Referees working winter team sports generally have a sort of ‘off-season’ during the Summer months. With this in mind, I will dedicate this week’s article on an aspect of the physical part of refereeing.
The ‘off-season’ varies in length for each one of us, referees. Some may have limited rest (off-season) time whilst others can relax for a longer period. I happen to fall with the former category as summer brings with it certain European national team championships commitments which demand a certain amount of preparation.
I would like to dedicate today’s article on injury prevention, a subject which surely began attracting loads of interest from my part (not that I did not care about this aspect when I used to play before but, as usual, you only devote full attention when you are in the midst of a problem/situation) following a quite severe hamstring injury I suffered some three years ago whilst refereeing an international qualifier between Czech Republic vs. Germany in Croatia.
This was my first major injury since I had started refereeing. Although I still managed to continue working that particular game (albeit limping and in great pain), the severe pain I experienced both on the day and especially in the following days, made me contemplate more on injury prevention.
Like most athletes, we, as referees, want to lower our chances of incurring an injury while participating in our favourite sport. After all, injuries decrease the amount of time we can spend in the respective leisure activities, lower our fitness, downgrade our competitive performance and can also possibly lead to long term health problems.
In theory there are some general rules to avoid injury which apply to all major sports. Sports scientists in fact suggest that injury rates could be reduced by some 25 per cent if athletes took appropriate preventative action.
The amount of training one carries out plays a major key role in determining one’s real injury risk. Studies have shown that a person’s best direct injury predictor may be the amount of training he completed in the previous month.
Fatigued muscles do a poor job of protecting their associated connective tissues, thus increasing the risk of damage to bone, cartilage, tendons as well as ligaments.
If one has been injured before, then the same individual is much more likely to get hurt than another person who has been injury-free. Regular exercises have a way of uncovering the weak areas of the body.
If one has, for example, knees that are put under heavy stress, because of his unique biomechanics during exercises, then the same knees are likely to hurt when he engages in his sport for a prolonged time.
After recovery from injury, one normally thinks he is fully healed and ready to go and thus re-establishes his desired training load without modification to his biomechanics. Most probably the consequence will be that the knees are likely to be injured again.
Another predictor of injury is probably the number of consecutive days of training one carries out each week. Scientific studies strongly suggest that reducing the number of consecutive days of training can lower the risk of injury. Recovery time reduces injury rates, by giving muscles and connective tissues an opportunity to restore and repair themselves, between work-outs.
However there cannot be beating round the bush on one particular fact. Stressed muscles must have time to recover and one is literally ‘playing with fire’ if he engages on tough workouts on a number of consecutive days.
Many frequent injuries (which I see occurring to fellow referees who do not follow a constant training programme but train sporadically) are also caused by weak muscles which simply are not ready to handle the specific demands of your sport.
This is why people who start a running programme for the first time often do well for a few weeks but then, as they add the mileage on, suddenly develop foot or ankle problems, hamstring soreness or perhaps lower back pain. The real reason is that their bodies simply are not strong enough to cope with the demands of the increased training load. For this reason, it is always wise to couple resistance training with regular training.
Resistance training can fortify muscles and make them less susceptible and vulnerable to damage, especially if the strength building exercises involve movements that are similar to those associated with the sport. Time should be devoted to developing the muscle groups appropriate to the demands of your sport.