Hello lovely people, hope you all had a great weekend.
Here is a little something for all the cricket, sport lovers out there.
Now I don’t know if you’ve been watching the cricket World Cup but what an innings by AB De Villiers. It was just pure natural clean hitting……..but it did get me thinking about our current side and our problems and it’s all down to over coaching and thinking too much about technique and plans.
Sport should be played as naturally as it was designed,
yes I agree sport people are fitter and better looked after but we’ve lost of lot of the ‘grace’ that comes with watching natural sportsmen and women.
Look at Finn and Anderson….they burst on the scene then a coach decided their technique would cause them long term health problems and what happened! They had a couple of years of poor performances then went back to their old technique and look at them now!!!
There’s a lot of focus in all training and sports that is science based and what’s best for what sport, but I like to think you need to adapt it to your body.
Yes technique and doing it the right way is important, especially with lifting weights as putting you lower back under stress can increase the risk of injury.
But on the flip side your body has a way of working and there’s a reason….it’s your body and that’s the way it knows and feels comfortable. And it will have adapted to this throughout the time that you will have played sport!
I previously worked alongside a Physio at a top football club who told me when they decided to perform a biomechanical analysis on their squad they found one of their players had a slightly different muscle make up in one leg.
They then put him on a specific training program to correct this……but…..3 months later the player came back to the Physio complaining that he couldn’t cross the ball as well as he could before.
His body has adapted to the sport and the demands of his position and when he changed it he simply couldn’t perform as well.
Use the gym or a specific training program to compliment not totally change your body, so that it gives you the edge you feel necessary.
Here in the clinic we look to strengthen and correct your imbalances but at the same time we work around what you use your body for both in sport and at work and look at how could effect your body.
These changes will take time and are best done out of competition so that your body has time to adapt to it before you put your body under the stresses of the intense competition environment. If these changes are not accepted and adapted for by your body then your on a one way ticket to injury!
Specifically in the clinic lately we’ve seen a lot of runners who have problems after changing footwear, again this effects the body and a new pair of trainers should be slowly introduced….. just like a new gym or training routine.
Build up your running in them and often alternate the old and new shoes especially making sure not to use the new pair on any extreme terrains until your feet and body have adapted.
Before you think about doing anything to improve your sports performance think about how it’s going to effect your body and do it slowly,
and remember there’s no quick route to long term improved performance.
Until next time
Kev 🙂
You might know Paul as an expert Columnist who writes weekly health articles for TWO of the North East's biggest daily Newspapers, The Northern Echo And The Hartlepool Mail, he is a regular Speaker at Industry Seminars around the globe and a Radio Personality, often heard on the BBC. Paul has been an expert guest on dozens of Radio shows and regularly interviewed in newspapers, magazines and trade journals all over the world, including the Guardian.
Paul’s background included working extensively in the Premier League with a Top Professional Football Team, and since quitting his job in Professional Football in 2007, his Physio Practice has become the fastest growing in the UK and biggest in the North East. So successful, that companies like BUPA, ASDA, The Vela Group And Coast & Country, repeatedly retain his Physio company's services to keep healthy their own staff and workforce. Paul Gough Physio Rooms is now a large multi-physio, multi clinic speciality practice in Darlington, Durham, Guisborough and Hartlepool.
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