Interesting clip on figure skating and safety
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Interesting clip. Overtraining was definitely an issue in the club I trained in growing up. To me, it was obvious when high level skaters began scaling back their training that the jumps became more consistent. So I studied it through my university degree (Human Kinetics) and was very aware of it when I began coaching. Unfortunately there is definitely a mindset of train-more-equals-better and when I argued against increasing ice time for athletes, I was labeled "a recreational coach" by parents. It would be nice to see a national skating organization support intelligent training vs. nonstop training.0
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Great piece! I love Kat Arbour! I have her book "Strength Conditioning & Injury Prevention". I volunteered to assist at my clubs S.T.A.R.S. testing that Kat helped create. It was really fun and interesting to help the USFSA trainers who did the tests. The trainer I assisted quit skating after breaking her ankle in a collision. My coach was goofing around in her garage and jumped over a box landing on her foot weird. The x-ray showed that she had multiple fractures in her foot that had healed over time! She said she thought foot pain was normal for skating and never thought she might be injured. I have a skating friend my age .. (44 gasp!) who got new skates only to have them be too tight which caused her to have tiny fractures in her feet. It's a tough sport that most people think is all glitz and glamor.
http://www.usfsa.org/Content/2011STARSProgramExerciseGuide.pdf
http://www.icedynamics.net/
I actually have an overuse injury to my landing leg - my ortho believes it's skating related not running. = ( I have stopped jumping - I only have low level single & half jumps- and am focused on MIF until it (hopefully) heals. I want to compete at ISI Worlds in July. I think the injury was due to weak ankle muscles and too much intensity. I was training for a 5-man relay marathon and my club's Christmas show. (being 44 does not help either)
Our pairs teams will often run through programs and skip the jumps and lifts, just focusing on choreography. One of our skaters competes both in singles and pairs. She is on the ice 6 days per week but I think her coaches monitor her jump frequency.
I absolutely believe that off -ice training with proper form is imperative to injury prevention in all sports. I think that the loss of figures and less emphasis on ballet training has contributed to the increases in injuries. Skaters are not landing in padded shoes on a padded floor but leather boots on ice - that's a lot of impact!
I could rattle on and on... sorry ... good night!0 -
I have pain in my back every day from skating growing up (but do I give up skating...nope). I also had to have a c-section to have my son because my tailbone is deformed which the OB suspected I broke at some point and it healed incorrectly. Could explain why my last year competing my tailbone would often ache.
Imagine what quad jumps do to the body! I think a lot of skaters, most likely athletes in general just try to ignore pain and possible injuries because of what toadiejones said about people assuming more training means better training. It aways amazed me how we would train and train and then once we took a break everything woud work better. It's realy a fine line between over training and not training enough and there's such a small window of oppotrunity to do a sport at an elite level that we don't think about what kinds of problems we are creating for ourselves while we are over training.0
