After getting back into work at the clinic in South Melbourne and helping some patients out with their final preparations to get their bodies right ahead of the Melbourne Marathon, Hawaii Ironman & Duathlon World Championships in Adelaide. So I thought I would take a brief moment of respite to put together a quick blog recap on my recent tour to Vietnam with the Joey’s.
After getting back from Cambodia with the team the previous month, it was good to get the call up again to join the team once again for the next tour to Vietnam, which was the important one for the year and the one that would set the team up for the next two years and start the boys on the road to the world cup.
The tour started with me, the team doctor and all the players flying into Sydney to meet up before departing the next day for Bangkok to get our connecting flight and meeting the remainder of the staff in Vietnam who had come across from France a couple of days prior where they had been working with the older age group of players. We had the same make-up in the Sports Medicine team as the previous tour to Cambodia with myself, Physiotherapist Deane Stephens from Adelaide and Sports Physician Ross Cairns from Newcastle.
The tournament structure would run slightly differently this time around, with only three games to be played in a one day on one day off format against Guam, Myanmar and then expected to finish with the most challenging match against the home team Vietnam.
The first few days involved some lighter training sessions and mobility work to ensure the boys were all back to normal after the flight over and setting themselves up for some quality training before the games kicked off. Our daily routine before the games started involved wellness monitoring of the players in the morning, breakfast, training, active recovery session’s in the pool at the hotel, lunch, treatment as required, dinner and bed. One of the days also included a double training session day for the players.
After the last tour to Cambodia, which was also the first time many boys travelled internationally, it was pretty impressive for the team to be set up in the Crowne Plaza in West Hanoi. There would be no shortage of options for the boys (or staff) to load up on the carbs with the buffet selection on offer each day.
The team all got through the lead in training relatively well and dominated the first game 14 – 0 against Guam. So it was good for the boys to have an easier game to start with and get some time on the pitch that would be used for the remainder of the games. Luckily, the weather held on for most of the games, so the pitch didn’t get torn up as much as expected.
The routine stayed pretty stock standard between matches, with the only difference being some easier training on the off days, the inclusion of some ice baths for recovery and more treatment time to ensure that all the player’s who played the previous day got some time on the treatment table.
The next game against Myanmar was slightly tougher, with a final score of 3 – 1 with some missed opportunities throughout the game. Nevertheless, it was a good wake up for the team before the last match against Vietnam in 2 days.
In the final game against Vietnam, it was a do or die battle for the win. Get through, and the world cup is still on the cards in 2 years, lose the game and risk missing out on qualifying for the next stage in India via a countback system and have it out of the team’s control. So a win was a must.
The game was intense from the sidelines throughout the game, and I was relieved briefly when we went 1 – 0 up after a header from Mersim Memeti. For the remainder of the game, it was back and forth, and both teams had several opportunities that were missed. Our keeper Jacob Botic made some cracking saves to keep the game in our favour. The pressure was released at the end of the game when the whistle blew, and the scoreline read 1 – 0.
One of the personal highlights for this tour was the Aussie, Aussie, Aussie chants in the change rooms post-game, a great change in emotion post-tournament compared to the 3rd place in Cambodia a month earlier.
There wasn’t too much time for celebration back at the hotel on the Sunday night after our win over Vietnam with a 5:30 am departure from the hotel the following day to start the journey back home to Melbourne.
Overall it was a quality tour to be involved with and a team that I hope to follow as they transition into the senior programs.
In 2015, I have had the opportunity to work with a group of young male road cyclists with strong aspirations to make it in the professional ranks of the UCI World Tour. Pat’s Veg Cycling is a team in the Subaru National Road Series conducted by Cycling Australia. They work to provide a holistic environment by nurturing the foundations of sustainable success. Providing youth cyclists with a holistic development platform that integrates sporting and academic achievement as well as long term wellbeing. So in short the winning is important but it’s not all about the bike. I really enjoy supporting these guys and helping them achieve their athletic goals.
Double victory salute – Athlete and staff!
When I am away with the team my day is full speed from the minute I slip out of bed and until the moment I put my head back on the pillow. My key skill set I bring to the team is my ability to help the athletes prepare and recover during multiple day events. Events may be anything between 3 to 6 days in duration, with some days having two races on a single day. Recovery is the key to our athletes being able to perform at their very best. That means a number of things but principally it involves my managing pre and/or post-race treatment for up to 7 riders each day. Activities covering a wide range of aspects for each individual, including massage treatment, rider weight, hydration and wellbeing monitoring, nutrition and hydration management, plus team logistics.
