LOAD MANAGEMENT
Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, came out last week and essentially said that load management is a bit of a farce. That actually, a lot of early season injuries can be attributed to lack of quality off-season training.
There is a time for rest. It’s really important for in season athletes to recover properly. In the old days, we probably didn’t prioritize it enough. But there is something to be said about following basic offseason strength and conditioning principles. You should be stressing heavy work to increase your capacity for the demands of your season.
At the professional level, I see too much focus on yoga, pilates, mobility, swimming. These are great, but it goes against the fundamentals of off-season training. You should be prioritizing heavy strength, power, conditioning.
We’ve seen an over-emphasis on low intensity training in the off-season for many of these athletes. And it’s no coincidence that in season injury rates continue to climb. We can’t say it’s causative, but the data is pretty compelling that maybe we should follow the old blueprint of basic S and C to help prepare us for the demands of our sport.
Load management issues also exist at the high school and lower collegiate levels, but the problems, in my opinion, are a little different. I think it’s two fold. Specialization too early, and poor or non-existent off-season programming.
Early specialization is just becoming a one sport athlete at too young of an age. Encourage your kid to play multiple sports until they are in high school or beyond.
For off-season programming, I’ll ask a lot of my athletes what their programs look like in preparation for the season. Most of them have incredibly generic programs that are not at all preparing them for their sport. It’s no wonder we see injuries in the first month of returning to soccer, track, cross country in the fall when they’ve not been doing any work to prepare over the summer. You can’t rest all summer and expect to get fit and healthy two weeks before the season starts.
You should be focused on getting stronger in the offseason and preparing for your season months in advance. The reason we see these kids getting shin splints, foot pain, knee pain is just due to poor off-season management. I look at the off season programs (if they have one at all), and it’s usually a 2 week prep period to get ready. No adaptation can happen in that amount of time. If you care about your athletes, especially the fall sport athletes, you should be giving them better off season training advice.