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Page 1 of 3 Training and Playing on Hard Grounds – What are the risks?
While we have been blessed with rain this year, it won’t take much time for grounds around our region that are not artificially watered top dry out once the summer sun takes effect. Playing football on Hard ground will present challenges in many areas of your pre-season training and possibly through the season 2008 unless we continue to have above average rainfall. Hard ground is obviously unforgiving, as many have found out already! But, apart from the immediate pain felt when coming in contact with the hard ground, playing on these surfaces can lead to minor injuries that can compound to further increase the risk of a major injury. For example after playing if you pull up with sore and cramping muscles or stiff and swollen joints, these are indications that you are at risk of a muscle tear or joint sprain.
The body uses the muscles and joints in the feet, legs and pelvis to compensate when you run, quickly change direction, crumb for the ball or jump, mark and land. In doing this over the length of the game, the body will need to use all the flexibility and strength in your muscles and all the range of motion your joints have.
This will be even more so in the coming season. Hard ground will cause increased stress to occur in your feet and up into the legs and even into your back. The forces on the joints of the midfoot, (arch), ankle, knee and hips alone will put some players at risk of injury depending on their structure. This increased stress will also be placed on your muscles, as they will be working to protect the joints as well as allow the normal movements you need to play Australian Rules football. Of course it is possible that it may continue to rain, some people predict it may be a wet year due to the La Niña circumstances,( opposite to El Niño), over the next 3 months. If this does occur it will turn dried out areas of grounds into muddy zones. This will bring with it instability issues that will also place high stresses on muscles, ligaments and joints
How Do You Lessen the Risk of Injury?
If there is a lack of muscle flexibility or strength either your performance will suffer or, if you push your body to achieve in this situation, then an injury may well occur. Just a simple warm up before the game may not be enough. You should pay special attention to how the following areas would lessen your risk of injury and I would encourage you to discuss these with the medical staff.
- Appropriate insoles and orthotics
Once you know what areas you need to work on, you can address them during the break before we get back to training.
Boots and injuries
Ankles and Arches:
Almost everyone has rolled their ankle when playing football. Some players, however, will regularly roll their ankle either because they have had a significant injury in the past or their foot structure has a natural tendency to do so. For these players it is imperative to get boots that support the ankles, place the feet in as normal a position as possible and support the feet through the twisting and turning of our game, e.g.; when you're crumbing. These movements also of course place high stress on the arch muscles and ligaments. If you have had arch strain or heel pain you need a boot that will particularly support this area and only bend at the forefoot and be stable through the midfoot into the rearfoot area.
These are the features you need to look for:
1. Well supported and stiff heel cup -- which will tend to hold the rear foot and heel vertical.
2. Heel wedge or midsole -- which will tend to hold the heel slightly higher than the forefoot in the same way your foot is held in all your other shoes e.g. runners, school shoes etc
3.a The sole unit should be stiff under the arch and heel. If you hold the toe and heel areas of the shoe and twist the sole should not twist easily: This is called Torsional Stability
3.b The sole unit should bend easily at the forefoot, just behind your big toe joint: This is called Forefoot flexibility or the Flexpoint.
NOTE: Fitting of the boot is most important to make sure the sole’s flex point is just behind the bigtoe joint.
Hamstrings, calf muscle and Achilles tendons:
If you’ve had problems in the past or your flexibility in these areas is poor even though you’ve tried to improve it, then a boot with the heel wedge is imperative. Almost all of your other shoes will have the heel higher than the forefoot, however most football boots have the heel at the same level as the forefoot because that's how soccer players like them. This situation can create great strain on your hamstrings, calf muscles and Achilles tendons and with the side to side and crumbing movements of our game, combined with tripping over your opponent’s foot or your foot going into a divot in the turf the stress placed on these tissues may be so great that you sustained an injury. By buying a boot with the wedge or midfoot or having an insole that incorporates a heel lift, you lessen the potential for this occurring.
Knee or hip problems:
If you've injured these areas in the past, then I recommend the Asics range of boots and some of the Puma boots because of their sole unit. The blades configuration under the forefoot has a circular pattern which came about to address the common mechanism of knee injury: which is when someone tackles you from the side with your foot planted on the ground, which rotates your body while your lower leg and foot remain held by the stops in the ground in a straight position. This places huge torsional stress at the knee and is often responsible for ligament damage.
- Asic's football boot range sole unit allows your forefoot to rotate as the top of the body rotates in this situation, significantly reducing the stress on the knee and the potential for injury.
- Some of the Puma range has been purposefully designed to have a combination of the blade alignment as well as the placement around the outside of the sole that aims to allow a similar function to that of the Asics sole.
- Also, both Adidas and Nike are also designing their modern boot soles with the blade and stop configuration to address this issue.
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