squatting technique in the gym (weights) as this puts excess load through the knee cap - make sure you always keep your knees behind your toes.

3. Including rest / regeneration within the program: This can include icing, hot/cold baths, elevating the legs, massage and appropriate food for recovery.

4. Core stability program: Include exercises for trunk and pelvic stability (so many muscle tears in the adductors, hamstrings and quads tend to be related to a lack of stability around the pelvis), knee stability and ankle stability. Your coach can discuss some options with a sports physiotherapist to get the best out of your stability program.

5. Using the correct equipment: This can range from the correct footwear to using the right bars in the gym.

Once you injure yourself, the key is to give the area enough rest and give it time to heal. This is what I find most challenging and that’s why I always involve a physiotherapist (Shane Lemcke at Queensland Sports Medicine Centre) to give me guidelines so I don’t train to early and continue to aggrevate the problem. One thing I am good at is carrying out my rehabilitation program. I am always very diligent with my exercises and stretches to make sure I’ll be back to my best as soon as possible.

Good luck with avoiding / minimising your injuries and getting back on track if you can’t avoid all of those injuries waiting to happen.