SPORT RECOVERY METHODS

Dr Makus W Laupheimer from mskclinic.co.uk has just published one of my little pieces about recovery in sport. If you would like to read it just go to his website or click here. Also, you can read the article below:

It does not matter, if you are an elite athlete or if you just practice sport for fan or to keep fit and healthy yourself, recovery is a key factor. In fact, recovery is as important as training. To be able to perform, avoid injuries and do not burn out, everyone who practices sport has to be able to regenerate and recover. Some of the methods or ways that we use with our players and athletes will be shown in this post:

1) Sleep: Sleep is one of the most important aspects to recover. The science has shown that with a proper sleep tennis players get a 42% boost in hitting acuracy during depth drills, sleep extension provides swimmers a 17% improvement in reaction time off the starting block, sleep improves split-second decision making ability by 4.3%, american football players drop 0.1 seconds off their 40-yard dash times by sleeping more, and a 20-30 minutes power nap improves alertness by 100%.

On the contrary, the scientific studies has also shown that a chronic sleep loss can lead to a 30-40% reduction in glucose metabolism and an 11% reduction in time to exhaustion, 2 days of sleep restriction can lead to a 3x increase in lapses of attention and reactivity, the maximum bench press drops 20 lbs after 4 days of restricted sleep and perceived exertion increases 17-19% after 30 hours without sleep.

Therefore, with all the scientific evidence athletes should schedule proper recovery time and sleep to ensure optimum performance. Athletes will recover better from injuries if they sleep well and the choice of mattress is paramount for comfort and support. Not all mattresses will meet up to the demands as an aid to recovery. But a Falcon Sport Mattress has been designed with those needs and requirements in mind to help you get a deep sleep providing recovery and regeneration necessary to perform consistently at a high level.

2) Nutrition: Refuelling within an hour after training should be the priority for any athlete. You should try to take carbohydrate together with proteins. Your aim should be to a take a shake before even going into the shower. Vitamins and proteins are very important as well. Therefore, the sooner these are replaced the better.

3) Stretching: A stretching protocol as a part of your cool-down routine should be essential. The science has shown the stretching reduces muscle soreness and thightness. A stretching protocol as a part of a daily routine has been shown to also have performance improvements.

4) Foam rolling: A foam roller should never miss in your training venue or home. A foam rolling protocol after the stretching protocol should be performed in all your cool-downs. Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release tecnique that is used to inhibit overactive muscles. This form of stretching utilises the concept of autogenic inhibition to improve soft tissue extensibility, thus relaxing the muscle and allowing the activation of the antagonist muscle. You should roll the foam roller under each muscle group until an tender area is found, and maintaining pressure on the tender areas (known as trigger points) for 30 to 60 seconds.

5) Contrast water therapy or contrast baths: They are a form of treatment where a limb is immersed in cold/ice water followed by the immediate immersion in warm water. The protocol is repetead several times, always alternating cold and hot. The theory behind this method is that cold water causes vasoconstriction while the warm water causes vasodilation. Alternating, hot and cold, lymph vessels dilate and contract to essentially “pump” and move stagnant fluid and waste out of the area. This positively effetcs the inflamation process, which is the body’s primary mechanism for healing damaged tissue. Professional athletes are using the state-of-the-art technology to improve their recovery. CryoSpas CET is a device used in professional sport enviroment based in the contrast water therapy. They recommend to set a temperature of 8-9º and perform the following protocol: 4 minutes in cold water, then 2 minutes hot water shower, and finally 4 minutes cold.

6) Compression clothing: Compression garments are pieces of clothing such as socks, pantyhose, sleeves, etc., that provide support that is especially useful for people who have to stand for long periods, or people with poor circulation. Compression garments worn on the legs can help prevent deep vein thrombosis and reduce swelling, especially while traveling. Compression sportswear are also worn by some athletes during exercise and post-exercise to ease muscle stiffness and quicken recovery time. Duffield & Portus (2007) found lower 24 hours post-exercise CK values and lower 24 hours post-exercise ratings of muscle soreness when wearing compression garments in cricket players. Based in the same principle, a device originally designed for people with deep vein thrombosis has been shown as an effective method to recover quicker and reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) within 24 hours. The device (FireFly Recovery) uses electrical impulses to improve blood circulation. An increase in blood flow and velocity in the muscles of the lower legs allows oxygen to reach the muscle to remove the waste products more efficiently.

