ViPR Warm Up

Just a quick 3 min video showing one of my athletes using a ViPR to warm up-simple but effective!

JC On Road To Recovery

James Campbell is one of the athletes that I work with at Esher Rugby Club-since the end of last season he had been suffering from chronic back pain. The pain effected him in his personal life but in particular his training and rugby suffered. After finally getting in front of a surgeon, JC went under the knife. On the 12th of November he had a discectomy at Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon.

Since the surgery JC has been a different man, the effects were immediate-in fact apart from the scar on his back, JC was completely pain free. Since receiving an amber light to start back on the rehab I have been working with him 3-4 times a week, the aim being getting him back to playing for the play offs (12th March).

The early part of JC’s workout consisted of alot of floor work making sure his spine was strong and mobile and then getting him on his feet to facilitate his postural muscles to fire and support him in functional movement. The next phase has seen JC weight lifting again in the gym-high reps with low load ensuring good strong posture and correct patterns of movement.

In the last week JC’s surgeon has also given him the green light to start contact-this has to be a carefull process with constant monitoring of his reaction to each stimulis to ensure we dont over do it. It’s really a case of suck it and see, pushing the barrier daily untill he can go full contact.

In the video below JC uses a ViPR to do some conditioning before doing some controlled contact against stability balls. The idea behind this was to get him to brace for contact and for him to try and remain on the white line as best he could while being ‘bounced’. It must be noted that the athlete under went a thorough warm up before the session and had progressed up from controlled contact using a much more stable  target in previous sessions.

I’ll keep you up to date on JC’s fight to be fit!!!

Enjoy

Zach Krych-An Inspiration

Injuries happen- that’s sport. As a coach we see it and it hurts to see our athletes in pain and in a bad mental state when they are injured and cannot train. It is part of our role to get them back to fitness even when the chips our down.

Check out this great video of Zach Krych who suffered a horrific injury while training for his sport, Olympic Weight Lifting. He is proof that the heart and fight inside an athlete can be a powerful force.

I find the video not only inspiring but very humbling-I will show this to all my athletes to motivate them to do great things.

Enjoy…