AFL and Hamstring Rehabilitation
Hamstring Rehabilitation in the AFL
Given my association in the AFL and also track and field I have learnt a lot about hamstring injury prevention and rehabilitation. I was also lucky enough to coach sprinters who put huge stress on their hamstrings. Now I am involved with soccer where the rate of hamstring injury is lower.
At Geelong Football Club in particular I had a very low rate of injury from 1998 to 2006 and kept games lost at less than half the rate of the average in the AFL which is approximately 20/22 games lost per year.
In the early 90’s I often consulted the AIS and Craig Purdam and Peter Stanton on this topic. Especially because at Essendon we had Dean Wallis who had chronic injuries. The only solution in the end with Dean was lots of fast running and eccentric weight training. This was 1990 and looking back we should have also done more specific core stability work. An athlete like Dean who is explosive needed fast technically efficient running, eccentric weight training and core stability work.
Luck or management with low soft tissue rates? Definitely management with a process in place. I was employed in 1998 ( Gary Ayres) to assist the club in injury management more than anything. And what was the mainstay of that process? Simply the most important variable is running fast in pre-season as soon as possible whether in skills or running to achieve specific adaptations without breaking people down. Alan McConnell ( now AIS) had already organised indoor and outdoor small games in the PXMAS block and these games played at 100% intensity coupled with specific running and conditioning meant that there were very few soft tissue injuries in 98/99.
But after addressing sports specific running needs I made sure many variables were covered. Core stability and core strength. Running mechanics and overstriding. Drill education. Massage. Specific muscular imbalances. Specific hamstring muscle weaknesses. From concentric to eccentric to functional training. Totally individualized approach to preparation in strength work. Lack of gluteal firing. Poor range of motion. Hip imbalances. Plyometrics. Monitoring fatigue and periodization of training. Having sufficient aerobic and anaerobic fitness to not allow fatigue. The list goes on.
Hugh Seward at the 2006 AFL conference on hamstrings said that the AFL was undertaking research to pinpoint solutions to hamstring injuries. A great initiative but he made it sound as if there was little known about the area. Unfortunately there will never be a cookbook for all this. But the research is out there and this is a multifactorial issue that needs to be addressed for each individual.
The cure is hard intelligent work. Again in the animal kingdom and humans simply running fast and adapting to that stress is the best solution. And even in rehabilitation progressively running faster and respecting the laws of nature and healing is a very effective tool.
But in many rehabilitations individuals must be assessed from tip to toe to achieve the the required result. The biggest problem I see time and time again is trying to beat nature. Simply takes tissue “X” days to heal and strengthen ( IE approx 3 weeks plus for basic healing and up to 8 for full strength). Simply takes “X” time to adapt to high intensity exercise ( over a week for a session and 6/8 weeks for a programme). So one has to always respect these laws and suffer the consequences if one doesn’t.
One thing that is confusing for many is the simplistic nature of how researchers and strength and conditioning experts sometimes polarize injury prevention and rehabilitation methods with almost religious fervour. Often there is a marketing spin to all this.
Some athletes have to spend time on totally non – functional unilateral concentric exercises to reverse imbalances and then transfer this to eccentric and then running specific needs. A long process. Some need to do some inner core work and slow drill work for weeks and then move to fast running. Others as I have explained simply have to run fast. And some lucky , lazy people seem to rest for 8 weeks, run fast once, get sore as hell then adapt in 2 weeks and play. The knowledge is out there now. It is all over the place. Soft tissue injuries will occur.
Do some hard smart investigative work and find out what your athlete needs and then be specific and evidence based and create an individualized solution.
loris bertolacci 