Biomechanical issues are common in sports people and have profound effects on their level of performance
Most people probably imagine that the bodies of elite sports people must be close to perfection and that the people who look after them must be wise and knowledgeable about elite performance, but having worked with world-class athletes across many sports, I can tell you that both of these assumptions are often far from the truth.
Since I started working in elite sport as an Osteopath and Biomechanic more than twenty years ago, sport has continued to become an ever bigger and more lucrative industry. During this time, sports technology has made great strides in areas like equipment and cardiovascular training, but what’s clear to me is that there continues to be a lack of understanding about biomechanical efficiency.
I backed away from Sport to concentrate on building my wellbeing centres about twelve years ago, but I still see that a better understanding of this subject would give most competent athletes the competitive advantage they need to reach and retain world-class status.
“a better understanding of biomechanics would give most competent athletes the competitive advantage they need to reach world-class status.”
Let me give you an example.
In my early days in elite sport, the first athlete I intensively worked with, was a young British middle-distance runner whose recurrent niggles and faltering finishes were holding back her potential, such that she couldn’t quite get into the British team or secure a contract with UK Athletics.
She came to see me privately and after pointing out all the biomechanical inefficiencies that were causing her niggles and slowing her down, I used techniques I’d learned in Japan, to gradually remove the inefficiencies, greatly improving her symmetry, alignment and opening up her flexibility to regain better elastic recoil.
Over just one year, with no other intervention in her training, her times greatly improved, and she developed a devastating sprint finish. She went from British No 7 to British No 1 and started to be invited to lucrative ‘Diamond League’ meetings for the world’s best runners.
At this point, UK Athletics eagerly signed her to a central contract and gave her access to sponsorship funds, but in doing so, they also stipulated that she could only see their own ‘approved’ therapists.
Reluctantly, we stopped working together and over the next year her niggles returned, her efficiency dropped again and she fell back out of the elite circles and finally out of athletics altogether.
Being one of the first athletes I’d applied my biomechanical ideas and techniques to, I wasn’t at the time, confident enough to state that these had been the decisive factor in her sudden rise to fame, but I then repeated the same kind of outcomes with a number of other athletes across a wide range of sports and realised that these biomechanical issues were holding back athletes in every sport and that few people in these sports has any idea about them, nor any techniques to correct them.
After working with and building a reputation amongst individual athletes for a few years (often without their clubs or patrons knowing), I was persuaded to give the limited time I had to a top international rugby team, who had a growing problem with injuries.
I introduced myself to the players by putting them in a line and telling each of them one by one, what injuries they were susceptible to, just by looking at their posture. Having got their attention and respect, I then went on to analyse each player individually and over a few years, helped them remove their biomechanical inefficiencies and therefore their susceptibility to injury.
Over this time, the team went from having the worst injury situation of all test-playing nations, to the best, but perhaps more importantly, the players became more agile, started to play a quicker game and were able to conserve more energy for the all-important last ten minutes, when many games are won or lost. This resulted in them having one of the most successful periods in their history.
But successfully working with an international rugby team like this, wasn’t as enjoyable as you might think.
It was the rugby union board who had appointed me and the medical team clearly didn’t like it. Sports therapy in the UK is monopolised and jealously guarded by physiotherapists. They didn’t like an Osteopath treading on their patch, even if I was working on injury prevention, whilst they continued to work on treating injuries. Luckily, I’d already gained the trust of the players and the team coach was from Australia, where Osteopaths are highly regarded, so he was very supportive too. I managed to get my work done on my regular visits to the training camp, but the Physio department did everything they could to otherwise keep me away from the players and especially from match days.
After a few years I was invited to work with a top football club instead, so, tired of the pettiness, I transferred the hours I had available to them. Not wanting to fall into the same trap with their medical team, I presented a plan to the board and executives, explaining how we could get advantage over other clubs by elevating relatively inexpensive players to elite performers by improving their biomechanics and reducing their susceptibility to injury. I also suggested a new sports psychology intervention I’d been working on to improve decisiveness and pattern assimilation.
The board and executives enthusiastically supported the plan and assigned me the role of Director of Performance so that I wouldn’t need to sit under the medical department. In fact, they were so enthusiastic that they even sacked the manager, who they didn’t think would grasp the plan and immediately went on a hunt for an ‘intelligent’ new manager who could work with me, one I would help appoint.
I thought I was finally going to get the control I needed to fully implement my ideas, but I hadn’t anticipated just how jingoistic football can be.
One night, without consulting me, the Chief Executive called to tell me that ‘he’d’ just appointed a new manager after meeting him for a drink in a bar. He assured me that he was completely on board with the plan and that after a few weeks of settling in, we’d all sit down together. However, in that time, the new manager stopped communicating with the executive, appointed his own medical and performance team and without ever listening to my ideas, decided to go his own way.
Needless to say, he didn’t last long and after that experience, neither did I. I decided to get out of the crazy, nepotistic and short-sighted world of elite sport and concentrate on my daytime job of growing my wellbeing businesses in London instead.
It’s now been twelve years since I worked in elite sport and I still don’t see too many improvements in their understanding of biomechanics. The predispositions to injury and inefficiencies that reduce elite performance are still obviously there and no-one else seems to have come along with the insight and techniques that could take advantage of the vast improvements on offer.
Today, I still see a few sports people in my limited clinic time and still get the same results, but whilst building my wellbeing business, it’s necessarily been put into the background.
However, I now have someone else running the day-to-day business, so, if the right offer comes along, one that avoids the pitfalls I’ve so far encountered in elite sport, it might be crazy, but I’d still be tempted to give it another go.
If you are an elite performer or you think you have the potential to be one, then email me at mark@lightpractice.co.uk and I’ll happily assess your biomechanical inefficiencies and help you understand how undoing them will help you to avoid injuries and improve your performance, perhaps even to world-class levels.
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