How to prevent injuries: It’s crucial you follow the right game-plan

South Africans are not used to cold weather and because it is so cold, athletes could be tempted not to warm up properly and this could be a big mistake.

If you are over 35 years of age, you probably grew up in an era of old school training mentality.

In pre-season fitness training your coach made you run around the field aimlessly until you fell over.

I even saw this happen at PSL football level before I moved over to the role of strength and conditioning.

The only reason this kept happening was that the level of expertise and cutting-edge training methodologies were never taught.

Most amateur coaches in South Africa don’t have any form of physical education other than being equipped with the knowledge of what their coach had done and because they may have won the title for three years in a row.

The training behaviour was attributed to winning but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

There are plenty of professional athletes who don’t run properly, have imbalances, play with an injury and are flawed. 

The fact that they have made professional status validates all their years of training and that is a contributing factor to their success, so there is very little change to their routine other than what the coaches prescribe. 

Longevity of career

The truth of the matter is that becoming a professional is quite difficult – and rare – and most professional athletes fail to ask themselves the question: “How long is my career going to last?” 

It all boils down to how you have treated your body over the years and if you had a winning strategy in place.

If you were a competing athlete in your youth, you would be feeling the aches and pains in this cold weather due to your past injuries that were not addressed correctly.

Truth be told, most of your injuries or the severity of your injuries could have been prevented if you followed a scientific game-plan.

For current aspiring athletes, you need the right framework for success for “Longevity of Career” – the strategy below should not be a burden to perform daily but rather seen as how things should be done properly.  

Answer the questions below to see if you are on the right track:

Do you warm up properly? 

Do you perform cool-down stretching in post-practice or match?

Do you practice a daily routine of mobility, stretching core muscles and pre-habilitation?

How hard do you push your body each week?

How often, how long and how intense do you train in relation to your age?

How do you manage your injuries when they occur?

Do you seek professional consultation and advice when your body breaks down?

Are you religious in performing homework the physiotherapist or biokineticst prescribes? 

Do you follow a well-balanced nutritional plan?

Do you use supplements? 

Are you abusing your supplementation? 

Do you know the importance of certain food groups, or do you blindly just eat what is in front of you? 

Do you have at least eight to nine hours of sleep a day for recovery and rejuvenation? 

Do you manage your use of blue light electronics two hours before sleeping?

Do you have a developmental sports science coach guiding you and advising you on best practices based on science?

Do you follow a yearly development plan?

Does your plan only include one or two sports or progress development? 

Do you play for a team that is focused on “winning at all costs” or is the coach development focused? 

Success framework

It is most young athletes’ aspiring dream to play at a higher level but there is a right way or a very painful and hard way of getting there.

The painful way is plagued with missed opportunities, time off development or game-play and plenty of medical bills. 

A success framework is a system you place yourself in on a daily, weekly, or monthly routine designed to give you the best fighting odds of success in the future.

This success framework above is what I call the “Longevity of career” and is designed to keep you in the game for longer. 

The younger you start, the better you will be prepared but if you are a professional athlete right now and plagued by injury, it is never too late to start.

It is important to seek professional advice to help you set up a good strategy.

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