training

Train smarter

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Train smart

Train Smarter Not Harder!

The gyms are open!

Whether you are starting exercise as part of a New Year’s resolution, looking to shed some COVID kilos or preparing for the sporting season ahead, there are a few things to think about before getting back into training.

Change in health status?

If you have developed pain or have had a change in your health status since you were last in the gym, then it’s important to be assessed by a physiotherapist before commencing training. Understanding the source of your pain or impact of a health condition is necessary to minimise risk of further injury or illness.

If you are feeling well and ready to return, then here are a few things you should keep in mind to keep you injury free and on track with your goals.

Do not resume training at your previous loads!

We can all be eager to get straight back into training at the same weight or intensity as before the break, however jumping back in where you left off can be risky and is a common cause of injury. A good rule of thumb is to reduce your weights by 50% on your return to the gym or begin with body weight exercise before slowly adding weight.

The slower the climb, the higher the peak!

Stay on track to achieve your long-term goal by avoiding injury. Too often do people go too heavy too quickly, resulting in time spent missing training. Try to keep weight increases to no more than 10% per week. These incremental increases give your body time to adapt to the changing load.

Rest is Important!

Our bodies need rest and recovery time in between training loads to get stronger and minimise injury. It is important to program rest or active recovery days where your heart rate does not exceed 140 bpm.

Consider training every second day or complete a gentle walk, swim, or bike session on the off days if you are looking to stay active. If you need some advice to assist with getting back into the gym or run into problems on your return, the team at NU Moves Physio would be happy to give you a hand.

Avoiding Pre-season Injury

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pre-season injuries

If you want avoid pre-season training injuries – start to plan your pre-season program now! This is good advice if you are between seasons or starting a sport again after a period of not playing. It is also good for trainers / coaches to consider when running a pre-season fitness program for a team.

A few months off regular exercise and training after winter sports is routine and often good for the body. But when pre-season training starts is when our physio clinic starts to fill up with athletes with strains. Here’s a guide to reduce your risk of injury during the next pre-season and regular season.

It starts with understanding injury risk and how we measure it. Why do some people get injured more than others? Can anything be done?

There are a lot of different reasons involved in why an injury may occur and there is no single test that provides an overall level of injury risk. Most professional sporting clubs use a complex battery of preseason testing, but it requires a huge amount of resources, and the chances are your local club doesn’t have that.

Recently a very simple, easy to understand and freely available risk indicator has been researched: The ratio of an athlete’s current exercise load compared to their historical exercise load (current week vs previous four weeks). This has been shown to predict injury risk in Cricket fast bowlers, Australian Rules football players and Rugby League football players. In order to get this ratio, you have to measure exercise load. In professional sport, players will often train with GPS and accelerometers to measure exercise load over the season – large fluctuations in load = higher risk of injury. When those devices aren’t available we have to go back to more simple measures.

Start recording in a diary the type (cardio, speed/sprint, power, strength etc) of exercise you do each day and some indicator of quantity (i.e. distance ran or the total time spent training). Then you need a measure of the intensity of the session which is usually relative to 100% as hard as you could go. If the session varies then record what you think is the average intensity and the amount of time spent at the maximum intensity. The goal of your workload diary is to allow you to plan your workload volume and intensity each week relative to the previous ones to make it a gradual transition during pre-season conditioning. This will avoid large spikes in workload and reduce your injury risk.

So when you get active again make sure you plan what you will do one week to the next and avoid spikes. But if do you get an injury we will be there to get you back on track.

If you want to read more on this see the articles below:

* Hulin BT, Gabbett TJ, Blanch P, et al. Spikes in acute workload are associated with increased injury risk in elite cricket fast bowlers. Br J Sports Med 2014;48: 708–12.

* Hulin BT, Gabbett TJ, Lawson DW, et al. The acute:chronic workload ratio predicts injury: high chronic workload may decrease injury risk in elite rugby league players. Br J Sports Med 2016;50:231–6.

* Murray, N. B., Gabbett, T. J., Townshend, A. D., Hulin, B. T. and McLellan, C. P. (2017), Individual and combined effects of acute and chronic running loads on injury risk in elite Australian footballers. Scand J Med Sci Sports, 27: 990–998. doi:10.1111/sms.12719

Common training mistakes – how to avoid injury

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running and physiotherapy

Exercise and sports related injuries are common. Some sports such as rugby come with higher risks and frequency of injury. General exercise often has low risk of injury but that depends on how hard we push ourselves and the type of exercise we do. It doesn’t matter whether it is a team sport, an exercise class, a personal training session or an individual session, an injury will limit your participation for a period of time.

One common source of injury is ‘training error’. This is usually doing too much, too soon but can also be related to technique (e.g. squat, running) or equipment. Technique is the way you move relative to the load or complexity of the movement.

There is a fine balance between being challenged sufficiently to enjoy exercise and avoiding ‘training error’. A simple message is the more you know your body at each stage of life the less likely injury will occur. This means train at a level of load suited to your body; gradually increase the level of exercise over several weeks; listen and adjust to pain especially if it is in a joint or the spine; and use mirrors to watch how you perform a gym exercise to ensure the technique is correct. It’s simple advice but it works if you want to reduce the chance of injury.