Improve the way you move
Fitting in beautifully with my post on how to avoid Resolutionitis, our sports massage and rehabilitation therapist Helen Murawska (right, with women's champion Samantha Briggs) was at CrossFit's London Throwdown tournament last weekend, where - in conjunction with GLC2000 - she talked to CrossFitters about injury prevention and treatment, and showcased our Pre-Training Assessments. Here is Helen's story.
Last weekend saw the 2nd year of The London Throwdown - a UK-based CrossFit tournament which begins as an online open event and is whittled down to the top few successful participants to compete at the live event.
As a keen CrossFitter myself, I was more than willing to accompany GLC2000’s stall on the day. GLC2000’s glucosamine supplement is very popular amongst the CrossFit community as an aid to joint mobilisation and joint pain relief.
My role on the day was to perform postural and movement screenings, and offer advice on any injuries or niggles for the spectators and competitors alike.
CrossFit athletes (as with athletes of any other sport!) find that joint pain is a common ailment. Great posture and technique are a good start; but even then, the repetitive loading you put your body through can eventually take its toll if prevention and recovery are not maximised. Pain can manifest in varying joints depending on your own movement patterns.
After their screening, I was able to send people away with a better idea of how they were moving from day-to-day, and what that could mean in terms of their injury risks. I gave them ideas to improve shoulder mobility or hip range and, coupled with some important stabilisation exercises, they’ll be able to improve and maintain movement patterns - and therefore technique and safety in the long term.
If you’ve had pain in a joint or muscle for a week or more - it’s an injury. If you haven’t taken a direct blow to the area (yes, I’ve missed my target doing box jumps too) then it was probably avoidable. How long did it keep you out for; or how much did it limit you going heavier, or faster? What if you can avoid the next injury that’s looming in your shoulder when you work overhead, or that slight pinching in your hip when you squat?
Now, there’s no need to become paranoid about injury, but it makes sense to give yourself as much chance as possible to avoid a problem that you’re vulnerable to by improving the way you move. This will mean spending some time increasing range at any specifically tight joints, then performing low load exercises to stabilise this new range. You can do this alongside your current training programme. Accompanied by good hydration and complementing your diet with glucosamine or chondroitin-based supplements, this is by far the most effective way to reduce joint pain, improve mobility, and therefore get stronger in the long term - whilst still training.
Think you don’t have time for it? You’ll have plenty of time when you’re forced to spend a month out, resting your strained tight hamstring that you didn’t address earlier!
If you want to improve the way you move in order to reduce your injury risk, we can help! Contact us to book a one-hour pre-training screening for some individual advice; and for a great supervised group flexibility workout, why not try Helen's Supple Steel class at Foundry:East?
Depression in sport: Dr Victor Thompson on BBC Radio 5 Live
After I published yesterday's post by our performance psychologist Dr Victor Thompson, he dropped me a line in the evening to let me know that he was due to broadcast from the BBC Radio 5 Live studio later, discussing the issue of depression in sport with presenter Eleanor Oldroyd, former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan and Chairman of the Management Committee of the Professional Footballers' Association. Clarke Carlisle.
I listened, and found the programme really interesting. But in case you missed it, below is a link to the podcast - the programme started at 9.30pm and Victor's involvement began at 10.
Depression in Sport: Radio 5 Live Special Programme
“How on earth could he be depressed?” Why footballers can hit rock bottom.
Victory's performance psychologist Dr Victor Thompson was recently asked by Channel 4 to comment on the death of ex-Wales football international and Wales football team manager Gary Speed, who was found hanged at his home on 27 November. Here, Victor reflects further on the factors that can send sportsmen into depression.
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The tragic news towards the end of November that Gary Speed had hung himself sent shockwaves through the football world and beyond. I have been asked to comment in the media on why a man with so much going for him would choose to end his own life. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Why would a man with a lovely wife, two young children, a multi-million pound house, a highly valued job, support from fans, a successful track record as a player and now as a manager, choose to end his life?
While I do not know details of Gary Speed’s life, his suicide does echo the story of Robert Enke, a goalkeeper, who played for various European teams as well as the German squad in Euro 2008. In November 2009, aged 32, Enke committed suicide when he stood in front of a train at a level crossing. He left a suicide note. Later, his widow revealed that her husband had been suffering from depression since 2003 and was treated by a psychiatrist. During this period his daughter, Lara, died of a heart defect and he struggled to cope with this loss. Enke’s story has been captured by his friend Ronaldo Deng, in the excellent book, A life too short.
