ARE YOU A GAMBLER? THE ONE KEY INGREDIENT YOUR ATHLETE MIGHT BE MISSING! - Blog

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That’s right. Your athlete could potentially be missing one of the most important ingredients to a successful recovery from that injury that’s had them out. It doesn’t matter whether they’re 10 years old playing in a rec league or a sophomore in college at a Div I program. This fact doesn’t discriminate by body parts either! Shoulders, knees, ankles, low backs…it doesn’t matter.

You’re just coming off an injury. Could be last week…could be 5 months ago. Let’s call it an ankle injury. You can run, sprint, backpedal, cut hard, change directions, jump. You’re excited. Your coach is excited. Teammates, family…everyone can just taste the idea of seeing you back on the field or court. You’ve been asked to go full speed on the sidelines and all those sprints and cuts seem great.

Ready to go right?

You can be in formal Physical Therapy or be seeing an Athletic Trainer. Maybe you’re a parent who’s trying to guide their young athlete back from what seemed a minor injury. Maybe you just got a cast or a brace off and the Doctor didn’t order any formal Physical Therapy.

Here’s a plain and simple, but really, really, really IMPORTANT FACT. Most team sports require a form of SUDDEN, UNEXPECTED REACTION ABILITY.

“SO WHAT?” you say.

Well let’s think about this for a moment. Your young athlete is running down the field in a soccer game and suddenly there’s a loose ball that comes flying across them and BAM, they’ve got to put on the brakes in a heartbeat, stop and change direction…without any time to stop and think, prepare, or get any of their underlying cheating mechanisms in order for that ankle or knee or low back that isn’t really fully ready yet.

Maybe instead you have a young volleyballer who is playing libero and she’s got to dig a killer spike from the other team’s best outside hitter and she dives to the floor to get her hands on the ball. In a nanosecond she’s suddenly reaching unexpectedly off to a different side than she’d planned, then landing on the floor right onto that same hand. Can her shoulder that was subluxing just weeks ago take it?

There’s tons of examples I could go through but here’s the key point to take home. When we progress athletes back to a change of direction, agility, reaction type sport it just ISN”T ENOUGH for us as PT’s or for the Athletic Trainer or a Coach or a Doctor to suggest or even outright build up and test their ability to do agility moves at FULL SPEED. Those drills typically are PRE-PLANNED drills….NOT reactions.

I’ve seen lots of athletes get through that return progression and up to the “full speed” performance level who really had a surprising struggle when we kicked it up a notch to the unexpected reaction work.

Reaction based agility sports movements really are a higher level of function and demand on the body than just “going hard” or “100%” effort at sprinting and agility drills. Success on the athletic field or court or ice very often demands that your young athlete not only be able to move quickly but to be able to do it in a heartbeat’s notice to stay with their opponent, beat them to a spot or a ball, or deal with contact.

Properly preparing your athlete for a return MUST take into consideration the exact functional demands of your sport. For a swimmer or a golfer these sort of concerns can essentially be forgotten. There’s no opponent to react to. There’s no sudden unexpected change of direction to handle. But for many other sports it’s a KEY INGREDIENT that can often be overlooked.

Don’t be a GAMBLER with your young athlete’s health!

Make sure to call us at PEAK PERFORMANCE Physical Therapy and Sports Training at 218-0240 if you’re looking for help taking your injured athlete to the level they need to make it back safely!