7) Massage: What to say about massage! Everyone knows that a good massage will improve our muscles recovery, aid in the healing process, decrease muscle reflex activity, inhibit motor-neuron excitability, and promote relaxation and well-being. If you are an amateur sportman training every day, I would recommend you to receive a massage every 6 weeks. If you are struggling financially, although it is not the same, a good session of foam rolling can be an acceptable substitute.

8) NormaTec Recovery: This device is a new tool to improve recovery used (due to its price) in high performance athletes and teams. Basically, the device uses the concept of applying external compression to aid the body with its normal circulatory processes. NormaTec Recovery features Sequential Pulse Technology. This technology is divided into 6 phases starting the pulsing in zone one (foot) and finishing in zone 5 (thigh). When one zone is under the pressure the other zone releases. This dynamic compression strategy mimics normal physiology.

INTEGRATED TRAINING FOR TEAM SPORTS

In this post I will show different specific interval training methods to be applied in several sports. This kind of trainning is performed in a cirtuit set up in the own specific sport court. Players usually perform efforts with a duration of 10-20 seconds with an intensity of 90-95% of the maximum heart rate, and a ratio (work/rest) 1:1. It can be performed 3-4 sets of 4-5 to 8-10 minutes each, with a total training time of 20-30 minutes.

This kind of exercise offers the possibility to combine any action, both purely athletic (sprints or jumps) or more specific (blocks, rebounds, shots, dribbling...). Also, these circuits can be done with or without ball, and also the intensity can be regulated delaying the arrival to the next action/station (sprint, jump).

Basketball (Great Britain U20 Women’s Basketball)

Circuit performed in the Leigh Sports Village (England) with the Great Britain U20 Women’s Basketball Team in the training camp for the European Championship in Macedonia (2009). The team performed 3 sets of 4 laps each with a recovery between sets of 5 free throws each player.

Interval Tximist by Hondarria-Irún Club de Baloncesto

Players started from point A, C and D. When they finished in point F, jogged very slow around the court until point A to start again. Between stations, players jogged very slow or even walked to recover and do the next drill with high intensity, since the main importance of this kind of exercises is to perform them at maximum intensity. The circuit was as follows (from A to F): Players started sprinting forward and backward to the cones on the right and left side, then they sprinted forward. After that they decelerated and jogged until the next cones to go in & out at maximum speed, then jogged again and got one cone to sprint 5-7 metres until point B. From B to C, they jogged diagonally. At point C, they sprinted and blocked, turned around to caught one rebound and sprinted with the ball. In the middle, agility ladder dribbled the ball and performed a lay up at maximum speed to get point D. From D to E, they jogged again very slow. From point E to F, players performed subsequent diagonal defensive slides and sprints. The circuit can be performed without the ball or with the ball.

The Interval Tximist is an exercise proposed by Aramendi, J. F., Samaniego, J. C., and Diaz, O.: Aspectos fisiológicos aplicados a la preparación física en el baloncesto femenino. Una propuesta de trabajo. In: Terrados-Cepeda, N. & Calleja-González, J.: Fisiología, entrenamiento y medicina del baloncesto. Ed. Paidotribo, Badalona (Spain), 2008).

Beach Soccer (England Beach Soccer)

Circuit performed in Dump (Germany) with the England Beach Soccer Team. The players performed 3 sets of 8 minutes, 10 minutes and 8 minutes respectively, with 2-minute rest between them.

Players are split in the 4 corners of the pitch. Goalkeepers work on the goals. One player form each corner starts at the same time. There are four stations where players perform squats, press-ups, calf raises and lunges.

Circuit set up in the sand for beach soccer (Damp, 2012).

Corner 1: The player performs 10 squats and sprints forward and backpedal to cone on the right side, the same to the cone on the left side and then sprint forward to the cone in the middle. Then he jogs until corner number 2.

Corner 2: The player makes 10 press-ups and sprints forward and backward (see the arrows), until the halfway line where he gets a ball to dribble and shoot. After shooting, the player jogs until corner 3.

Corner 3: After, 10 calf raises with both feet, the player goes in & out the cones and sprints diagonally, then he jogs until corner 4.

Corner 4: The player does 10 lunges and then he collects a ball to dribble in & out the cones and shoot. After that, the players jogs very slow to recover until corner 1.

Futsal (England Futsal)

Circuit performed in St George's Park (2012

Circuit performed in St. George’s Park (Burton upon Trent, England) with the England Futsal National Team. The team performed 3 sets of 10 minutes each with 2 minutes rest between them.

