Thailand tour with the VIS – Recap

I have recently got back into work at the clinic in South Melbourne after a 6.5-week stint in Thailand with the VIS Triathlon program working with the athletes to manage their bodies through a heavy training block leading into two crucial races that played a part in world champs qualification later in the year in Cozumel.

In addition to the triathletes from the VIS, we also had some athletes from the National Talent Academy (NTA) in Queensland visit for some training after their first race in Gamagori, Japan.

Not a bad training setting!
There could be worse views than poolside at Thanyapura!

Overall it was a fairly consistent routine for the group, with the training & treatment following a pretty typical routine for the athletes each week. In addition to the swim, bike & run training, there are typically three sessions a week in the gym focussing on various areas of weakness that have been determined to be of importance for that athlete back at home by their strength & conditioning screenings.

Getting some Dry Needling in on the Calf during treatment.
Dry needling on the lower legs following a tough days training.

My role in Thailand was to ensure the boys were recovering well and helping to prepare them for upcoming training. A combination of hands-on treatment including various massage techniques, joint mobilisation, assisted stretching & dry needling was typically used and depending on the athlete, the squad would normally get between 1 & 3 sessions of some type of treatment per week with variation in treatment lengths, sometimes requiring a more extended session while other times just focussing on some mobilisation of a specific joint / region before a training session.

Ra
Race pace efforts on the road in training.

As I knew the group quite well, having treated the squad for six months before leaving Melbourne, the injury management process was relatively straightforward compared to travelling abroad with a substantially larger number of unknown athletes like in 2014 & 2015.

Overall it was a great experience to assist the group in Thailand. It was awesome to see that all three qualification slots for Australia have since been filled from within the training group, a great effort from all athletes, coaches & support staff involved to seal all three spots for the U23 division.

Hopefully, some more big results to come from the group later in the year at Cozumel for the World Champs!

Group shot on departure with some of the regular staff from our time at the hotel.
Group shot on departure with some of the regular staff from our time at the hotel.

Upcoming Thailand Tour with Triathlon

I will be on tour with the VIS Triathlon program from 29/5/2016 through to 13/7/2016 providing tour support from their heat acclimatisation training base in Thailand.

Over this period, there will be no bookings taken at SportsMyo in South Melbourne.

If you require treatment for a specific injury or some maintenance work to coincide with a heavy training block or the lead into a race, I will still be contactable via email and can put you in touch with another suitable allied health professional from my network and will get in touch with them to bring them up to speed with your treatment at the clinic at SportsMyo.

Note: Picture above is highly unlikely to be actual accomodation for tour.
Note: The picture above is highly unlikely to be the actual accommodation for the tour.

Upon returning to Australia in July, I will be opening up the Monday afternoon at the clinic for the remainder of 2016.

Bookings are still available up till departure, so feel free to book online here for the coming weeks; otherwise, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at toby@sportsmyo.com.au

Cheers,

Toby

Developing the runner’s biomechanics profile – Workshop recap

I recently attended a  workshop in Melbourne at the Hawthorn Football Club training facility in Malvern at Waverley Park. The workshop was run by The Biomechanics Lab based out of South Australia.

I did not know what to expect from this course as it was predominantly targeted at Podiatrist’s (I think the make-up for the attendees ended up being 47 Podiatrists, Myself as a Myotherapist, an S & C Coach and a Physio).

Various topics were covered throughout the day, but the main topics included were:-

  • Principles of athlete screening & determinants of performance.
  • Consideration of injuries to the leg & foot during running.
  • Principles of exercise prescription and rehabilitation.
Practical session - Going through some different taping techniques.
Practical session – Going through some different taping techniques.

Overall, it was good to get a couple of new bits and pieces from the course to add to my Gait Analysis service at the clinic in South Melbourne. It was good to see it from a Podiatrist’s perspective regarding what they place importance on while evaluating a patients’ gait.

The day included a lot of research reviews in topics that are relevant to working with the running patient as well as some more practical aspects for attendees to take away which included some specific taping techniques to help guide the clinical decision making process further to help determine what will be an effective intervention for the runner as well as some different strength & conditioning considerations.

Clinical Biomechanics Workshop 2
Assessment – Going through various screening tests.

I am hoping to put together a couple of general strength & conditioning videos over the coming months (when time allows) that will touch on some of what was covered in the course, as well as some more common things I have found helpful over the last few years when trying to have an injury decreasing effect on the runners I am working with at the clinic)

Overall not a bad Saturday out. I’m looking forward to making a couple of minor tweaks to how I run my Gait Analysis at the clinic in South Melbourne and continue to help my patients get back to full training and racing following injury.

Mastering Load Symposium 2016 Recap

I have put together a brief blog post that may be of interest to some patients & coaches at the clinic after attending the Mastering Load Symposium over the previous weekend in Brighton in Melbourne.

