I recently relased an article on coaching mistakes in our local market.\u00a0 In it, I talk specifically about 5 critical mistakes coaches make with respect to athletes.\u00a0 The article will likely ruffle some feathers.\u00a0 I am not anti coaches in any way (I am one).\u00a0 However, I do believe coaches need to be educated about how to integrate training to maximize sport performance and reduce injury risk.<\/p>\n
Today, I witnessed another example of how good intentions coupled with lack of proper insight about the impact of conditioning can harm an athlete.\u00a0 We had a new lacrosse athlete in our facility today working with one of my performance coaches.\u00a0 At the end\u00a0of the session,\u00a0my coach asked me to look at the athlete’s knee as the client apparently had anterior knee pain.<\/p>\n
The staff member and father informed me that the lacrosse player’s coach was having everyone on the team not participating in a fall sport train for the Columbus half marathon coming up in October.\u00a0 The aim was simply to accomplish team building (an admirable goal) and keep them fit.\u00a0 You may know where this is heading.<\/p>\n
I performed a movement screen on the athlete and discovered decreased hip strength and reduced ankle mobility.\u00a0 The player had obvious imbalances on both sides, left greater than right.\u00a0 The player then mentioned shin splints on the\u00a0left leg as well for the past week (now 3-4 weeks into the 1\/2 marathon training).<\/p>\n
So, after performing a thorough knee eval, I concluded the athlete has anterior knee pain and\u00a0left sided shin splints related to muscle imbalance and overuse with the recent addition of 4 days\u00a0of distance running.\u00a0 Is running bad?\u00a0 In a word, no.\u00a0 But this type of running for this particular athlete is not helping further performance goals.<\/p>\n
The father enrolled the athlete in our program to work on speed, agility and power for lacrosse.\u00a0 The bottom line\u00a0is that this 1\/2 marathon training is going to work against the very training adaptations my staff is working to achieve, not to mention now causing more knee pain and shin splints.<\/p>\n
I am not opposed to the idea of scheduled conditioning for athletes not participating in a sport.\u00a0 However, coaches need to step back and ask themselves what is the best way to condition their players for optimal performance and injury prevention.\u00a0 In this scenario, I have all the confidence in the world the coach has the very best intentions for his players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the results may be less than expected here – more importantly they may be counterproductive as the wrong energy system training and adaptations are being emphasized, while some players may suffer injury.<\/p>\n
In my professional opinion, the player should probably consider dropping out of the half marathon training for three very important reasons:<\/p>\n
This seems so simple, right?\u00a0 Well, I see situations like this every week in my facility.\u00a0 I see too many injured athletes.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 In many cases it has to do with faulty conditioning principles or over training.\u00a0 My mission is to educate coaches about how best to blend injury prevention with performance conditioning relative to their respective sport.\u00a0 We have to remember that one size never fits all either.<\/p>\n
Thoughts, comments or questions?\u00a0 Let me know.\u00a0 I am happy to address them in a constructive and positive public forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently relased an article on coaching mistakes in our local market.\u00a0 In it, I talk specifically about 5 critical mistakes coaches make with respect to athletes.\u00a0 The article will likely ruffle some feathers.\u00a0 I am not anti coaches in any way (I am one).\u00a0 However, I do believe coaches need to be educated about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,31,5,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-injury-prevention","category-knee","category-sports-performance","category-training"],"yoast_head":"\n