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Month: August 2015

SportsMyoBlog2015August
By admin News , , , ,

Working with Elite Road Cyclist’s

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.

Victory Salute
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.
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.

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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.

Cheers

David

By admin News , , , ,

Cambodia Tour with the Joey’s – Recap

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 pre match team photo
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 Cambodia
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!
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.

Olympic pool which we utilised for post training and game active recovery sessions.
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!

Toby