The team bikes lined up pre race.
Each day commences with weighing our athletes, prior to breakfast, to ensure we are managing their day to day hydration. Hydration during racing is vitally important to ensure muscle systems continue to operate as optimally as possible, but also to ensure our riders are able to maintain full concentration and clear decision making while under the stress of racing. Nutrition is very similar. Ensuring our athletes are eating the right foods at the right time to fuel their bodies appropriately to the day’s races as well as preparing for races in the days to come. Our recovery commences within minutes of our athletes crossing the finish line of each race as the body battles to prepare for another race that day or be ready for another race tomorrow.
Lastly, and as my key skill set, treatment of our athlete’s bodies to recover from that day’s racing. While each of the athletes do spend time on my massage table receiving treatment, I also ensure each athlete preforms foam rolling and stretching to ensure they are ready for the next day’s race. Additionally I ensure each of our athletes spend a period of time relaxing in a pair of compression boots to assist with their recovery.
It is a huge daily effort to get these athletes up to an optimal status for their next race, however that always fades into the background when they perform a personal best or cross the line victorious.
After settling back into work back in Melbourne, I thought I would take the opportunity to put together a quick blog post on my recent trip over to Cambodia for the AFF U/16 Football Tournament with the Joey’s.
Joey’s pre match team photo.
Overall I had a great time on the trip. Although it didn’t all go to plan, it was great to get some behind the scenes exposure into another high-performance program. I always find it interesting to see the different training approaches, methods for monitoring training loads, treatment protocols and group dynamics within the sports medicine team and team in general when working with different high-performance programs.
My role for the trip was to include treatment (with the majority of this being recovery-focused sports massage the day following games), setting up the hydration for training, post-training and recovery needs & helping set up ice baths for the boys.
The first couple of days of the trip was reasonably busy, with the whole team meeting in Sydney on Friday before flying out on Saturday to Ho Chi Minh before getting our connecting flight through to Pnom Penh, Cambodia.
Our first day of training was an eye-opener for everyone with a very interesting first training pitch (our first pitch at the navy base had 4-5 cows at the back of the pitch and had potholes and gravel in patches and was nowhere near the usual standards).
Training at Olympic stadium, Pnom Penh.
The first couple of days were essentially morning weigh-ins and hydration testing, team breakfast, depart for training on the bus, active recovery session at the Olympic pool before heading back to the hotel for lunch. Then treatment’s throughout the afternoon before having tea and then setting up for the next day.
Unfortunately, I went down with some sickness after picking up a nasty infection, most likely from the food, which resulted in the next three days in Pnom Penh hospital. So after three days with some very average memory apart from being spoilt on the hospital food of bacon and eggs, it was back to the rice and chicken at the hotel x 3 meals per day.
One of the few things i remember from the hospital stay. The quality food on offer!
As a result of the hospital admission, it meant that I had missed the first couple of our games. However, once getting the all-clear from our Doc it was good to get back amongst the team and pick up where I had left off before the stint in hospital.
The team was expected to do quite well on this tour. Unfortunately, in the semi’s, we went down to Thailand 3 – 2 after a late attempt to get back from 3 – 0 to get put in the 3rd/4th playoff against Laos. However, the team bounced back strong in the 3rd/4th playoff with a final score of 10 – 2 to pick up the Bronze medal.
The Olympic pool which we utilised for post training and game active recovery sessions.
The final morning before leaving, the boys got some free time at the shop’s to have a look around with their families and pick up some more authentic rolex watches before getting on the bus for departure to the airport and making the journey home via Ho Chi Minh again back into Sydney.
All in all, it was still a great learning experience for me. If I take out the brief hospital stint, I will now go away and have some time to work out better tactics for the sports medicine team evening up and down the river card game championships, so I don’t disgrace myself as much next time!
I wanted to put together a quick blog post after conducting some running analysis sessions at the start of April with some SportsMyo patients and talk about some of the common findings as well as the strategies that we have used following the analysis sessions to try to correct any biomechanical faults that we picked up.
I will focus on the 3 most common area’s that my patient’s showed area’s of sub optimal function and the area’s that we have now targeted going forward.
