I’ve written this blog plenty of times in my head, and now, with my 7 month old baby asleep on my lap I thought I would give it a go.
In essence this is a case study on myself, and I’m fully aware that no two pregnancies are the same, but I do feel I learnt a few things along the way that I could share, that may just help someone else…
There is nothing quite like a new year’s resolution to get you starting something. That’s really the easy bit, the tough bit is keeping it up. You’re likely feeling fat and unfit after a festive season of excess, and whilst it is good to indulge ourselves now and again, let’s be honest if you carry on with that trajectory, you’re likely to have more than a few kilos by this time next year, you might even pick up a few illnesses and long term issues along the way too. Remember that low fitness kills more people than smoking, diabetes and obesity combined and that physical inactivity is associated with a higher risk for severe Covid19. If it’s not just your body you are worried about Google ‘Scholarly articles about the psychological benefits of exercise’ and you will find literally thousands of articles talking about combatting stress, decrease in suicidal thoughts, improved self-esteem, academic improvements in children, improved mood and quality of life etc etc. Exercise really is medicine.
This study aimed to look at injuries in rugby union over 2 seasons in both male and female amateur rugby players.
The most common injuries in men and women were concussion and ankle ligament sprains, and ACL injuries causing the most playing time lost.
THE REALLY INTERESTING BIT: 83% of non-contact injuries for women happened in the last quarter of the game…
Spinal stress fractures, Severe’s Disease, Osgood Schlatter’s Disease amongst other things are the scourge of every young cricketing team. With my background in academy cricket physio and national pathway cricket, I now find myself working in private practice based at a cricket ground and so still see a lot of young cricketers, and the stories really haven’t changed that much. School, club and county are all competing for time with the kids, and parents either feel pressured or are doing the pressurising of the kids to do all of the training and matches laid on by all of the entities. Coupled with the fact that children no longer play in seasons, a perfect storm begins to brew.
Every day I see people who love to do a specific sport.... running, cycling, swimming to their hearts content. And none of them want to do anything else, because they love their sport. And why wouldn't you?
The problem is that if you love Macaroni Cheese, and all you want to eat is Macaroni Cheese every day, the reality is if you don't eventually start eating some vegetables, you'll get scurvy!!!
It was with much enthusiasm that many of my patients came in saying they had seen the BBC programme: Horizon: The Truth About exercise (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq) in which most people who saw the programme gleaned that they only had to do 3 minutes of exercise, once a week and all would be well. In summary the guy did 3 minutes of High Intensity Training a week, and it changed his INSULIN SENSITIVITY. His aerobic capacity did not change as he is a ‘non-responder’ to exercise. That is all. What the programme did not claim was that 12 minutes of exercise a month gave you all the other benefits of exercise (and I’m talking 30 minutes of medium intensity exercise a day).
These benefits include:
I’ve pretty much heard all the sayings out there with regards to injury.. ‘if it came on it’s own, it’ll leave on it’s own’, ‘rest cures all’, ‘stretching fixes everything’. But imagine your car breaks down, you park it in the garage for 3 weeks, and then 3 weeks later expect to drive it, as normal as soon as you back it out of the driveway.., a solution to the problem? Doubtful!
