T2 Fitness: Helping athletes to return from injury

When an athlete is pushing to reach their full potential, the margin for error gets smaller and their competitive edge sharper. Unfortunately, the downside to pushing to your limit is every sports-persons’ biggest concern: injury.

As a Strength & Conditioning coach working in the field of professional sports, how do we bring our athletes back to the field of play following a serious or long-term injury? It’s a medical journey of getting the athlete fit as well as a psychological journey of helping them to trust their bodies again.

For instance, a common serious injury athletes face is the ACL tear. When we tear a major ligament supporting a fundamental joint it always takes a lot for the athlete to trust it again.

The knee is relatively unique in that it has great range of movement, but it only functions effectively in the sagittal plane (longitude movements). This makes it particularly vulnerable to impact from the front or the side which is why we often see this injury in football, basketball, rugby or generally any impact sport.

S&C coaches usually work in partnership with physiotherapists to create a rehabilitation plan. Together, it’s important to decipher whether the injury was as a result of impact or faulty mechanics to begin with.

Once the structure is healed, the first phase of rehabilitation focuses around the use of the joint in a full range of movement, challenging the strength and integrity of the joint under stress. A programme including resistance, time-under-tension and rest is required to gradually increase the stress the joint can face: building strength in the injury site.

Once the first phase of work is completed to a satisfactory level, the athlete is ready to progress to the next phase of rehabilitation. This involves completing relevant exercises at appropriate speed.

In the case of an ACL tear, the knee needs to be able to withstand deceleration stress as well as facilitating acceleration. From the perspective of the athlete,  it makes no sense making the affected area far stronger if it never gets exposed to game-speed prior to return.

As an S&C coach, designing a programme which provides these two phases of rehabilitation will ensure joint will be stressed and under variable speeds in all planes to enable the athlete to trust their body again. Pushing the knee with lateral movements, rotational movements and straight acceleration/deceleration drills will further enhance the function.

If working in the high-octane world of sports performance and helping athletes to remain injury free interests you, T2 Fitness Education offers a Strength & Conditioning course which will equip you with the skills and knowledge to effectively coach sports-people and plan programmes to help them reach their full potential.

They have spaces on our course this month - visit t2fitness.co.uk/strength-and-conditioning for full information.