Soft Tissue Injuries - how do we address it?

[Axe Man]

Achilles injuries are in a category all of their own. They are very difficult to get rid of, I know from experience. Wasn't it Sucklings achilles that forced him out of the finals in 2016? If he's been managing that since then and this is the first game he's missed then i would say the medical staff have done a fairly good job.

However, I am just guessing, as we all are. We have no idea of the extent of the management and treatment that goes on behind the scenes. The notion that some people seem to have that the medical staff have no idea what they are doing as soon as we get a couple of hammy injuries is ridiculous. Of course it is an area that should be under regular review as all areas of operation of the club should be. I would be very surprised if our rate of soft tissue injuries is above the AFL average.

[Greystache]

ok, I missed Suckling because I didn't take this weeks list (available tonight) and forgot him. The list for your information is the list produced by the Club every week.

So 45 players and we have Schache, Wood, Dickson, Macrae and Suckling.

I work on facts not on perception.

Which is about as accurate as the club's goal kicking.

You need a better source if you're going to tell everyone they're wrong.

[azabob]

I’d like to hear from Slim Pickens as he was one of the first to call for a review to occur and from memory has a background in this field.

Slim what would you do if you headed up the review?

[bornadog]

Which is about as accurate as the club's goal kicking.

You need a better source if you're going to tell everyone they're wrong.

[The bulldog tragician]

I have gone through the whole list of injuries from the start of the year. We have 45 players on the list (I think I haven't counted) and we have had one calf injury, and hammies to Wood and Macrae. The rest of the injuries have been knees, foot, ankle, shoulder , hip, broken thumb, compound fracture of finger. Not the fault of medicos, these are football injuries.

Hardly a crisis.

BAD and others more knowledgeable about injuries than me - one thing that concerns me is about those with a history of knee problems such as Clay Smith and Jack Redpath and their recurrent issues. I get that these are guys with damaged knees in the first place but how are we managing their ongoing strengthening and protection? The fact of the recurrent hamstrings for Dickson and Wood is also frustrating.

I don’t think it is a total indictment of our medical staff just to carefully review what we’re doing and compare to best practice elsewhere, just as I hope we do with all areas of our coaching at the end of this year. If it means even one more player has a better 2019 I’m all for it.

[SlimPickens]

Deleted post

[azabob]

I know there has been a lot of talk on BT who would you sack thread but Slim has provided a great overview of how the review should be conducted.

Especially now with Williams going down.

What I find bizarre is that each injury release has the comment - will be managed cautiously. Is that code for we have no idea what it is?!?

[bornadog]

I know there has been a lot of talk on BT who would you sack thread but Slim has provided a great overview of how the review should be conducted.

Especially now with Williams going down.

What I find bizarre is that each injury release has the comment - will be managed cautiously. Is that code for we have no idea what it is?!?

Aza, whilst there may be issues at our club, my view is there are injury issues across the whole AFL. It seems this year there are alot of injuries for some reason or another? I haven't verified it, and only going by this years injury lists.

* Is it training and preparation
* is it the way clubs play now with manic pressure around the ball
* Is it the surface at Etihad which has been spoken about in the past
* Is it lack of injury management

There are only a couple of clubs that are managing injuries better than others - see injury list here

[ledge]

Check out the surface at whitten oval , is it too soft and then we go on Etihad where it's too hard ?
Do we need to make the surface at whitten oval the same hardness as Etihad ?

[Hotdog60]

Get a podiatrist to look at their boots. If it's foot related get in a foot specialist.
Maybe more cushioning?

[LostDoggy]

With all due respect, we have three bone stress injuries this year to Dale, Williams and English. Those injuries are actually a direct result of the workload the players. And it is the fitness and medical staff who devise and monitor the players workloads to ensure optimum fitness. How is that going? Seems very poor to me. These bone stress foot injuries can be career threatening, and we have three of them.


And before someone blames Etihad, I dont recall other tenants having the same severity and frequency of problems.

