Fundraising, The Open, Walkies and more what a month March was for VFC

This months Coaches Corner is written by Coach Steve and it’s all about Injuries.

First things first…injuries suck! Second thing, disclaimer, I am in no way a health professional

or physio! However, apparently my body is made of chocolate and has a habit of breaking so

I have pretty extensive experience in recovering from injuries ranging from tearing my ACL and meniscus three times (and in the words of the physician ‘in every way possible’…) to blisters on your hand, which are surprisingly annoying and limiting to what you can do in the gym.

Anyway, I thought I would share a few things that I have picked up along the way, which you may find useful.

1. Injury prevention – Give yourself the best chance of avoiding injury in the first place. Whilst we go through a comprehensive warm up and stretching in class we all have our personal weaknesses and tight spots. There is huge benefit if you can arrive 10-15 mins early focusing on your own stretches before class.

2. Onset of a niggle – We have all been there, mid-workout and you start to feel a little dull ache in your shoulder or a small pain in your knee that wasn’t there when you started. Make a judgement call but listen to your body. The chances are something isn’t quite right so probably best to take your foot off the gas a little bit but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a good workout. Don’t be afraid to ask the coach for a substitute movement and/or focus on other parts of the workout. For example, if the workout is running and pull ups and you start to get a pain in your knee when running, sub it for bike and perhaps use the opportunity to enhance your skill in pull-ups. Do you feel like you could push yourself a bit more on that element of the workout?

3. Working through an injury – it doesn’t have to stop you from that one hour a day your normally dedicate to yourself and your health. There are always substitute movements that a coach can provide for you to make sure you still get full benefit from a class. Speak to a coach or message Valesco beforehand so you can go into your class knowing exactly what you will be doing. It’s all about having a plan! Also, lean on the coaches for their experiences for similar injuries others might have had and things you could do to help get yourself back to 100% ASAP.

4. Post injury – depending on how long you have been out for or been limited in certain movements, do not try and pick up exactly where you left off from. You will likely have to go through a short period of acclimatising your body back into things otherwise you could end up re-injuring yourself. Don’t be annoyed if you cannot lift the same weight you could 2 months ago, you will build back up to it and quicker than you think. Remember to give yourself a break in the first instance.

To finish on a personal story, I recently came back from hip bursitis (basically inflammation on the hip), which meant that I could not squat for 9 months. I was determined to do what I had to do and switched my training from athlete to rehab and recovery. It was a long road but we will always get there and 4 months after I was able to squat again I decided to test my 1rm back squat. Low and behold it had increased by 10kg even though I had spent 9 of the last 12 months not squatting. But I did focus on my rehab exercises to help the root cause of the problem

So, in summary, listen to your body, have a recovery plan, follow it and be sensible. If you do one thing is for certain – you will come back stronger and a better athlete for it. It’s all about the long game.

Focus on what you can do not what you can’t.

Steve