There is a large disconnect between clinic-based Physiotherapists and their ability to take athletes through to the end of their rehabilitation adequately. Only at the very elite setting will you find Physiotherapists who work with athlete’s full time, take them from start to finish. Point Health & Performance endeavours to bring you our experience working in full time, elite sports settings and bridge the gap between the clinic and on field rehab for you.
Simply put; when it comes to rehabilitation, we look at the end in mind first, then work backwards. This is called reverse engineering. Along the way, we break down the complexities of rehab and structure them objectively, so your rehabilitation follows a criterion-based progression.
3 key areas we break down in on field rehab are: (note some of these are grouped together but are separate entities)
- Pre planned change of direction & agility
- Acceleration & deceleration
- High speed running and max velocity
The complexities of rehabilitation throughout our stages of progress ensure that these areas of sporting demands are targeting not just in silos, but together as a whole which reflects the nature of your sport. This ensures you can return to sport knowing that you have already completed every component your sport requires.
Pre planned change of direction (COD) & agility
Pre planned change of direction drills are great as a pre requisite for agility and reactive drills. We use pre planned COD drills for general tissue preparation to develop eccentric strength, dynamic balance and increase rates of force development. Pre-planned side steps result in greater lateral foot placement, greater lateral movement speed, greater forward foot displacement, increased hip abduction, lower knee joint angles and reduced forces through the knee than unplanned side stepping (Brown et al., 2014; Houck et al., 2006). This can help us develop the physical aspects of agility.
Agility is defined as a “rapid whole-body movement with a change of velocity or direction in response to a stimulus”. (Young et al., 2015). The requirement of cognitive reactions to a stimulus e.g. reacting to a ball or a defender is much more game orientated and specific. The complexities of agility tasks increase along the rehabilitation continuum until return to full training and match play.
Acceleration & deceleration
Deceleration is defined as a rapid stop or decrease in the body’s velocity, followed by re-acceleration in a different direction (Hewit et al., 2011). The athlete must reduce force (decelerate) and produce force (accelerate) in some manner, such as changing direction, jumping, tackling, and so on. Performing this task effectively is key to multidirectional speed and agility.
Deceleration is one of the 3 key areas in which ACL injuries mostly occur. In soccer, decelerations occur 2.9x more frequently than accelerations (Harper & Kiely, 2018). During rehabilitation, acceleration and deceleration precede change of direction. Low level deceleration can be commenced early to create further adaptation and drive further development. Acceleration and deceleration drills typically are no longer than 30m in length.
High speed running (HSR) & top speed
High speed running is defined as any speed > 19.8km/hr on GPS. We know that high amounts of high speed running volume over a long period of time greatly reduces risk of hamstring injuries. High speed metres are variable between player positions e.g. in Soccer; a striker’s average HSR in a 90min match is 1000m.
Top speed exposure prior to matches is greatly beneficial for reducing injury rates and spikes in load. At least 1-2 top speed exposures early in the week with approximately 2min rest between reps is enough to reduce risk of injury when reaching top speed. This may be depending on your position or sport. 45% of goal scoring scenarios in Soccer are preceded by a linear sprint (Faude et al., 2012). Therefore, running fast and often is crucial towards player development and increasing top speeds.
We pride ourselves in delivering high quality, criterion based on field sports rehabilitation programming which is individual and specific to your sports demands. Book now to have your rehabilitation programmed and guided by professionals who have been there and understand the nature of sport. We will be there with you from the initial injury right through to when you’re performing better than you were pre injury.
References
- Developing speed; Ian Jeffreys 2017
- Developing field skills in soccer players; Andrew Hyde 2020
