It’s time to think of strength & conditioning as your fourth discipline.
I have always been a strong believer of “prevention is better than cure”, so I want to encourage athletes to come see me early on in their seasons for screening assessments which will highlight any areas of weakness and ensure you are performing at your strongest.
Swimming
This is often the least favourite of disciplines but also used as a recovery session. There is no problem with using the occasional easy session as recovery but it is important to also implement harder sessions for greater gains. Swimming improvements are not only made in the pool but also in the gym. The repetitive nature of swimming demands a lot on your upper body muscles to generate power and speed.
Injury will be most common in the shoulder and neck often as a result of technique, reduced mobility and/or strength and inappropriate training load.
Cycling
Cycling demands a lot of both the posterior chain (lower back, hamstrings, glutes and calves) and the quadriceps. A weaker muscle group will therefore in turn shift the load elsewhere putting greater strain, on a different area which can in turn result in an overload injury.
The bike setup is a good place to start when you consider the long periods you will be spending on the bike. For this reason, I ask every athlete to send a recording of them on their turbo or outdoor bike so I can address their positioning in relation to their injury complaint to highlight any aspects that may need adapting.
A thorough assessment of the kinetic chain will once again highlight any deficits potentially increasing injury risk. Improving on these will therefore reduce the injury impact on training and better performance.
Running
Did you know that an average 60 minute run with 90 steps per minute will load your body 5400 times! When considering certain structures you may be familiar with, your …
- Achilles tendon takes 6-9 x your bodyweight (BW) = 200% increase compared to walking load.
- Patellofemoral joint (knee) takes 5 x BW = 500% increase from walking
- Hip joint takes 10 x BW
- And tibia (shin) takes 6-14 x BW
The impact from ground reaction forces and muscle contractions pulling on bones both provide huge amounts of force. Hopefully these figures translate the importance when I say we need to be strong enough to tolerate these loads.
Get ahead of any niggles that arise with injury prevention strategies specific to you. However, if you are already struggling with an injury, turn this setback into a positive and use this opportunity to come back to your sport stronger.
Let me help you be proactive, take control and ensure longevity & success within your sport.
Contact me to discuss the next step.