EQP
EQP
- Sep 1, 2013
- 8,008
- 29,820
Been seeing quite a few comments about the incompetency of the Tottenham medical staff and wanted to clarify a few things before they become the new scapegoat for why players are always out injured and blamed for any future failures.
Why are our players always hurt?
Several possible reasons for that, unfortunately injuries are part and parcel of the game. From severe acute injuries to more bothersome chronic injuries, there is no 100% way to prevent injuries so scrap that idea from your head. But there are factors that can lead to further time on the physio table
Why are our players always hurt?
Several possible reasons for that, unfortunately injuries are part and parcel of the game. From severe acute injuries to more bothersome chronic injuries, there is no 100% way to prevent injuries so scrap that idea from your head. But there are factors that can lead to further time on the physio table
- Players rushing back - This is a major issue, frequently players want to play through the pain and take care of any underlying issue after the season is over. The body doesn't work that way, any improper form (and increased load) or dysfunction will cause the player to break down at some point and cause even more issues ( bad ankle moblity can lead to knee instability which can alter hip mobility). Also players can overdo the rehab work ( in the hopes of getting fit quicker, seeing multiple physios or jumping on the latest fix-all that they've heard about ) or on the flipside not do enough helpful recovery ( physios/medical staff are with players at the max 6 hours, helping with rehab, if the players cannot be responsible the other 18 hours then recovery becomes an issue).
- Managers rushing players back- I actually heard a quite a few managers say that " i'd rather have a 50% John Smith playing rather than him missing the game" without truly understanding the consequences of rushing an injured player back. With the stakes being incredibly high in the league and managers wanting their best players available to help win games, this becomes a prevalent issue. Unfortunately, this can be damaging to the player on a two levels. First, physically because the likely hood of injury is increased. Secondly, mentally because if a manager is personally nudging a player to play who isn't fit, the player might feel that failling to do so will affect any future starts or minutes on the field or worse lose the managers faith in him. All of which lead invariably back to more time on the physio table.
- Injury History/Prone - Some players, due to physiological differences etc are just prone to injuries. It then becomes a case of managing these players and using techniques to reduce the extent of the injury (rather than "curing" it). Players who tend to have acute severe injuries (ACL/MCL, broken leg) become susceptible to even more injuries in the future. We can see this with players returning from long layoffs (Kaboul - Knee Injury) having to deal with niggling muscular strain or ligament sprains on his road to recovery.
- Plain Bad Luck - In form of training injuries, sometimes a players get hurt while trying to get back to fitness, tis a way of life. I also believe Lamela falls into this category of plain bad luck. New country, new language, new more physical league, him having to justify his transfer fee etc have all played into his injury. There is a photo of him staying back after a game to to work on his shot , so it is not unimaginable to see him doing some extra work on his own outside of the training center in order for him to get to grips with the league. And with the psychological stress of wanting to adapt quickly and make the WC team, we should be thankful he hasn't completely broken down. Fortunately at 21/22 he still has to time to grow into his body and find ways to cope with the demands of the game.
- Bad Physios/Staff - As much as we would like to blame them for players being out longer than expected, they rarely deserve the blame. They are good (if not great) at what they do. These are the same guys that saved Muamba's life! The same guys that insisted the Hugo go off the field but AVB decided otherwise! THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! You really think Levy would sanction a new training center, buy players of value and then assemble a bunch of clowns to look and care for his investments
THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! Alot of people fail to realize just how demanding the world of sports medicine is. Dealing with constant change from new training regimes and equipment, they have to stay up to date to ensure that the players are getting the best and most applicable form of treatment available. AGAIN THEY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.And if you doubt that they do know what they are doing , here is a video of Wayne Diesel, Head of Medical Services at Tottenham, delivering a seminar on "Eccentric Rehab"...if you feel you understand more than half the information he's delivering maybe you should be the Tottenham physio instead 
- I just remembered another factor that can lead to player injuries
Managers/ Headcoaches set in their way- I remember a case where we received new equipment and were to do baseline testing with the players for the upcoming season. The Head Coach of the club wasn't to sure about this because he felt all this new tech was just a distraction (and also he didn't understand how to interpret the data). So we tried our best to make the data easy to digest for everyone. We made tables showing HR/HR AVG/ WK LOAD/ CALS/TIME etc, for a 1 week or so everything seemed good. Unbeknownst to us the Head Coach was looking at HR after each session and giving the players he perceived with lower HR's more work to do because he felt they weren't working hard enough in training. We began to see an increase in muscular strains soon after without knowing the cause until one of the players remarked that he had to cut down on a strength session to do some extra cardio work that the coach had issued. We were baffled because the player in question was in the top 3 fittest players in the team!! So we asked the coach what the reasoning was behind the extra work and he said something on the lines off " Because they had low HR'S after my training sessions, which means that they were being lazy!!". So we had to clear up all the confusion and let him know that he had to take into effect Workload when looking at HR and that a lower HR in this case was indicative of high level of cardiovascular efficiency (extremely fit). He was not thrilled that he was wrong and decided that we stop using the charts because he didn't appreciate not knowing what the information meant and to him it was superfluous
So we stopped with the charts but still recorded after each session for our records so we could go back and see how to best to approach each strength session and recovery for each player.
Sometimes managers/head coaches are unwilling to adapt to new methods of player improvement and insist the old ways of "make em run till they puke" will reap more benefits. It is at times an uphill struggle to sell true scientific methods of improvement to them because they have already been successful without them.
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