Lachlan Porter - Health and Performance

Same old injuries, different situations

What do you think? What are you seeing at your club?

If you play senior football the situations you might find yourself in have changed as the game develops and new rules are brought in.

The unfortunate thing is I’m seeing most of this in the younger players, the 16 to 20 year olds.

What does that mean for the game’s development at grassroots level? We probably won’t know for another few years until we see what the pool of senior footballers looks like then.

I’ll be interested to see too how the AFL injury data at the elite level changes over the coming years too,

Here’s my predictions at that level unless theres a change to the rules, or the way contested ball and strategy is approached:
- higher rate of hamstring/achilles injuries
- higher rate of knee ligament injuries
- more severe concussions when they do happen
- more severe upper limb fractures when they do happen

For a ligament to be injured there typically needs to be a mechanism of injury, a moment where the ligament was disrupted.

However, there can be other reasons, aside from a ligament injury, that your knee joint doesn’t feel as stable as it usually does.

Some days are harder than others,

keep going for long enough that you have a chance to get there.

Flare ups are feedback

Sometimes very uncomfortable feedback

If you got re injured, tell me, did you finish your rehab?

No judgement, I’m interested to know if it made a difference, re-injury happens for lots of reasons 🙂

If you’re knee is stiff it’s for a reason, and there is possibly more than one reason.

The first step is to narrow down what’s contributing to the stiffness so that you can pick management strategies that suit.

“Hey Derek, you know what’s good for shoulder pain?”

👉🏽If you would know that the scan doesn’t tell you the whole story.

“Abnormal Findings” on medical imaging with no associated symptoms are common,

and in shoulders it’s also common to have the same problem on a scan in both shoulders, but pain only on one side.

Maybe you’re not lazy

Maybe, it’s actually is hard for you to know exactly what your next step should be

Sticking to a plan for your health, your rehab, or your fitness is much easier when you know

1. The exact steps to take, specifically what the actions look like

2. Knowing why that action is the right one

3. Knowing whether or not you’re actually making the changes you want to make

When you can take the right actions for the right reasons and see the right results, sticking to the plan suddenly becomes a lot easier.

If you have a sports injury there are two main times to stop training all together

- If there’s a medical reason (eg: concussion symptom onset)
- If there’s a risk of further damage (eg: running on a broken leg)

Outside of these scenarios, it is often safe and even advised to continue some form of training.

If you can’t make suitable modifications or substitutions, even continuing to be involved in a social, coaching, or volunteer capacity can have beneficial effects for your recovery.