Long term ankle/achilles/calf strategy for broad community

[Justin Singh]

Hey TRS community,
I’m a squash coach and manage a broad community of members. I plan on attending Movement/Mobility 102 this year to gain a deeper understanding as a point person for my people – but in the meantime I’ve had 5 ruptured achilles under my watch in the past 3 months.

General thoughts:
– Most members are affluent, generally sedentary office workers by nature. Long hours, stress, family, kids
– Limited warm up/awareness of ballistic nature of squash. Lots of long lever dynamic movements
– Cold weather here in Boston MA

I need to change the culture around here and want help bringing the most important changes possible. The most obvious would be to download the TRS App and do some deep tissue work, but I need more low hanging fruit for a ~700 member community. My thoughts are:
5 mins skipping pre-competition
Hydration, manage caffeine intake
Long lever dynamic warm up progression
Are there any obvious band aid solutions in the short term that can help this?

Thanks
Justin

[Michael Alzheimer]

Hey Justin!

The 102 course is going to give you some great strategies to help screen your athletes and give you tools to address any issues they may have in movement quality. As a coach I believe one of the best things you can do is really focus on their warmup and getting those tissues hot and ready for the task they are about to undergo. A lot these injuries can occur because the tissue wasn’t ready for the demands we are throwing at it. In terms of warmup we want to get as much blood flow to the area as we can before they start their sport. They should be jump roping like it’s their job and doing dynamic drills such as high knees, toe/heel walking, or banded running drills till you know they are good and ready. So I’d spend far more than 5 min warming them up, especially if they are a sedentary population and given the cold weather. You could easily be spending 10-20min getting warmed up. In training some direct calf work with things like heavy eccentrics can be beneficial as well to build capacity in those tissues. Then restoring any mobility restrictions from the resources available on the TRS site and sharing these strategies with your athletes so that they can address these limitations themselves will be key as well.

Cheers,
Mike
TRS Staff

[Justin Singh]

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response, these are great strategies that I’ll integrate. I’m looking forward to the 102 course too so thanks for highlighting that. For many of these folks going from 0-5 mins warm up is the first hurdle, but obviously the 10-20 min warm up is the goal, one step at a time!

Best
Justin

[Kelly Starrett]

Hey Justin,
I’d also look at just adding in some simple drills to be done as part of the training experience. For example, 5 min of jump roping sold as foot health, or springyness training will do it. We did a post about Zhang Weili the MMA fighter on insta about her foot strength/fascia drill she does. This would be easy to add into the system. For your older folks (me) I’d add in some collagen supplementation as well.
Crazy how tricky this is!
Kel

[Justin Singh]

Thanks Kelly,
Will keep in mind when the storm passes
All the best
Justin

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