Rehab Meets Training

Good Morning! Happy Monday! I can’t believe this is the last week of February. Next week, colleges start spring ball! For me, someone who is around football 14 hours of the day, it feels like the season was just yesterday. But I’m sure for most of you, football seems like it was ages ago and you’re ready for the Fall to be back.

With the start of spring ball next month, unfortunately their will be an increase in injuries that occur across teams. Today, I want to break down an individual session with an athlete. I personally believe it should somewhat mimic what the athlete does in the weight room with their strength coaches.

And thats because the end goal is to get them back in the weight room with the team and on the field. Rehab is a way of conditioning their muscles back to this activity. So not only is it important to think like a rehab specialist, but additionally like a strength coach. Which is why I also highly recommend becoming a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS). This will definitely increase your ability to create rehab programs.

Lets dive into it!

*The injuries discussed in this newsletter are for general educational purposes only. I am not affiliated with the athlete’s medical team, and the information shared does not reflect any insider or team medical details. Specifics about the injury are often unavailable, which can significantly influence the estimated timeline for return to play.

After hearing the unfortunate news this weekend about Rondale Moore, I felt it was important to talk about treating the whole athlete. Sometimes in rehab, us medical practitioners can get hyper-focused on the injury at hand. However, we have to treat the athlete as a whole, including physical and mental health. Although we are not as well trained as a mental health practitioner, it is important for us to check on our athletes on how they are feeling mentally. It is important for us to get to know our patients as people rather than just an injury as well to know what they are dealing with outside of a physical injury.

Something I firmly believe in is that the patient has to enjoy your sessions and enjoy being around you as a person. It has been proven, when we feel good mentally, when we are happy, we physically feel better, and vice versa. Creating a good environment for the patient or athlete can improve their rehab.

Training by Plane

Training within different planes of motion is important in the weight room. Therefore, it is important for rehabilitation as well. The planes of motion are referring to the sagittal plane, frontal (coronal) plane, and the transverse plane. These planes are shown below.

As far as sports and general activities of daily living (ADLs), we primarily work in the sagittal plane, which I like to refer to as king. Therefore, developing muscles in the sagittal plane first and primarily is important. This includes the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, biceps, triceps, etc. Once these are well developed, turning the dial in treatment to the frontal plane and transverse plane can be attacked. However, making sure all planes are incorporated in a single rehab session is important (the dial is just focused more on sagittal plane in the beginning, then transitions to other planes). And multiplanar exercises are generally encouraged because usually on the field, athletes are performing multiplanar movements.

Training with Plyometrics for Explosion and Fast-Eccentric for Absorption

Now that planes of motions are established, the type of movement in the rehabilitation session is important to address.

As I’ve said before, football is a powerful sport. Therefore, plyometrics is key to incorporate in rehab to improve the ability of the muscle to create fast and powerful contractions to be conditioned for this type of movement.

Additionally, fast-eccentric exercises are extremely important for contact sports. Not only to train the breaks, but also to train the muscles to absorb contact to prevent further injuries.

*Due to my professional association with the Atlanta Falcons during preseason and my current role with the Florida State Seminoles, I will not provide educational content or commentary on any injuries within these programs during or after the season.

Training by Alactic Power and Alactic Capacity

Alactic power refers to the body’s capacity for immediate, maximum intensity, explosive efforts lasting from 6-10 seconds with adequate breaks. This is parallel to a play in football which last from 4-8 seconds. Therefore, training alactic power creates the same environment of a play in football and should be incorporated in rehab.

Alactic Capacity is the body’s ability to repeat these high intensity efforts, which represents a drive. Again, building alactic capacity in an athlete creates the same environment of a drive in football and should be incorporated in rehab.

Remember, rehabbing the injury is important, but the patient’s ultimate goal is to return to play therefore creating an environment similar to the sport allows you to comfortably let them return the play as well as the athlete feeling comfortable getting back to their sport.

Repetitions and Load

The last topic I want to cover is repetitions and Load which is very simple, but can be a missed bucket if not properly educated. According to the CSCS here are the different types of reps and load to achieve different types of training: