Sport performance
Training more and better: the key to less injury
Alternative: Train better for less injury
by Uperform
At some point in their career, every athlete is faced with an injury. Regardless of its degree of severity; the result is anger, sadness and unavailability that could damage the rest of his season and the results of his team. What if we told you that it was possible to reduce this risk by training better?
Sports science, physical performance science and health care share goals common. Among them: keeping athletes in top shape and allowing them to perform at the highest level.
To achieve this, two major areas have been extensively researched and continue to be: injury prevention and performance improvement.
Although these are two distinct notions, there are a lot of interactions and correlations between them. Understand the logic of this virtuous circle: if an athlete does not get injured: he trains. The more he trains – the fewer periods of unavailability there are in his season – the more he has the opportunity to improve the various physical aspects relating to performance (agility, speed, strength, power, technique, etc.). The more he improves these different aspects – the more his body gets used to training – the less likely he will be to get injured.
Now it remains to know how to train without injury. It is commonly accepted that there is a risk of injury from training too much (over training) or too little (under training) with a gray area in the middle where it is a question of “listening to your body”.
While this may seem logical, it is not entirely true. By paying more attention to the type of training performed, it is possible to maximize the performance of athletes with a heavy training load while keeping them at low risk of injury.
We detail this for you with an example: In team sport, running sequences at very high speed are associated with a significant risk of injury. Conversely, it has been proven that alternating intense (very high speed) but brief efforts with lower intensity efforts was protective. By alternating several modes of effort, we create this effect.
Another example that we frequently encounter: In many teams, there are “recidivist” player profiles. It is common to see these athletes rack up injuries after a initial injury (which is not necessarily the same). A reflex taken with these players is to reduce their training volume (reduce the number of sessions per week) to avoid any overload.
Unfortunately, this places the athlete under training. It is therefore no longer protected. against the intense physical demands of matches and gets injured again. A solution would be to expose it to higher daily training loads. In other words: in reducing the absolute intensity of training but increasing their frequency will improve the athlete’s overall fitness, avoid injury and improve their ability to chain the matches.
When we understand that a high training load is dependent on several parameters
(volume, intensity, frequency and alternation between the type of activity prescribed), we realize that it is possible to accumulate substantial training loads without injury. It’s about combining the different ingredients as well as possible to obtain the perfect recipe!
Keep in mind that the perfect recipe is not universal but to be adapted according to the profile of each athlete. Pre-season training camps are helpful in identifying him. Working on prevention is part of our missions, our team of sports physiotherapists and sports coaches can help you.
We care, u perform.
Bibilography:
Gabbett TJ. The training—injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder? Br J Sports Med. 2016 Mar;50(5):273-80.