Some can view sport as a question of make-it or break-it. But questionable training cultures and concerns around toxic training environments have been under the spotlight in recent times. The Nike Oregon project and British Cycling, to name two of the more high-profile cases, have been rocked by accusations of a culture of bullying, shady practices and medical mismanagement (https://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/51599747). These accusations often centre around dominant, didactic coaches. Some athletes have now broken their silence and given their perspectives on the culture inside these highly successful teams. Are these isolated cases? Doubtful. But what is it about the culture of...
Toughness: Being tough, fighting and battling for the team are often central parts of sporting cultures. But what does it really entail and why is it considered important? People often label footballers as ‘soft’ for rolling around on the floor, or screaming after impact in a match. Although it is fairly clear that the footballers are behaving in this way with the aim of manipulating the referring team rather than due to the amount of pain they have. Such behaviour has become socially acceptable in football and it is part of the tactics of the game. However, such behaviour wouldn’t...
This year’s Wimbledon final was fought out between two players, both of whom have a former superstar player as their coach. It seems obvious to think any individual who has reached the pinnacle of their sport, like Lendl, must understand it to great depth. This may well be true in certain cases. But there are clear examples that contradict this. I will use Tennis and Football as two examples to make a case for why “super-coaches” can both succeed and fail. The premier leagues most successful clubs mostly have managers who were average players, think Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger,...
Why are predictions so hard in sport? The capture of the Premier League title by Leicester City has been cited by many pundits as the greatest shock in sporting history. Is this grand claim little more than evidence of a cognitive bias? ‘Who could have known?’ Certainly not the same pundits who had almost unanimously predicted Leicester’s relegation. Exaggerating the scale of the surprise doubles as a kind of cognitive – and reputational – protection: ‘We were so wrong, yes, but we were right to be.’ I am not trying to argue that the result is not a statistical anomaly,...
What can sports medicine really achieve and just as importantly what should it be aiming to achieve? This may seem like a simple question, but the answer has a myriad of competing influences. Should sports medicine be aimed at merely optimising the sports person’s health? Should it try to improve their performance? Perhaps prevent them from getting problems? How much to intervene and what to leave to nature is a common dilemma in physiotherapy and medicine. The shades of grey are no less opaque in sports. The history of sport includes many unsavoury events where clinicians have intervened too greatly...
To look at sport today and compare it to sport from, for example, 30 years ago you would say sporting equality is better now. There have been some recent high profile comments about women’s tennis that would suggest there are still some old fashioned views lurking. Clearly progress has been made in increasing the exposure and professionalism of women’s sport. Prize money for women’s tennis is nearing that of men’s, although less so in the lower ranking events, England has a fully professional cricket team and premier league football clubs are increasing the funding and investment of their women’s teams....
Does massage help with pain? Massage has been a part of treating ailments and pain for many years, numerous different types of massage have been coined over the years, including names like soft tissue manipulation, myofascial release techniques and sports massage, to name a few, but do they work? Why does it work? Considering massage can be painful to experience why do we utilise in for treating painful areas and restricted movement? The benefits of massage in physiotherapy practice appear to be numerous. If an area of the body is painful we believe it is due to the body trying...
With the London Marathon fast approaching many of us are well into our official training schedules, me included. It is not uncommon to see people competing in the marathon in our physiotherapy clinic with various lower limb injuries. Most running injuries are related to the increased repetitive loads placed on the muscular system, resulting in tendinopathy (a broad term used for tendon pain). You might have heard these problems given other names depending on where they are felt, some of these include: trochanteric bursitis / gluteus medius tendinopathy (outer hip), Achilles tendinopathy / tendonitis, plantar fasciitis (bottom of foot/ heel...
Pain is all about PROTECTION! Pain is a fundamental part of everyone’s existence. It is an amazing and interesting system in the body. It can be torturous, attention seeking and sometimes rewarding. Athletes often clarify their efforts by the amount of pain they have been able to cause themselves! The body produces pain to protect us from harm (Moseley, 2015). Gone are the days of Rene Descartes when we believed the brain and body reacted directly to triggers in the outer part of the body. Pain has been found to be much more complicated than a simple relaying system. When...