Here are some stark statistics on the extent of the problem:
- Depression is common, affecting 8-12% of the population each year.
- It is more commonly diagnosed in women, but that may be mainly due to women being more likely to present for help and that doctors spot the signs in women.
- Suicide is the most common cause of death in men under 35 years of age.
- Approximately 5,500 people in the UK die from suicide each year.
- Men are three times as likely than women to die by suicide.
With professional football, we see players performing on the pitch or under the spotlight. There are pressures within the game, with struggles to gain and maintain form, challenges when out with injury. There can be difficulties with teammates and management. Critical ‘fans’ and comments in the media. Everyone seems to have an opinion on their performance.
Outside football these players can experience what anyone else can: problems at home, difficult relationships, loved ones who fall ill or other misfortune.
Then these players might have been on a likely path to experience psychological difficulties anyway, whether they were to grow up to become a footballer, tennis player, shop worker or unemployed. For instance, perhaps they were always an anxious child or someone who lacked self-belief.
A problem with depression is that when a person is struggling the most, when they would benefit most from help, they are least likely to reach out for help. The person’s outlook on life and the future is normally very bleak – pointless, hopeless, without change. At this point, suicide can become entertained as a way to stop the suffering or to solve the problem.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way: effective treatments exist for depression which can bring about improvements within days or a few weeks. I see sports and non-sports people every week, helping them to reclaim their life from the darkness of depression.
Path to Victory
When you have an injury, a niggle or are struggling to perform at work or in sports for some indefinable reason, what do you do about it?
If we know our bodies well and recognise that there is something wrong, most of us have a regular doctor or therapist of some description whom we trust to steer us in the right direction. (A Royal Marine friend of mine once told me that most Marines have two numbers on speed dial: the mistress and the chiropractor!)
But no single doctor or therapist can possibly have all the answers – and nor will they always know exactly which direction is going to be best for you. So what do you do when you have reached the limit of their expertise, or when their well-meaning suggestions aren’t having quite the effect you’d hoped?
That’s where Victory can help.
At Victory, we work to an interdisciplinary model. That means that not only are our doctors, physiotherapists, performance psychologists, nutrition therapists, podiatrists and rehabilitation therapists under one roof, but we work as a team, talking to each other and bouncing ideas off each other constantly.
Our premium service is the Victory Interdisciplinary Assessment (VIA).
When you call us to book a VIA, one of our top clinicians will ring you back at a mutually convenient time to discuss your issue with you. As a result of that call, we will put together an interdisciplinary team that is focused on your specific problems.
For example, if you are a rugby player with a badly sprained ankle, you are likely to need a physiotherapist to help you restore mobility and motor control, and a rehabilitation therapist to help you regain strength, power and endurance. But for even better results, you may also benefit from seeing a podiatrist to give you insoles that could help to prevent you from turning your ankle again, and a performance psychologist to you trust the ankle again, so that in your next big match, you are able to focus on the ball and the game plan, and not on whether you are about to twist your ankle!
This rugby player would see a Victory team consisting of a physiotherapist, rehabilitation therapist, podiatrist and performance psychologist at the VIA. After lots of discussion and clinical testing, the player and the Victory team would agree on performance goals, and work out how best to achieve them. The plan they come up with is the player’s Path to Victory – a timetable of appointments with the team, scheduled to fit in with the player’s diary and designed to get him back to peak performance as quickly as possible.
Victory will be offering VIAs as soon as we have premises! Watch this space for further news.
If you would like an appointment with me, please e-mail me
If you have any other comments or questions, I would love to hear them so please feel free to comment below (I will respond!) or to e-mail me.
Blog for Victory
Hi, I'm Nell Mead. I'm a former Army physiotherapist and I specialise in sports medicine and back pain. This is my blog, where I write about issues that are on my mind. Some of these are about issues that are specific to particular injuries or medical conditions but I will also be updating you on events occurring inside Victory and in the wider world of medical rehabilitation. I also publish guest posts by Victory's other therapists whenever I can persuade them to sit still for long enough to write something!
When we're not writing, we're offering appointments at The Foundry in Liverpool Street. We'd love to see your comments on our posts - and we'd love to meet you even more, so do pop by and meet the team.