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The dream for many sportspeople is to forge a long and successful career as a full-time professional athlete. However, only very few are lucky enough to experience this, and many more athletes across the world end up showcasing their talents as a part-time or semi-professional athlete.

Rather than having the luxury of dedicating most of their time to training and recovery, these athletes are required to work full time jobs (often labour intensive), and then attend training sessions at the end of a 10 hour work day, with training loads very similar to that of an elite athlete.

This obviously poses a massive challenge to the athlete. Having to try and fit in work, training, recovery, family time, social time and sleep all in the space of a 24 hour day.

Managing these athletes can also be a massive challenge for the sports physiotherapists helping them to rehabilitate their injuries and keeping them out on the park.

As we know, load management is an integral part of progressing through a rehabilitation plan, and also helping to reduce the risk of any niggles or injuries. Over the past few years, even with limited resources at semi professional sporting organisations, physios and S+C staff have become much better at monitoring and analysing player loads from a physical, mental and emotional perspective. However, this is where the real challenge lies in dealing with players who work physical jobs throughout the day. For example, take a player who has suffered a calf strain 10 days ago. We can’t expect a player to tell us exactly how many times he has gone up and down the ladder during his work day as an electrician, but should this be a consideration in how much running he does at training that night?

For the athlete playing at this level, at the end of the day, their paid work is a higher priority for the majority of them over their ability to play sport. This often means that rehabilitation from an injury is compromised or lengthened in time, due to the pressures of having to return to work and feed their families. Take the athlete who has had an ACL reconstruction, but also works as a carpenter. The athlete will be eager to return to full time work as soon as they get the all clear from their surgeon, but will being on their feet all day and repetitively squatting cause a knee effusion that will then hinder their ability to perform and progress their strength work?

As their sport might not be their number one priority in their lives as mentioned, training consistency can also be a challenge in dealing with players at this level. Work and family commitments can sometimes clash with training sessions, with missed training sessions affecting their training load for that week, and potentially increasing their risk of injury in the coming weeks.

The emotional toll that having to fit so much into one day can take on the athlete, is also a vital consideration as a sports physiotherapist at this level. We are in a great position as sports physiotherapists to chat to players to ask them how they are coping. Whilst strapping their ankle, we can gain a lot of information about whether or not the athlete has a rough day or period or time, and whether or not they should have a lighter night on the track to help not overload their nervous system.

Many challenges and questions have been posed above, but the number one question is what can we as sport physiotherapists do to help semi-professional athletes overcome these challenges?

In my opinion, the best thing we can do here is to educate our athletes as much as possible, and focus on the ‘big-ticket’ items to allow them to stay at their best for as long as possible.

The ‘big-ticket’ items for me are:

  • Sleep – As we know, sleep has been shown to be the most important recovery technique out there for athletes. Sleep is available to both professional and semi-professional athletes, so this has to be a priority.
  • Importance of communication – Empower and encourage the athletes to communicate with coaches, S+C staff and physios so we can better monitor how they are dealing with the challenges of being a semi-professional athlete.
  • Training consistency – Missing a 10km training session during the week and not making up for it, can often lead to an injury down the track from my experience. It is up to the S+C coach, physio and athlete to formulate a plan as to how to best make up for this session.

I am sure for those sport physiotherapists out there who work at this level with athletes, these are common challenges for you, along with many more that I have not mentioned. Because of these challenges, I find working with these athletes highly enjoyable and rewarding, and I hope you do too!

Despite the large amount of knowledge we now have regarding injury prevention of athletes, the shear amount of non-contact injuries that occur each year can be alarming. The balancing act between allowing an athlete to perform at an elite level and keeping them in a rehabilitation program for an extra couple of days can be a decision that keeps the medical team up at night. There are many factors which can contribute to a decision such as this and being pain free is not always a necessity. It has been found that an athlete’s performance will increase with volume and intensity increases, however, with these factors also comes the increased risk of injury. It has been found that an athlete is seventy times more likely to suffer injury if they exceed their individual weekly training threshold. The following article looks to answer some questions in how the medical team may deal with the manipulation and interpretation of an athlete’s load during the during pre, inter and post season.

Pre-season training for elite clubs, is the strength and conditioning programs designed to prepare athletes for an entire competitive season and not just an individual event. For amateur clubs the pre-season may be used for maintenance of fitness in the post season. The development of a well-planned pre-season training program can lead to a decrease in injury risk, increase in mental strength and condition the body for the cues and contacts of a game. The old adage of “train smarter not harder” has changed with the recent evidence produced by Tim Gabbett and Peter Blanch, with the new spin stating: “Train Smarter, Train Hard”.

The premise being that completing short hard training sessions is more beneficial to athletes than those of a longer duration which has the potential to increase injury risk. Training hard with a vehicle like High Speed Running helps to protect physical qualities of an athlete. However, a well-planned pre-season can only be as well planned as the measurement of the athletes load during that pre-season.

Measuring Loads

There are a number of different ways that load can be measured both subjectively and objectively and all with their own pros and cons.

One such way of measuring an athletes training load is through the use of the Acute: Chronic Workload Ratio. The chronic workload is measured over a four week rolling average, while an acute workload can be anything from one training session to one week, depending on the fatigue level of the athlete. The ratio known as the “sweet spot” is between 0.8 and 1.3, this is further supported by the rule of “10% volume increase” which would produce a 1.1. The “Danger Zone” in the Acute: Chronic Ratio is any workload exceeding 1.5, however, there is increased risk for any ratio above a 1.

