PTJan/Feb 2010 p42-45 Fitness YC PJ MB 21/1/10 17:17 Page 4
Feature Fitness and injury special
X
from two weeks to three months to heal, but waits for her physio appointment. “If I feel my back
Recent
there are taping techniques that offload damaged going, I tie frozen peas around my hips to stop the
muscle tissue to allow players to get back onto muscles getting too inflamed,” she says. “I massage
recoveries
the polo field. the area by rolling a tennis ball between my back
Luke Tomlinson says he tries to “stay fit, get and a wall, and then I do gentle Pilates, which keeps
Emma Tomlinson
good sleep and not to ride bad horses”. He also the spine moving. But the best prevention would be
does a good warm-up before playing. But there is to work on my general fitness.”
nothing he could have done to prevent his For tennis elbow, a good preventative is to
Last year was
fairly painful for
fracture. However, in many cases there are ways maintain muscle length – either by stretching or
Emma. She
of reducing your time on the sidelines. doing weights.
ruptured her
“With all joints, there is a specific length which
left knee
Do more for the core ties in with an optimum length on the other side
cruciate The buzzwords for physiotherapists are “core and these lengths must marry,” says Crawford. “But
ligament in
strength”. Having good core control means the main any form of exercise is good for all joints and
April, jumping
muscle in the stomach – the transverse abdominis, muscles – by the age of 30 our joints are already
off a bucking
which holds the stomach, pelvis and back together – conditioned to certain movements and don’t rotate
horse with a
is firing correctly. Polo makes the ultimate demands as much as they should.”
broken rein. She continued to play until
on this busy muscle, with the giant lever of the Another tip is to go back to basics with your
July when a fall behind the goalposts
upper body swinging around the lower body held stroke. Get a professional player to analyse your
left her with a shattered collarbone.
“I had this operated on,” says Emma,
into the saddle. technique to maximise how your bones and muscles
who believes the best treatment for
“When you’re travelling at 40mph, swinging a interact to produce power.
broken collarbones is to fix it with a
stick and someone hooks your stick,” says Crawford, So, more Pilates, more time in the gym and more
plate. “Since I was unable to ride, I used
“imagine the forces of deceleration going through time spent warming-up will help your body no end.
this chance to have my cruciate your shoulder, amplified through your spine. You And as for dodging the big blows?
operated on. Between these two
have to be able to control that movement.” “You can’t think too much about avoiding
surgeries I had keyhole surgery to tidy
He maintains that most people do not know how injuries,” says Luke Tomlinson. “Just try to play
up cartilage damage from an old wrist
to fire the muscle and should visit a physio just to calmly and within the limits of each horse.” F
fracture.”
get it activated and then apply it to general fitness.
Surgeons suggest three months off
Hermione Owen, who has ridden all her life, has
after collarbone surgery but Emma
◗ Have you any tips on recovering from injury or
suffered from back spasms for years. She has
reckons: “At a push you could play after
preventing it happening in the first place? Tell us
four weeks for your left arm, six for your
developed tricks to alleviate the symptoms while she by writing to letters@polotimes.co.uk
right. Surgeons recommend six to nine
months off before returning to full
activity after cruciate ligament repair but
I am not sure it takes that long!”
Malcolm Borwick
Malcolm broke
his left
collarbone late
last year with
an oblique
fracture, and
opted to be
treated
conservatively
as he “did not
fancy the general anaesthetic”.
“The top half of the bone split away
upwards,” explains Malcolm. “The
ce
treatment was very undramatic. I had to
wear a figure-of-eight bandage for six
weeks and try to rest.”
His Argentinean specialist prescribed
“time and patience” as the best non- Even the best are
operative cure. And Malcolm’s advice to
bound to tumble,
y Paul Hulbert and Nigel Pear
avoid this injury?
as Adolfo
Cambiaso shows
r
aphs b
“Don’t play a Cámara practice on a
here at Cowdray
Photog
wet field in October!”
44 January/February 2010 www.polotimes.co.uk
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