Waking up this morning, as is the usual start to my day, I clicked on to Vital Luton Town to see if all was well.
It is a ritual I’ve adopted on a regular basis during my 11-year tenure as the editor.
Lurking in the comments section was the following post left by a regular and much valued visitor to our site, Alan:
“Hi all. A good battling away win, at a normally unhappy hunting ground. Just an insight for you all.”
“During the international break, I was at a physio’s seminar.”
“About 95% of physios are questioning why modern-day coaches/managers want the pre match warm-ups to be nearly 45 mins. This, in theory makes matches nearly 2.5 hours long (including added time).”
“We, (the medical team) got slated last season for the amount of hamstring injuries, but having spoken to many others clubs’ physios, most clubs had the same problem.”
“Is this pre match ritual linked to the problem?”
The post got me thinking!
As a youngster I used to watch most sports and often enjoyed the thrill of the likes of Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram smashing records on the athletics track.
But I can also remember the trio picking up injuries and disorders the likes of which you and me would never experience.
It got me thinking, as an inquisitive teenager, if being so fit left you open to niggling injuries etc.
Some 40-years later, with several football clubs being affected by niggling, persistent injuries, I’m still pondering whether my teenage theory was true.
Footballers, in the modern age, are the fittest and most regulated they’ve ever been, the science of fitness is practised on a daily basis, it is far different to the 1960’s and 1970’s when there used to be a plethora players who played in every game of the season, something that is a rarity these days.
Continuing down the list of comments made in the last few hours, I saw that another regular visitor to this site, Chris, had also left a post on the subject of injuries / fitness:
Hi Alan
I find that very interesting and honestly it doesn’t surprise me.
Every person is built different, a blanket time for every player to all adhere to is now, to me, obvious.
Going back in time for a study Mike Harrison was plagued by hamstring injuries, he had huge thighs and maybe all the training and warm-ups before games exacerbated his problem.
Do you think it’s time coaches let the medical team work out a correct programme for each player and adapt their thinking about warm-ups?
An interesting conception.
But what are your views on what is a subject, injuries, that seems far more prevalent than they did years ago?
Please feel free to have your say in the comment facility beneath this article.
COYH
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Hi mh, Alan has replied to me. And has said what I put forward is exactly what they themselves discussed and each player maybe needs to have personal planned training and warm up routine not an En bloc warm up. But as Alan has said will coaches listen and will it ever change probably not any time soon.
might come down to money!
How does it come down to money mh? The medical team already prepared the players know them and there needs. So all it needs is coaches to adapt their thinking about players and not overload each player with training and warm ups . Now I’m not advocating this but back when I have read numerous books by the greatest players ever who hated training deliberately missed training smoked an drank to excess.Yet rarely had bad injuries caused in training more by the brutal nature of the game and tackling then.
good point! I was thinking along the lines a medical man for each player cost wise!
Also MH in our day coaches didn’t let players near a ball till Saturday and all we did was run run and more running.Nowadays coaches have so many types of practice games during training players are using muscles the oldies only used on Saturday and just maybe that’s the problem.
Also mh, back in our day coaches rarely if ever let players near a ball till Saturday!!! Also it was simple run run and more run.Maybe it’s now continual play in practice that means players today are using far more different muscles in legs than did the old players continually.