It was an interesting weekend put on by Physiosports and had a quality lineup of speakers working in various high-performance programs across the country. I have been trying to match up dates to get to this course for the last couple of years now, so it was great to attend finally.

I have put together a short list below of some of the main things I have taken from the course and that I think my patient base will also get something out of or find interesting.

Athletic success is more likely to be achieved if the athlete has a decreased amount of missed training and competition time due to injury or illness.

Sure this is a brainer really and makes perfect sense, but having this at the forefront of an athlete/coaches mind when planning out the training and competition program can allow the athlete/coach to closely monitor the planned vs actual training loads with an injury prevention hat on at the same time.

Acute Vs Chronic Load Ratio

This was one of the key concepts that was drilled into the attendees throughout the weekend, and as a concept has a lot to offer when working with athletes.

The chronic training load is usually measured by using the last four weeks of training data. Depending on the sport, different metrics may be chosen for the analysis (total km’s run or the number of serve’s in tennis, etc., whichever you think is the most relevant for the individual you are working with). It will change from week to week and is a rolling average of the previous four weeks of training (some sports will monitor additional times for chronic training load – e.g. 10-week average)

The acute training load is usually measured using the last week of training data and looks at the same metric/s used to gauge the chronic training load.

Depending on whether the acute ratio is in excess of the chronic training load average will determine whether the athlete is in a state of fatigue or a state of taper. Monitoring the ratio in the training program allows the athlete/coach to self manage injury risk as a high acute to chronic ratio has been shown to increase non-contact soft tissue injury risk in different sports. The ratio’s that will put the athlete at risk is not exact and will vary from sport to sport and athlete to athlete.

The technology that athletes utilise online with various software such as Training Peaks, Strava etc., will make it relatively easy for the athlete/coach to assess the Acute to Chronic training load ratio.

Monitoring Load

High chronic training loads offer injury protection for the athlete.

By building up to and maintaining high chronic training loads, the athlete will develop a level of protection from non-contact, soft-tissue based injuries. There appears to be an upper and lower ceiling for training load, and the athlete should try to remain within here. By building up to and maintaining a high chronic training load, the athlete is also better able to handle acute spikes in training load as the gap or amount of increase will not be as significant in relation to the chronic load.

I think this point becomes very relevant for the weekend warrior type trainer or the athlete that consistently misses planned training sessions and, as a result, lowers their chronic training load and continues with their training plan unchanged, effectively putting their body under higher acute training loads in relation to the built-up chronic training load, therefore, putting themselves at higher injury risk.

Establishing a workload history for athletes.

A couple of useful tools were presented to allow the therapist/coach to attain a rough overview of the athletes training loads. These tools will be helpful to put into play at the clinic at SportsMyo when there are issues with training load suspected that are placing the athlete in an injured state.

The more significant use for this for me, though, will be when I am away with athletes/teams on tour to gauge the athlete’s current workload in relation to their normal loads and gain more insights into the potential injury risks of each athlete. From a time point of view, I can see this working out much easier to employ while away with athletes rather than at the clinic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.


On top of the above key points, I picked up a couple of new things regarding athlete screening at the clinic and while on tour, but this was all fairly similar to how I have done things in the past. Still, it is good to see some high-performance staff from other sports put their spin on different things and see what they each place importance on.

These were the main key concepts discussed throughout the weekend that I think will allow me to offer more to my patients in the future and the coaching staff they are working with.

Overall, a full weekend of information and networking with other staff working with athletes to keep them injury-free and helping them to achieve their goals.

Marcel Walkington Interview

Thanks for taking some time out to join me for a quick chat Marcel.

I am sure that many Triathletes that come through the clinic’s doors at SportsMyo will hopefully find it an interesting read and give them some excellent insights as to what an elite Olympic distance triathlete is doing every week to put themselves at the pointy end of their races.

For those of you reading that don’t know Marcel, he is the newly crowned Australian champion living in Melbourne training and racing with the Victorian Institute of Sport’s Triathlon Program.

We might kick things off by telling us a little bit about your race schedule so far for the year and what’s in store for the remainder of 2016?

Thanks Toby. Yeah, the race season started for me with just a local Gatorade race down in St Kilda. We VIS boys usually use these races as training and for a good hit out. So we used this race to prepare for our first main race, the Australian Olympic Distance Champs. Here I was lucky enough to take the win and also secure myself a spot on the u/23 world’s team for later this year in Cozumel, Mexico. Following this race, I had an Oceania Cup race in Takapuna, New Zealand. Here I finished second.

Just last weekend, I had a World Cup race in Mooloolaba, where I finished in 20th place. Wasn’t too bad of a result for me, considering that the field was quite strong.

It sounds like it has been a busy couple of months! Where are you at with your training at the moment, and what would a typical week involve for you across the three disciplines?

