COACH’S CLINIC
PUT A TIGER IN YOUR TANK!
GETTING INJURED SUCKS! TRAINING TO BOOST YOUR TISSUE TOLERANCE
N BY ANDY SHELTON PHOTOS BY TAUSEEF ASRI
obody likes being injured. From a niggle which stops you performing to your optimum to a full-blown season-ending muscle
tear, many of the injuries which you sustain are entirely avoidable through adequately strengthening your tissue. Each tissue in your body, be it bone, tendon, muscle or any other has a level of tolerance which, if exceeded, will break. You can liken your body’s tissue to a piece of paper—you need a certain amount of force in each direction to tear it. Similarly, weaken the paper by putting some small tears in it—comparable to the microtrauma caused by exercise—and the paper will tear more easily. Alternatively, increase the strength of the paper (using two pieces)—similar to increasing the strength or size of your muscles—and more force is needed to rip it. So how do you go about increasing the tolerance of the tissues which are the usual source of injury in sport—namely bone, tendon, ligament and muscle? Bone material is superior to all other materials of the human body in terms of elasticity, strength and toughness.(1)
The
majority of growth in bones occurs during puberty(2)
although something termed
“remodelling” replaces older bone material later in life(3)
. Thus, altering your bone’s
strength after puberty is difficult, but not impossible. By stressing your bones under tension, compression and sheer forces will cause the microtrauma you need for remodelling to take place. This involves cells called osteoclasts which absorb old, damaged
226 MUSCLE&FITNESS Matt Johnson and Andy Shelton
bone and in its place form new bone tissue.(4) An ideal way to cause the microtrauma needed to increase the density and strength of your bones, as with all of your tissues, is via the theory of progressive overload. (5) Simply adding some “landing drills” into
your warm-up will be enough to begin the damage-repair process. These are drills which require you to jump from standing and land with stiff legs, for example, jumping over a hurdle or small block and landing with only a slight bend at your knee and hips. Continually increasing the weight (using weighted vests, etc) will continually overload your bones, consequently increasing the tissue’s strength. Tendons which join bone to muscle and ligaments which join bone to bone are both fibrous connective tissues made of collagen. Tenoblasts and ligamentoblasts are the cells which repair tendons and ligaments respectively and the activation of these cells through microtrauma occurs most effectively through the use of eccentric overload. Your muscles also have cells called satellite cells which are involved in growth and repair and the strength of these tissues is also best increased using the eccentric overload method, although this is not the most effective way of increasing your 1RM (1 Rep Max- imum—the maximum amount of weight you can lift once). The eccentric portion of a lift is the part where the weight is being lowered. Eccentric overload involves lowering a heavier weight than you lift. An example of this for your Achilles tendon and calf complex is a simple calf raise. Using a barbell on your back, or a Smith machine, stand on a 10 cm block with your heels off the back edge, then raise yourself up onto your toes using both legs and lower using only one, keeping your knees straight. Again increasing the weight and the total number of reps which
you undertake will ensure that you are overloading your tissue each time you lift. Be warned though—this exercise, along with most eccentric overload exercises will cause major DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) if you’re not used to the movement! The final point on strength training for
injury avoidance is to ensure that you allow enough recovery time to allow your tissues to repair—remember the pre-ripped paper analogy. In general, you should certainly look to leave enough time for all of the soreness in that area to subside before revisiting the exercise—this may be up to a week initially, but only a few days as your muscles get used to the exercises. If you have been unfortunate enough to get injured, you will have to make sure you read next month’s article where I will discuss the use of sports science in rehabilitation. M&F
REFERENCES (1) Cardinale, M., Newton, R. & Nosaka, K. (2011) Strength and Conditioning: Biological Principles and Practical Applications. Wiley-Blackwell: Sussex. (2) Frost, H. (1990) Skeletal structural adaptations to mechanical usage. Anatomical Record, 226: 403. (3) Mori, S. (1993) Increased intracortical remodelling following fatigue damage. Bone, 14: 103-109. (4) Martin, R. (2007) Targeted bone remodel- ling involves BMU steering as well as activation. Bone, 40:1574-1580. (5) Selye, H. (1957) The stress of life. London: Longmans Green.
>
Andy Shelton is sports scientist/strength and conditioning coach at Leicester Tigers Rugby Club. Andy is happy to answer M&F readers’ questions on strength and conditioning and sports science. Please email him at:
askandy@weideruk.com.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239