This circuit on the court is very similar to the previous ones where players are split in four corners with four different exercises at each corner. Players perform 10 squats at corner 1, 10 step ups to the bench in corner 2, 10 jumps side to side in corner 3 and propioception exercises at corner 4. Also, in one goal they shoot around the 10-metre penalty spot and in the other they do a 1x1 situation against the goalkeeper.

Heart Rate Responses: In the next picture you can see the heart rate graph for the futsal circuit above performed for one England Futsal player. He is one of the fittest players in the squad, so his heart rate is quite low. The average heart rates during the first, second and third set were: 147, 153 and 158 bmp respectively (2-minute rest between them). The average heart rate for the whole exercise was 153bmp and the maximum heart rate reached during the exercise was 175 bmp. The most interesting aspect is that this kind of circuits reproduces the nature of team sports: the actions’ intermittence. As we can see in the graph, this player is able to recover between sprints quite good since the graph has a lot of ups and downs, on the contrary if a graph shows three (one per set) flat plateaus the player is not able to recover properly between sprints.

Heart rate graph from the above circuit performed in St. George's Park (August, 2012).

Key or legend for the diagrams: In all the circuits, double red arrow means “sprint with the ball”, double black arrow “sprint without the ball”, dotted line “jog to recover”, dashed line “backward/backpedal sprint or defensive slide”, and red star “shot”.

STATISTICS IN TEAM SPORTS

Team sports are very complex sports that combine fitness and skills with strategy and execution, therefore the success will depend on several aspects. In the same way as the fitness level of the players is controlled with physical tests, or the training load of the sessions is monitored with several methods (HR, HRV, RPE, or specific softwares); the performance during the matches is controlled through the statistics.

It is very popular to see a person on the team bench writing down individual statistics during the games. In my opinion, statistics can help the coach to make decisions during the match, so the statistics template must be designed to take the specific aspects required by the head coach. In other words, the same template should not be used by several coaches if they are looking for different aspects during the game. However, since a model can be used to design your own template, the main objective of this post will be to show the statistics templates that I have used in my teams.

BASKETBALL

1) Fundación 6.25 (Spain)

When I was working as a fitness coach for the “Fundación 6.25” in Spain, we had a specific member on the staff to take the statistics so they were very complete: shot chart, defensive and offensice rebounds, turnovers, steals, assists, blocks, fouls and fouls on, the time on court for every single player and the score. In the shot chart we recorded both teams.

Template used in the games with the Fundación 6.25 teams.

2) Manchester Mystics Women’s Basketball

In this team, the template was simpler since we only controlled the fouls made by our players, the free throws, the breaks and a shot chart, where both teams’ shots were recorded.

Manchester Mystics Women's Basketball Team match template.

 3) Great Britain U20 Women’s Basketball

Although similar to the others, this one is a very different since we only focused in our players, and we recorded the performance for every set pieces.

Great Britain U20 Women's game stats.

 FUTSAL

1) England Futsal

During the last two seasons I have been using the following template with two futsal teams: Manchester Futsal Club and England Futsal National Team; and sometimes people looked at me surprised and astonished, and they asked themselves: what is he writing down during the whole game? Even the referees felt weird when I asked them how many fouls? Or Which player has been booked? Maybe because nobody was used to take statistics during futsal games in this country, and they felt that I was controlling them. Even my own club said: “Master tactician: Daniel Berdejo-del-Fresno plots the miraculous comeback...” after our epic comeback against Middlesbrough Futsal Club.

But the secret will be revealed!

A real example recorded in an international game with England Futsal.

In the template we control the goals, the time-outs, the cards, the fouls and in our opinion the most important information: the time for every player on the bench and on the court, i.e. the time that the players are playing and resting. Sometimes I also take the turnovers and the steals made by every player. In a high intensity sport like futsal, a player cannot play more than 4-6 consecutives minutes, this is main reason why we control the players’ timing. Even, teams such as Spain make substitutions every 3-4 minutes in international futsal competition; therefore none of the players play more than 4 consecutive minutes, that is the golden rule. But those 4 minutes are always at 100%, if they need to ask to be changed before the 3-4 minutes because they are tired, they will do it. That is the mentality: I play 3 minutes at 100% and I am happier than playing 10 minutes at 75%.

BEACH SOCCER

1) England Beach Soccer

The template used by the England Beach Soccer National Team is very similar to the previous one. We only adapted it to the characteristics of the game (three halves and 12 minutes each half), and added a section to record the final result of every single shot.

England Beach Soccer game statistics template.

The main objective of all these templates is to give feedback to the coach during the game to make easier the decisions, but obviously, they can be analised after the game to take more conclusions, or even after three or four months.