1. Cadence
Cadence or leg turnover, in general, was slightly below what is considered optimal. In saying this, it was a broad spectrum, with some patient’s being at the lower end of this spectrum and other’s being close to the ideal. When taking into consideration the running pace that we undertook the video analysis at (the speed was what the runner would do the majority of their weekly mileage at), about 1/3 of the patients left with this as a key area of focus to work on in their training. Increasing cadence will generally allow the runner to decrease the impact forces and, as a result, will enable the athlete to handle their current training load with more ease, as with any training change. However, there will still be an adaptation phase where the athlete will have to adjust to the new stimulus on their musculoskeletal system.
When making the change to a higher cadence, start with a gradual change and progressively increase from there. It is important to monitor your speed when playing around with your cadence, as commonly when an athlete attempts to increase their cadence, they will just run faster instead of increasing their leg turnover. So initially, the goal is just to increase the cadence while maintaining the same training speed. Focussing on your cadence on easier training day’s is recommended as a starting point. It is possible to get different metronome devices to help you gauge your cadence while running. However, this wouldn’t usually be needed, and just focussing on a slight increase in your typical cadence will be enough initially.
2. Hip stability
About half of the patients who undertook the running analysis session, whether on the treadmill or outdoors, showed poor hip stability. Once again, there were various degrees of this. To some extent, this was an expected finding of the gait analysis prior to the testing as it is very common for all sorts of different athletes and the general public to have poor hip stability.
Essentially, the testing showed us that when the runners were landing, they found it very difficult to keep a ‘neutral’ pelvis. They would ‘collapse’ onto the hip on that side when landing. This has the potential to lead to different lower limb problems in the future at the hip, knee, ankle and occasionally through the lower back.
As well as setting the individual up for different lower limb pathologies and biomechanical overload, it would be common sense to think that this also would be a less than efficient way for the human body to move.
Three images highlighting likely weakness through the left Glute Medius. As the body weight is transferred onto the left leg, the pelvis progressively drops towards the right indicating weakness.
For these patients, a strengthening program was given with specific exercises depending on what their gait analysis and assessment were showing us. In general, we used quite a lot of Glute focussed exercises primarily aimed at helping the patient build more strength in the landing position. Hence, they are better able to handle the landing forces of running. Some patients were very weak in this area. Therefore, we had to start the exercises at a very basic level. Others were able to go straight into some single leg work using additional resistance bands to encourage further muscle activation and resistance.
3. Hip extension
A limited hip extension was the last area that some patients are now focusing on due to their running analysis session. Again, this was more common to those patient’s that were triathletes or had desk-bound jobs during the day. Both of these activities require a large amount of time with the hip flexors in a shortened position. As a result, they don’t tend to like being lengthened as much and can adapt to that shortened position.
We have tackled this with Myotherapy treatment at the clinic at SportsMyo and focussed on stretching of the hip flexors as well as providing hands-on treatment techniques and dry needling when it has been indicated and followed this up with take home stretches aimed at both the Illiopsoas and Rectus Femoris the two main hip flexor muscles that will be in a shortened position in this case.
Craig Alexander demonstrating good hip extension after coming off the bike at the 2015 Geelong 70.3
To summarise, the majority of patients that have attended a running analysis session have gone away with something to focus on with their body that should now allow them to adapt to their training loads easier. However, there was a couple of patients that were very good from a biomechanical perspective. They will now go away and focus on the structure of their training plans with their coach or work out a recovery plan around their training and racing schedule with me at the clinic in the lead into their next lot of racing/competition.
A real highlight for some of these patients was the ability to get the feedback and actually see on the video footage what was actually happening with their body while they were running and under stress.
A real highlight for some of these patients was getting the feedback and seeing on the video footage what was happening with their bodies while they were running and under stress.
If you are experiencing pain, coming back from an injury or looking to have your running technique analysed and given direction as to what you need going forward, then feel free to book online here or get in contact at toby@sportsmyo.com.au to discuss your needs.
We now have an online booking system available at the clinic.
We hope that you find this a helpful way to make future appointments at the clinic. We have made this option available as it has become increasingly challenging to respond to appointment inquiries in a timely manner, with it being a busy time of year at the clinic.
You are more than welcome to book your appointment’s as you have previously via phone or email, and this is just an addition to the current booking process.
For online bookings, please go to the following link.
If you have any questions, then please feel free to get in contact.
