Returning to sport after an ACL injury is a long and demanding road. The common time frame following surgery is 9-12 months before a person can make a safe return to sport. The main reason for this is the time it takes the anterior cruciate ligament to vascularize (more on this later). However there is several problems within providing a recommendation based solely on a time frame, or even just evaluating the knee itself to see if it is intact. What I am going to show you in this article is that the evaluation criteria for returning to sport which uses a blanket template can be majorly flawed, for it often ignores that each person is different, and their weaknesses or reasons for sustaining the injury in the first place is what must be identified and corrected before returning to sport. Neglecting to address faulty movement patterns or restrictions at other joints is why so many athletes, both professional and amateur will suffer repeated injury and can derail even the best of athletes. If you are an amateur or professional athlete and looking to return to sport after ACL surgery this article is a must read as I show you 5 critical factors you must achieve if you want a safe return to sport and minimize your risk of another rupture.
How To Choose The Right Exercises For A Sports Specific Strength Training Program
Strength training and sports specific conditioning has really evolved rapidly over the past 10-15 years as many coaches and athletes search for better ways to train and get every little bit of potential from their body. Yet there is a huge gap in knowledge between elite professional athletes and the amateur or even semi-professionals, especially when it comes to deciding what exercises to use. Far too many programs and methods are based on body building methods, whose purpose is to look good in a mirror, not to move efficiently or powerfully for sports. And the use of so called “core workouts” with endless abdominal workouts is equally disastrous to any sporting enthusiast, which is ironic as they are used to prevent injury and only end up in creating one! Where do you start? Well there is endless exercises, methods and programs to use, the key is to understand the principles of how to choose exercises that right for you using a simple process I am going to share with you from our Sports Specific program in this article.
How To Improve Endurance Without Losing Strength, Speed & Power
Ask anyone who plays in sports like AFL football and basketball how tough it can be to train for speed and power, yet at the same time try to improve your fitness endurance capacity. Many sports demand that you have high levels of strength and power and be able to sustain these repeated bursts in games that last between 2-3 hours. Physiologically the two processes of building strength, power, and speed versus endurance are completely opposed to each other and training both methods at the same time cancels out their effectiveness. This is the equivalent of trying to be a 100m sprinter and a marathon runner at the same time! All good strength coaches and elite athletes are aware of this principle and know that to improve performance these two opposing methods are best trained on their own which is known as periodization. Unfortunately, sporting codes that run for several months of the year do not allow for this perfect recipe to be adopted. Compromises must be made, and usually, it is strength, power, and speed sacrificed for fitness and endurance. But is there a way you can minimize the losses of strength and power by adopting smarter implementation of your fitness training? This is the question we explore in this article and provide you with some simple ideas you can implement into your training that could be a real game changer.
Agility Training Is Vital To People of All Ages & This Is Why
When most people think of agility training the first image that pops into their head is some sporting athletes jumping over hurdles and running in speed ladders. While agility is a great training method for sports it is so much more than that and a very under-valued training method that can provide incredible skills to our body. Far too many people avoid using agility exercises for they lack coordination and have never been great at sports. Their fear of looking silly and making a mess of the exercise makes them avoid using this method which is unfortunate for they miss out on the amazing benefits they provide. What you will find out in this article is how valuable this type of training can be to people of all ages and abilities for improving how they move.
8 Key Abilities You Must Use In Your Training If You Play Sports
One of the misconceptions in the sports world is that to become great, all you need to do is devote endless hours of playing your chosen sport. While it is true you need to put in lots of practice and dedication to learning the skills needed to excel at your sport, just playing the sport and not working on the finer principles of movement will not take you to your full potential. All of the greatest athletes from every sport, even golf (Tiger Woods) attribute their conditioning as a key part of their success. If you just want an average level of performance, and be good at completing a few limited skills, then just playing your sport will achieve that. However, if you want to be the best you could possibly be as an athlete and become great, then you need to design and implement a “specific to you” conditioning program. This requires more than training strength and aerobic fitness and in some cases you may not need to be all that strong! In this article, I will explain the 8 key abilities you need to consider and help you understand what sports conditioning really means.
Unstable Balance Training – Useful Training Tool or Dangerous Gimmick?