At the moment, I am in the middle of the race season. So training has basically been recovering from races and preparing for the upcoming races.

However, when in full training, a typical week would usually involve about 25km of swimming, 300km of riding and around 90km of running.

Within that volume, there is a fair bit of intensity. So, for instance, a hard swim session that we do might be 6-8x400m on 5:00 cycle coming in around 4:30. Or a hard run session for us could be 3x10min efforts at around 3:10 pace.

Marcel undergoing some pre season testing in the exercise physiology lab at the VIS.
Marcel undergoing some pre-season testing in the exercise physiology lab at the VIS.

It sounds like a solid amount of training! What about outside of the swimming, riding and running? Do you incorporate any strength & conditioning?

Most certainly. Gym is one of those things that I have always considered a necessity with training. During the week, I would do three gym sessions per week. My gym program (designed by Harry Brennan from VIS) has a lot of stretching, mostly hips/quads/hamstrings/calves. I also do some weight exercises as well to strengthen my calves, glutes and core.

I enjoy doing gym a lot since it is one of the things where you are able to see your progress, whether it be lifting additional weight or being able to get more range in the stretches.

Nice, I think that will give some of my other athletes back at the clinic some good insights into what you typically do outside of the three triathlon disciplines to keep you performing at your best and allow your body to handle those sorts of training workloads.

What do you try to tick off when it comes to recovery around training, and do you have set times that you like to do these around training & racing?

Some of my recovery is incorporated into my gym sessions, for instance, the stretching aspect. As well as this, I would try to keep hydrated, especially leading into a race. I do this by drinking a lot of water and also having some sports drinks. Ice baths are one of the ones which I find hard because it hurts so much. But I would usually do it after a hard run session to cool off.

Another recovery method is also getting the massages. I try to get at least one per week, maybe more if I feel that my body needs it. I think it is a vital part of keeping your body in shape. Some weeks I don’t even feel that I need the massage, but it is always good to get it just to be sure that the body is in top shape.

That is a fair point you make. However, I don’t think I have come across an athlete who has not found ice baths a bit of a mental hurdle. So what has your favourite race been to date so far?

This is a tough one. There are a lot of countries that I have been to, and that itself has made the racing experience very enjoyable. But for the combination of favourite race and city, it would have to be Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. The city there is absolutely stunning, so picturesque and beautiful. Then the race is really interesting; the swim is done in a lake, the ride over some steep hills through the city and then the run winding through the city streets. It is a really tough race since we ride up a 20+% steep gradient hill. However, it is so enjoyable at the same time.

Running around Albert Park Lake with regular training partner Declan Wilson.
Running around Albert Park Lake with regular training partner Declan Wilson.

Here is a random one for you. What is the most annoying habit of one of your training partners? Feel free to name and shame.

This is an interesting one. Because I spend so much time around the others, there are actually a few things which piss me off a little. We spend that much time together at training and overseas that we basically get sick of each other by the end of the year before our break (when we actually get to spend time away from each other!). However, one thing that does somewhat annoy me is when someone jumps in my lane to swim. We have set swim lanes that we have each designated ourselves at the VIS. I have the inside lane and have had it for the past three years now. So if someone tries to take my lane, I won’t be getting into another lane. They will just have to put up with swimming next to me.

Haha, that is an interesting one that someone could just go and claim your lane in the pool like that, an absolutely disgraceful performance. Before we wrap things up for the interview, is there anyone you would like to give a mention to? 

Well, apart from the torture you sometimes give me with the massage and needling, your treatments are pretty handy! Additionally, coaches that I currently work with, Danielle Stefano and Harry Brennan, plus the other staff at the VIS. They certainly work well as a team and have helped a lot with my development as an athlete.

Also, my sponsors, Swift Carbon bikes and Brooks Running. It is their help to supply me with racing and training gear that I appreciate so much. It also means that I get to exercise in style and comfort!

No worries at all. Thanks for joining me to have a quick chat before heading out to New Zealand tomorrow for the Oceania Champs this weekend. Hopefully, the run of good form can continue!

For anyone interested in following Marcel’s progress, you can follow him on his social media accounts below.

Instagram @marcelwalkington  

Twitter @walkingmarcel 

Clinic closed this Saturday the 19/3

I have recently registered for a professional development workshop that will mean the clinic will be closed this upcoming weekend, the 19-20/3.

The workshop is a Load Management Symposium weekend with some of the leaders in the field from various high-performance sport programs across the country. It will go into the strategies they use to monitor their athlete’s workloads and injury risk. I am hopeful that I will also get some takeaways for additional injury management options back at the clinic.

I am sure there will be some interesting information coming out of the weekend based purely on the pre-reading for it alone, and I am hopeful that time will permit, and I can put together a short blog post with the highlights after the weekend is complete.