WHAT IS SOCCER FITNESS?  PART ONE

This is part one in a series of articles on what is soccer fitness. Part 1 is addressing the issue of why injury prevention is priority number one.

For the purposes of this website we will look at soccer fitness as a comprehensive training program meant to decrease the likelihood of injury and improve performance. All training programs should encompass these two goals. Here is why starting with injury prevention is critical.

What happens if your soccer fitness program is performance first and injury prevention second?

Approaching a performance program as performance first increases the chances of injury. First of all, what happens if you improve an athlete’s performance only to get them injured? Their performance will decrease and unless they are rehabbed correctly this injury could lead to an increased chance of further injury in different parts of the body. All that training you did with them previously could be for nothing. And you may have just initiated a vicious cycle of injury that will not allow that athlete to ever achieve his or her potential.

Let me give you a real life story on injury prevention. But first let me introduce the kinetic chain. It has three components: articular (joints), neural and muscular components. If any component of the kinetic chain is out of whack, compensations and adaptations will occur in other systems. This will lead to predictable patterns of injury.

Here is my example from my own life. I sprained my ankle playing basketball (I know I know. This is a soccer site.) about 1 to 1.5 months ago. Just yesterday I was walking around downtown Salt Lake City with this unknown pain on the outside or lateral side of my right knee. I decided to do some exploration to find out what the problem was. After searching I came across something called IT band syndrome, which seems to correlate to the pain I was having on the lateral side of my knee. Keep in mind I was not officially diagnosed with IT band syndrome but as you will see the pieces fit together.

Research has shown that one of the negative results of ankle sprains is weakness in the hips (Gluteus Maximus and Gluteus Medius). The hips seem to correlate to preventing injuries in the anterior and lateral side of the knees. Why would I have developed this thing called IT Band Syndrome? The answer could come back to the ankle sprain which lead to weakness in the hips, and hip weakness (specifically hip abductors like glut Medius) seems to contribute to the development of IT band syndrome. (1)

Injury prevention does not only apply to post injury situations. In general, certain muscles like the Glute Medius are more prone to being inactive or weak. This means your Gluteus Medius (muscle on the side of the hip) could be weak or inactive right now. Which means as an athlete you are more prone to developing conditions like IT band syndrome, tendonitis in the knee or other anterior knee pain injuries.
I hope you see the progression of thought and how it is vital to reduce the likelihood athletes will get injured.

This is just one example of why you need to train for injury prevention. Remember if any component of the kinetic chain whether that be neural, muscular or articular are out of whack you could be at a higher risk of injuries.

Here are some interesting stats from the NASM.

• 80-150k ACL injuries each year. 70% of the ACL injuries are non-contact in nature and most occur in the transverse plane during eccentric deceleration. What is the prime age group for ACL injuries, 15-25?
• 85% of adults suffer from low back pain.
• Over 2 million athletes sprain their ankles each year.
• According to one study done in 2000 of 11,780 male and female high school and college athletes, females had a 25% greater chance of ankle injury. Ankle sprains are the most common acute sports related injury. (2)

Not only should you look to reduce the likelihood of ACL injuries but also the effects of how an ACL, ankle or other type of injury can cause future injuries in other parts of the body. Also look to develop parts of the body that traditionally might be weak like Glute Medius and make that a staple of your program to reduce the likelihood of anterior and lateral knee pain.

The examples I gave in this article are just a few of many different types of possible injuries. Part of a comprehensive and effective training regime is first and foremost injury prevention.  Look to develop flexibility, strengthen weak muscles or activate inactive muscles.  If you would like to discuss your injury prevention program with me join today and get free consultations and Soccer Training chats. 

Right now we have a special where the first 500 that buy will get lifetime memberships where you can ask me questions about preventing injury and look for future injury prevention programs on www.Elite-Soccer-Fitness.com  .  To join go back to the home page and click the buy now button at the bottom of the page.

(1) http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050415/1545.html
(2) National Academy of Sports Medicine, NASM.org

Picture of ankle from http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/health/sports/ankle.gif