2 min read

Your achilles tendon can either make or break you

Posted on

Your achilles tendon can either make or break you

In honour of one of basketball’s greatest competitors, Nike, with the help of social media, has crowned today as #MambaDay.

Towards the latter part of his career he endured multiple injuries, but it’s safe to say Kobe was never the same since he suffered the dreaded and far too common, achilles tendon rupture more than three years ago. Hell bent on carrying his team to the playoffs; he racked up an astounding 320 minutes over seven games, resting for just 16 minutes and 45 seconds.

Shortly after he went down, every league-wide professional said he should’ve stretched more. I’m going to immediately shut that idea down because that wasn’t the cause of his rupture. The achilles tendon is too complicated for such a simple solution.

So what exactly led to this injury?

First, let’s break down the achilles tendon and its unique properties.

Achilles injuries have many causes, usually a combination of numerous issues, with blood supply being a problem. Over time, with repetitive jumping, running or other lower body movement, the lack of blood flow inherent to any tendon results in degeneration or scarring of that tendon, which decreases its ability to lengthen.

Think about it like this, if you bike every day and don’t maintain or grease the bike chain, it will build up grime, dry out and eventually the chain will rust. In this case, without the proper preventative care, your achilles ability to handle the daily demand decreases a lot more. Just like that, a tear occurs when the force is applied faster than the tendon could lengthen.

So what can you do to help prevent an achilles tendon injury?

The health of the achilles lies in the entire back chain from the glutes, hamstrings, and calves.

When looking at the achilles in isolation, a combo of eccentric contractions, ankle mobility and a focus on a focus on a non-inflammatory diet are keys to prehab.

The following are a series of key exercises you can do to avoid an achilles tendon injury.

elias

Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift – This exercise targets the entire posterior chain – glutes, hamstrings and calves.

Calf Raises – We consider this the guardian angel of the achilles. This loads the achilles tendon while lengthening the calves.

elias

Double Leg Bridge – This simple, yet effective exercise shouldn’t be overlooked because of its ability to fire up the glutes.

What next?

An injury to the achilles is a complex one, and a simple stretch isn’t sufficient enough. You have to exhaust all avenues to help prevent this major injury from happening. Although this injury can stem from various factors, if you’re proactive enough, your most primary used tendon will be a lot more sustainable over time.

4 min read

Steve McGeachy, C.P.P.S.

Posted on

This is the only workout you need to know this offseason

You’re an athlete and your season is over. Now what?

The offseason of today is much different than it was before. Back then, taking the time off, so your body and mind could recover was a priority. Now the offseason is more about improving your game so an athlete can build and progress from the previous year.

A proper offseason training regimen can improve many different aspects of your game such as injury prevention, flexibility, strength, conditioning and recovery time.

The demands of a season can take a toll, and the daily grind can wither your body down. But with more of a focused and planned program during the offseason, it’s easier to avoid the injury pitfalls and it will put you in a better position to succeed.

The following is a breakdown of an off-season training program that will have you ready for training camp.

elias

Muscle Activation and Mobility

elias

Muscle activation is the foundation of our system. It’s crucial every muscle is firing correctly. If muscles aren’t firing properly, we can’t progress into the strength and power phase for the simple fact that we would be strengthening a dysfunction. For example, if an athlete can’t perform a simple bodyweight box squat, there is no way they will be able to do a loaded barbell squat properly.

Strength and Power Development

elias elias

 

Once we have completed the muscle activation and structural balance phase, the next step is developing strength and power. This action will help the athlete increase lean tissue while dropping body fat, create more explosiveness throughout the whole body, and strengthen the ligaments and tendons.

Depending on the athlete and their sport, we may focus on improving relative strength, which increases the players strength but keeping their mass gain to a minimum. This is key for positional players like point guards in basketball or extreme athletes like boxers and MMA specialists.

NOTE: Super sets, volume training, and pyramid rep schemes can all be implemented in this phase. 

Metabolic Conditioning

elias

Following the strength and power phase is conditioning. This stage targets muscular endurance, cardiovascular and recovery time. It’s best to introduce the conditioning phase last because by this point, your season is around the corner and your body should be optimized to meet the demands of team tryouts and camps.

We incorporate drills focusing on agility, velocity and sport specific movements depending on the position of the player. After this phase we ideally transfer the player on to the court or field where we would introduce workouts mirroring game situations and intensity. For basketball, our players would now begin to run conditioning and shooting drills on the court as this is where we look to exploit the power we have built for the past few months.

elias

As the season progresses our athletes would begin our ”in-season” program which strives to maintain strength, agility and range of motion.

If you stick to a disciplined program during the offseason, your game will elevate to another level, and your body will be more sustainable throughout the season.

elias