DYNAMICS OF SPORT COACHING

48–72 hours before loading) is essential in the initial stages of injury and any failure to do this can offset the athlete’s recovery.

THE COACHES

The issue in this country within grass- roots sports (this may not apply to athletics alone) is that coaches are a must. They are needed. They are part of the framework, regardless of how specialised they are. But sports medicine (and, interestingly, sports science) are seen as specialist areas, which the coach only decides to tap into when he or she sees fit. There is no stipulation for someone with a background in either sports science or sports medicine to be on hand. Yet the question remains: How do the coaches know when and how to use this specialist information? With greater degrees of

intervention and background knowledge, these incidences of misguidance and resultant injury or performance deficits (and others like them) might be avoided. Coaching per se is not bad in this country. We have several superb coaches. Yet, as with any profession, the higher standards of coaching tend to be available only to people of an elite standard, but at a grass-roots level it is more like a conveyor belt of athlete production, where the masses are laid out one by one, because it simply comes down to “the survival of the fittest” if there is no appropriate guidance.

Gender and development My greatest concern is for the developing athletes, who are often subjected to significant loading during and after puberty, which can have significant effects on them and on their development. Their participation in sport, especially if they are a gifted athlete, increases through school and throughout their adolescent life until they eventually begin to specialise in one sport in particular. There is some degree of

awareness about this issue. Research carried out by Hewett et al (8,9) has shown that differences occur both pre- and post-pubescence in boys and girls, due to a “neurological spurt”. Girls continue to employ a motor pattern of quadriceps preference during athletic activities, whereas males “begin” to use the gluteal and gastrocnemius

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muscle groups in greater synergy. But you have to be wary of the word “begin” in this context because this doesn’t always happen with male athletes, and the failing highlighted in female athletes (landing in an erect valgus posture) is often seen in their male counterparts.

These differences have been

observed across the genders, but generic training that is offered to boys and girls may not be ideal for providing the necessary gains and development needed by these young athletes, and it may not provide an adequate baseline level of fitness to train and compete in this demanding sport. What is clear is that generic training offered to all may not be ideal.

The desire for perfection among

athletics is key – to run faster, to jump higher, to throw further. And if they cannot attain perfection, then these athletes will find ways around it, even though performance deficits and injury may follow.

CONCLUSION This article serves as an introduction to some of the issues most of us see increasingly in sport in the UK nowadays. If feedback to this article is forthcoming, specific points will be dealt with in detail in future issues. However, the important point is not what we think as practitioners but the knowledge that young, gifted athletes who might be dreaming of Olympic glory may yet “fall short” because they are part of a system that is designed (through no fault of their own) to fail them.

TEST YOUR LEARNING

References

1. Woo S, Kuei SC, Amiel D, Gomez MA, Hayes WC, White FC, Akeson WH. The effect of prolonged physical training on the properties of long bone: A study on Wolff’s Law. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 1981;63:780–787

2. Whyte G. The physiology of training: Advances in sport and exercise science series. 2006 (£19.44). ISBN:978-0443101175.

ISBN Buy on Amazon http://bit.ly/aPqFFA

3. Weiss LW. The obtuse nature of muscular strength: The contribution of rest to its development and expression. Journal of Strength and Conditioning

Research 1991;4(5)

4. Elphinston J. Stability, sport, and performance movement: Great technique without injury. 2008 (£15.38) ISBN 978-0443101175. Buy on Amazon http://bit.ly/9Q1OZ9 5. Hertling D. Management of common musculoskeletal disorders: Physical therapy

principles and methods. 2005. (£35.54). ISBN:978- 0781736268. Buy on Amazon http://bit.ly/d1dtkh 6. Hall TP, Elvey RL. Nerve trunk pain: Physical diagnosis and treatment. Manual Therapy 2002;4(2):63–73

7. Shacklock M. Clinical neurodynamics: A new system in musculoskeletal treatment. 2005 (£35.54) ISBN 978-0750654562. Buy on Amazon http://bit.ly/czGyje

8. Hewett TE, Myer GD, Ford KR. Decrease in neuromuscular control about the knee with

maturation in female athletes.

Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery 2004;86(a):8 9. Hewett TE, Myer GD, Ford KR. Prevention of anterior cruciate ligament injuries. Sports Medicine and Orthopaedics 2001;1:218– 224.

n How would you define the “core”? n How and why does dynamic knee valgus occur? n Are athletes born or bred?

THE AUTHOR

Michael holds a Masters degree in Sports Injury from MMU and is qualified in sports rehabilitation from Salford University. His thesis looked at the reliability of three-dimensional motion analysis of landing and squatting mechanics. He is currently working at Salford University’s Sports Injury Clinic with second-year sports rehabilitation students. He also works within private clinical practice in Warrington and the indoor athletics track at Sport City Manchester. He has been involved in several areas of sport from recreational to elite level, and now hopes to move his study interests into kinesiology and strength and conditioning. This summer will be spent working with Great Britain basketball’s under-20 female squad.

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