Coaches Cause Injury
(Note - this post updated 19-11-13)
I coach developing athletes. One of the keys with this is teaching a good quality technical basis for the skills they need to become expert in. We work in on these techniques in 2 different ways:
- establish the flexibility and strength to execute the skills, and
- teach the technical aspects of the skills.
Even with enormous care in developing the physical parameters concurrently with the technical parameters, athletes get injured.
It occurs to me that without a coach teaching these techniques, players would focus very little on technique, and just 'play'. When they just play it is likely that they will only use techniques which fall within the range their body can properly support. Basically, they would naturally reduce their injury risk by playing within their physical limitations.
Which makes me think, maybe coaching is actually causing some injuries in athletes. By teaching athletes techniques that are at the limits of their body's stability, we are putting athletes into dangerous situations.
All of this comes together in a presentation I saw recently by David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene. Epstein discussed the physical predisposition of some people, or groups of people, to be successful in particular athletic endeavours. In relation to my environment, one could argue that, in a sport that requires a lot of upper body rotation, young athletes who can already do this would have a huge advantage over those who are limited in this area, and perhaps should be specifically targetted.