Technique and Injuries

April 15, 2013

I recently received an email from a well-known rowing coach.  He expressed his concern that recently posted rowing articles – whose authors focused on teaching people their own particular style of rowing — could actually increase rowing-related injuries.  These same concerns apply to other endurance sports as well.

I haven’t read the articles he mentioned.  And I likely won’t.  It’s not because I don’t think the information is useful –I am sure it is.  It’s because my current views on how rowing injuries occur puts little emphasis on rowing technique as the culprit.

Over the past four and a half years since I started my business, I’ve learned a tremendous amount about rowing injuries, from the hundreds of clients who have come to me because their chronic training-related injuries have failed to improve using traditional medicine.

Seeing clients from all over the US and Canada allows me to work with endurance athletes who train using a variety of technical styles, coming from so many different clubs and school programs.  Regardless of the coaching style they’ll return to after I see them, a large majority (over 90%) will recover in a short period of time.  What this has led me to believe is that  technique, is really a very small player when it comes to chronic training related injuries.

Recovery from these chronic injuries, regardless of the technique used, occurs by first identifying individual flexibility and strength deficits.  Once these deficits are identified, clients are then taught how to use my very specific exercise program to re-activate deficient areas of the body.

Many of my clients travel from far away.  Often, I see them only once or twice so we have to get it right.  The one thing I don’t do is coach specific sport technique.  I do however teach my clients how their deficient muscles groups have forced their bodies to compensate by using poor movement strategies, which will eventually become good strategies as they correct their individual deficits.

Endurance athletes with chronic training-related symptoms have what I call a ‘bad toolbox’  — a poor balance of strength and flexibility.  This bad toolbox doesn’t allow them to coordinate or move their bodies in an ideal way, and is part of the injury sequelae.   I do see a small percentage of clients (high school girls) who suffer from chronic injuries, but who do have excellent posture and body sequencing.  Yet, they sustain chronic injuries because while they are super flexible, they are also super weak.  Once balanced, strength is restored, and symptoms disappear.

I only begin coaching specific technique (in my sport rowing, but could be done with other sports) about 6 to 10 weeks into a corrective exercise program.  Athletes can now get into and maintain much better body posture.  Their new ‘tools’ not only eliminate their injuries, but also allow them to create more power because they’re now better at applying forces through their legs, trunk, and arms.  This is the foundation of proper technique.

The reality is that most endurance sport-related injuries that I’ve observed and treated are because athletes have poor ‘toolboxes’ — poor strength and flexibility.   Once the athlete corrects the identified imbalances, they can return to the same coaching style without symptoms.  I agree that proper bio-mechanical sequencing and good body posture do reduce injury risk, but have also observed injured athletes who have excellent posture and technique.  I believe that the key to reducing the risk of training-related injuries lies in maintaining a strong and flexible ‘toolbox’ through well maintained and healthy body balance.

Dedicated to Making You Faster, Stronger, and More Resistant to Injury

Coach Kaehler

PS- If you would like more information on proper training secrets, please look out for an upcoming FREE REPORT called the “Training Manifest” which I will be making available shortly on my web site.  I will let you know shortly by email, when you can get this informative eBook, by going to www.trainingmanifest.com or www.coachkaehler.com . Simply sign-up, when it’s available, so you can download and read this SPECIAL REPORT.

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