‘Players could use lockdown to rehabilitate their old injuries’
THE Covid-19 lockdown is a chance for athletes to rehabilitate old injuries and devote more time to improving or maintaining Physical Fitness levels.
Now that we are spending more time at home due to the coronavirus pandemic many people, especially footballers and other athletes, have questions and concerns about how to maintain their fitness levels when pitches and gyms are closed. With even more restrictive ‘cocooning measures’ in place this week we need to be able to maintain fitness levels at, or very close to home (we have been asked to only exercise within 2km from our home).
Long months of collective training came to a sudden halt recently for many club and intercounty GAA players, with our intercounty teams also having played 5 out of 7 National league games. Players and backroom teams have had to, very quickly, come to terms with maintaining their team’s fitness levels while staying apart.
When athletes abruptly reduce their exercise levels and training, they will experience some level of physiological detraining, with many experts suggesting they will begin to experience some changes to their cardiovascular systems within about two weeks. It is important to know that most can recover their former fitness levels quickly.
Athletes and especially GAA players are generally highly motivated and hardworking individuals but for team players the biggest adjustment is moving from training in a team setting to now, effectively, training alone from home. Players need to learn to adapt in this situation and can use this period of ‘lockdown’ as a chance to concentrate on rehabilitating old injuries or focussing on an area of their physical fitness that they struggle with (see below for suggestions).
In general, as the football season progresses through the National league or competitive season, and matches are being played most weekends, some intercounty players tend to continue playing while rehabilitating their injuries or whilst carrying small niggles. This may be aided by using sports taping over a short competitive period and will always be done under supervision of the medical and physiotherapy team where safe to do so.
There are many components of physical fitness that are vital for a GAA player when they are playing at a high level including:
Cardiovascular fitness
Muscular Endurance
Muscular Strength
Body Composition
Flexibility
Speed and Skill levels
Core strength
Cardiovascular fitness: all players will have been given running blocks by S&C coaches to improve and maintain fitness levels. This could also be achieved by a programme on a stationary bike, or skipping could also form part of this.
For muscular strength and endurance players would normally carry out most of this work at a Gym so these sessions will have to be modified to a home environment. Players can use things at home to replace weights, players can continue with body weight exercises, exercise bands and possibly medicine balls or free weights if they have available at home.
Body composition can be maintained by continuing with the Nutrition advice plans given and with players following their individual training regimes as advised.
Flexibility is a big part of physical fitness especially in terms of injury prevention, daily foam rolling of all the large muscle groups and continuing stretching exercises and muscle activation work can all be easily achieved at home.
Footballers continuously focus on Skills work and skills challenges as part of their training regimes and players can be assisted with advice from their coaches remotely. Sligo GAA games development and coaching staff are also making many of these challenges available through social media every week. These can be used by footballers of all levels or abilities.
Core strength is a very important component of any well-rounded fitness programme as it leads to better balance and stability, no matter what level of sport you play. These exercises can generally be carried out with little or no equipment. At Sligo Physiotherapy Clinic we use an on line exercise system called Physiotec, where we can compile individualised programs to suit players or athlete’s rehabilitation needs. These can be emailed to individuals so they can then access short videos of their exercises thus enabling players to continue their own rehabilitation exercise programmes at home.
While this is a very difficult and unprecedented time for everyone including GAA players and all athletes, our biggest challenge now is to strictly adhere to the up to date HSE and Government advice re isolating ourselves to reduce spread of the Covid 19 Virus, and observing strict handwashing, maintaining a distance of 2 metres when doing essential shopping etc. For players and athletes alike they can seek assurance from the fact that if they can remain healthy and continue with their modified training regimes from home they will be return to their full fitness levels and can look forward to those tough collective trainings once safe to do so again. Below is a basic core strength programme designed from the Physiotec system used at Sligo Physiotherapy that can be used by footballers or athletes to maintain or improve their core body strength. These exercises ideally will need to be progressed by the physiotherapist following further consultation regarding their progress.