Another way of measuring athlete load is through Rate of Perceived Exhaustion (RPE) times the duration of the session (minutes). Using this measurement tool allows for not only physical load to be recognized but the mental load being placed on an athlete. If a programmed session is expected to rate a 7 on the RPE scale but the athlete scores the session as 12 then there may be something else worth exploring within the athletes life.
It is suggested that you have 7 days to manage an injury risk for a non-contact presentation. If an athlete is seen to be in the danger zone for too long a period the use of more recovery sessions or complete rest may be required to decrease the physical and mental stressors affecting the athlete. The load variables that have potential to affect the load felt by the athlete are sport specific and can be both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature.

Contributors to Load

There are a large number of factors which can contribute to load accumulation in an athlete and how that load accumulation is attenuated by the tissues of the body. Past injuries are one of the biggest contributors to future injury whether within the same region of tissues or in a separate region as a result of detraining. What was originally an ankle injury which saw an athlete reduce training load for two weeks, can easily lead a vortex of injury in other regions due to deconditioning associated with the reduced game readiness.

Additionally, the bio-mechanics of an athlete cannot be directly correlated to an injury which has not occurred yet – in other words, you cannot predict a specific injury based on bio-mechanical factors that you may visualize. Yes, those bio-mechanical factors can be seen as risk factor for injury but not specifically tied to an individual athlete and the injury they may incur.

Moment in time injuries (ankle sprains/ACLs) and contact injuries of varying degrees will lead to weakness within those tissues and an increase of further injury in the future. This may be a result of “overloaded” tissues relative to their current ability to handle loads – therefore the question is posed again, is it an Overuse Injury, Overload Injury or Training Error which should be the primary umbrella term used to describe these conditions.

The rehabilitation process which has been used to see the athlete return to sport is also important in the contribution to athlete load.

Did the athlete stop all physical activity over the time of injury?
Did the athlete return to training before returning to sport?
Was the athlete returned to their pre-injury chronic load before returning to game play?
Was the athlete 100% ready to return?
If not is the club, player and practitioner willing to take that risk?

There are many more questions that need to be asked and many more which we have not covered here. These decisions are commonly made under pressure to get the player back to field as soon as possible.

Managing Load

So far we have seen what may contribute to an athlete’s load as well as how we can best measure that load in both a subjective and objective format. But how good is that information if we do not have an effective way of managing those risk factors, acute physical load spikes and psychological stressors?

Load should be considered a vehicle, an objective and subjective matter that can drive an athlete towards injury or away from injury. At the end of the day your main destination is “game day performance” or “season performance”, how you reach that destination can be done via a number of routes and selecting the best one is what must be decided upon by the medical staff, athlete and the organization.

When looking to manage load, an athlete’s activity levels should be modified but never ceased. This is to limit detraining, maintain aerobic and anaerobic fitness and continue a base level of their chronic work load. The use of increased aerobic fitness and lower limb strength has been found to reduce an athletes risk of injury. For a long term injury which requires an extensive rehabilitation program it is suggested that workload is increased by 10% per week until the patient reaches their pre-injury chronic workload and are suitable to return to full training.

In conclusion, the monitoring of an athletes load with both subjective and objective measures is essential in the preparation for the competitive season. The development of a well-structured pre-season training plan can bullet proof an athlete not only for a single event but an entire season if completed successfully. A detailed medical history, injury history and lifestyle awareness is important for understanding of how an athlete should prepare for the sporting tasks required of them; from an easy recovery run to a worst case scenario within a single game. It is important to note that an athlete should not stop activity altogether but modify their activities in a way which is most appropriate for their injury.

References

Blanch, P., & Gabbett, T. (2016). Has The Athlete Trained Enough to Return to Play Safely? The Acute: Chronic Workload Ratio Permits Clinicians to Quantify a Players Risk of Subsequent Injury. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Gabett, T., Hulin, B., Blanch, P., & Whiteley. (2016). High Training Workloads Alone Do Not Cause Sports Injuries: How You Get There Is The Real Issue. British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Halson, S. (2014). Monitoring Training Load To Understand Fatigue In Athletes. SPorts Medicine, 139 - 147.

Saw, A., Main, L., & Gastin, P. (2015). Monitoring The Athlete Training Response: Subjective Self-Reported Measures Trump Commonly Used Objective Measures: A Systematic Review. British Journal Of Sports Medicine, 281 -291.

How I Rehab
How I Rehab
#16 Prevention Systems with Paula Charlton PhD
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In this 16th Episode of The Sports MAP Podcast we chat with Paula Charlton (PhD) we discuss her current work with Triathlon Australia and delve in to your expert knowledge on injury prevention systems in sports. We discuss at the length:
  • Bone stress injuries
  • The energy deficit athlete
  • Prevention systems in endurance athletes
  • Reducing the incidence of patella tendinopathy in volleyball athletes
  • Groin injury prevention
  • What to expect at the Athlete Groin Pain Symposium in Sydney
  • Isometric hamstring strength assessment as a screening tool
  • Ongoing isometric hamstring strength deficit following hamstring injury
  • Who owns injury & performance?

Listen to this Podcast via your favorite platform including Apple, Spotify, Player FM & Stitcher. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Sports MAP Podcast. If you do, please let us know by leaving a review and sharing via Twitter & Facebook.

This episode is brought to you by KangaTech & West Coast Health & High Performance (Perth)