As both a Multisport Coach and a Chiropractor, I’m lucky to be able to coach my roster of athletes and also work with athletes in my clinic (Burlington and Toronto based). I see two types of athlete injuries in my chiropractic practice – those incurred by trauma or accident, and those created over time by repetitive actions – such as endurance exercise like swimming, cycling and/or running. The injuries created by repetitive activity are the most complicated to treat and often take more time to get better because it involves identifying and fixing imbalances that have been created by habitual overuse.
Management of overuse injuries requires a combination of passive treatment in my clinic and active exercises done by the athlete themselves in order to correct the imbalance situation that has been created by using the same muscle groups repetitively and ignoring others. Habits are hard to break and I find that athletes suffering from more chronic conditions have more trouble maintaining the routine required to prevent return of their injuries rather than sliding back into old habits. Often once the pain is gone it is easy to stop the stretches and strengthening that is required to keep it gone!
It takes work to stay balanced and injury free. So many athletes ignore the work until they have a problem that interferes with their performance. Their foam roller sits in the corner day after day while they ignore the tightness and pain that creeps up slowly at first. Left unaddressed, it shows up after a hard run or race, or doing a make-up workout on a rest day. The best way to keep injuries at bay is to work on preventing them in the first place. This includes taking care of three things: strength, mobility and stretching. Make “prehab” exercises a part of your weekly training schedule in order to avoid having “rehab” exercise! This will help make sure you continue training strong and don’t have interruptions due to aches and pains.
My recipe for staying injury free takes about 15 minutes every day – and includes a set of basic strength and mobility exercises. Add in 5-10 minutes of foam rolling and stretching, and proper rest, and you are ahead of the game.
To see a video demonstration of this program: https://www.facebook.com/clperfomancetraining/videos/863655173837929/
Do a 10 minute full body warm up before these…even if it means a brisk walk around the block or up and down some flights of stairs. Note: As you’ll see in the video, babies and dogs are not excuses for skipping this workout!
- Lateral Lunge (10 x on each side)
- Step Up (10 x each leg)
- Single Leg Squats (10 x each leg)
- Push Ups (on toes to failure, then 5 more on knees)
- Supermans (10 x)
- Plank & Side Planks (30 secs each position)
- Dead Bug (10 x each side)