The past 10-15 years balance training has really taken off in gyms as a part of gym training however it does spark a debate about the value of using exercises like this and more specifically the use of unstable balance training. Previously balance was just standing on one leg and mainly used for older adults and rehab but with the introduction of equipment like the BOSU and balance boards we have seen an evolution of strength training exercises. But is this stuff just a gimmick and is it even dangerous as some experts suggest? I am a massive fan of Dr Stuart McGill who does not endorse this type of training but I am also a massive fan of Twist Conditioning that do encourage it. Both experts have training models that prove to work and have research backing up their beliefs. In my 20 years as a trainer I have found that there is no one way or absolute answer to anything with exercise and health. And when it comes to balance training there are times when it is great and other times when it is detrimental. The key is to know when and who you are using it with and there must be an intelligent approach to how it is applied. The benefits can be astounding, however if used poorly there is definitely a point where the risk outweighs the reward. In this article, I will dig deep into everything you need to know about balance training and you can make up your own mind if it is useful to your training or not.
Tennis Specific Strength Training Secrets To Enhance Your Game & Prevent Injury
Across the globe, tennis is a game in which many people readily participate in. Whether at a recreational, social, competitive or professional level, the game involves various complex movement patterns, moving in all directions that include a great deal of strength, speed, power, balance and endurance. Just by watching a game of tennis at a professional level, one can really appreciate the great amount of strain that is put on the body, especially when games last upwards of 3 hours. Unfortunately, as with most sports where this is long standing time of physical strain, comes a high risk of injury. There are many factors that can predispose a player to wrist, ankle, knee, hip spine, shoulder and elbow injuries such as differences in bio-mechanics and poor physical condition, equipment, weather conditions, muscular and structural or postural imbalances and repetitive movement strains on joints. In the general population, there is approximately about five injuries per 1,000 hours of participation, and 33 injuries per 100,000 tennis players require hospitalization. Thus, the importance of strength and conditioning for injury prevention is overwhelming. However it must be specific to you, the sport and your weaknesses otherwise the conditioning program will create your injury! And on top of that you are unlikely to play well without the best conditioning methods and techniques. In this article, I will look specifically at the role of conditioning to improve performance and why just using a random approach to strength and conditioning will set you up for injury and poor performance.
Power Training – Why It Is So Important & What Are The Best Exercises?
Power training is a very unique training method that is often misunderstood, neglected and even abused in many strength programs. In simple terms power is the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movement. Most sporting and athletic activities require a fair degree of explosive power, whether it is needed to move explosively to hit a golf ball or tennis ball, jump, sprint, break away from an opponent, react to an opponents offensive tactic or handle an open-field hit, the need to produce power is an essential component. However, it is not limited to sports with many daily activities also requiring this ability. We need power and speed to complete simple tasks like getting out of a chair, walking up stairs, starting a lawnmower or crossing a road quickly. When you understand that we lose this ability very quickly if nothing is done to prevent it, you begin to see just how important power training is to ALL of us. In this article, I will explain how to not only preserve it, but improve your power no matter what age you are.
6 Running Workouts To Improve Speed & Acceleration For Sports
We all know that to excel at sports like Football, Basketball and Soccer you will need an incredible amount of fitness. Skills are great to have, but if you gas out quickly due to poor fitness levels you are of no use to your team. This means you need to spend time improving your running fitness, and unfortunately for many sporting athletes and coaches this is where they make the mistake of over-using endurance focused workouts. Sports like football, soccer, and basketball incorporates multiple high-intensity efforts interspersed with periods of lower-intensity exercise. The physiological demands of these sports require players to be competent in several aspects of fitness, which include aerobic and anaerobic power, muscle strength, and agility. Running in a straight line for 10-15 minutes will improve fitness, but not the specific fitness of what these sports demand. In this article, I will discuss how you can design a running workout that meets all of these demands.
Strength Training Exercises For Basketball To Prevent Injury And Improve Performance
Of all the sporting athletes we work with in our Sports Specific programs, basketball would be my personal favourite. Having played the game from the age of 11 right up to 42 years of age at A grade level or higher for nearly all of this time it is fair to say I am a basketball junkie. I grew up watching Michael Jordan and saw the evolution of the sport having really big dudes who could hardly run, to what it is today with elite athletes and players who are almost 7 foot like Kevin Durant but can handle a ball, and move like a guard. I have also seen the evolution of guards with incredible skills like Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving who have incredible quickness and change of direction, as much as the ability to shoot. As with any sport, practice of the fundamental skills such as free throw shooting, dribbling, and rebounding are essential but the little things that separates average players from great players will come down to the athletic movement. Being able to move faster, and with more efficiency than others is the missing link to taking your game to a new level. And this can only be achieved through a well-designed strength training program. Unfortunately, most of the strength programs you see being used today are still using outdated body building concepts that will ruin athletic performance, not enhance it. In this article, I am going to share with you what the “basketball specific” strength exercises and methods are so you do not make this same mistake.