Also would be checking the number of recurrent injuries as they can be a marker for failed rehab or poor actions taken by fitness staff to mitigate the risk of re injury. Wood and Dickson in particular seem to be getting recurrent hammies. Whats going on there?

[bornadog]

With all due respect, we have three bone stress injuries this year to Dale, Williams and English. Those injuries are actually a direct result of the workload the players. And it is the fitness and medical staff who devise and monitor the players workloads to ensure optimum fitness. How is that going? Seems very poor to me. These bone stress foot injuries can be career threatening, and we have three of them.


And before someone blames Etihad, I dont recall other tenants having the same severity and frequency of problems.

Also would be checking the number of recurrent injuries as they can be a marker for failed rehab or poor actions taken by fitness staff to mitigate the risk of re injury. Wood and Dickson in particular seem to be getting recurrent hammies. Whats going on there?

two areas need to be reviewed

1. Fitness and conditioning - are we over loading? Eg Is the practise in the preseason of not using the full interchange now causing damage.

2. Are the recovery people giving the right advice to players?

[Mofra]

Aza, whilst there may be issues at our club, my view is there are injury issues across the whole AFL. It seems this year there are alot of injuries for some reason or another? I haven't verified it, and only going by this years injury lists.

* Is it training and preparation
* is it the way clubs play now with manic pressure around the ball
* Is it the surface at Etihad which has been spoken about in the past
* Is it lack of injury management

There are only a couple of clubs that are managing injuries better than others - see injury list here

When we played North a couple of weeks ago, another Etihad tenant, they had one player on their injury list - Waite with a calf, which is an older player injury anyway.

I've spoken before at North being quite different to the rest of the competition in their pre-season, training, conditioning etc. There is merit in looking at things differently.

E.g. I used to see a physio who travels with the Australian Olympic team, often for an ongoing chronic knee injury (I still run, do weights, just manage the pain, etc). A mate of mine is an osteo and TBH I would see him (or any osteo) before my old physio.
I was talking about icing an injury (the old RICE protocol for injuries) a couple of years ago and he advised that icing isn't always the best thing to do for an injury and in some cases can hinder recovery. Horse for courses, do you want to ruduce inflammation to try and exercise through it or do you want to promote healing / stimulate bloodflow through the area to aid recovery?

We've got sports science guys at VU who really know their stuff (i.e. broke down Wood's running gait in minute detail, re-worked it to protect his hamstrings and until a few weeks ago had a good run with injuries after a period when he questioned whether he could even have career). We seem to ignore a lot of 'new' science and keep doing what everybody else does.

North's decisions are against the grain but are working for them. They are also under instruction to ignore their conditioning staff if they feel good and want to practice shots on goal after training (something Ben Brown does regularly) but that's another story.

[Doc26]

two areas need to be reviewed

1. Fitness and conditioning - are we over loading? Eg Is the practise in the preseason of not using the full interchange now causing damage.

2. Are the recovery people giving the right advice to players?

At the very least a performance review of Chris Bell and his medical/sports science team must be undertaken to ascertain if he and his team are indeed competent for this vital area as from outside the sanctum it doesn't look or read well. I'm not suggesting that he and his team aren't, simply that a thorough review must occur to tick this rather large box.

[bornadog]

When we played North a couple of weeks ago, another Etihad tenant, they had one player on their injury list - Waite with a calf, which is an older player injury anyway.

I've spoken before at North being quite different to the rest of the competition in their pre-season, training, conditioning etc. There is merit in looking at things differently.

E.g. I used to see a physio who travels with the Australian Olympic team, often for an ongoing chronic knee injury (I still run, do weights, just manage the pain, etc). A mate of mine is an osteo and TBH I would see him (or any osteo) before my old physio.
I was talking about icing an injury (the old RICE protocol for injuries) a couple of years ago and he advised that icing isn't always the best thing to do for an injury and in some cases can hinder recovery. Horse for courses, do you want to ruduce inflammation to try and exercise through it or do you want to promote healing / stimulate bloodflow through the area to aid recovery?

We've got sports science guys at VU who really know their stuff (i.e. broke down Wood's running gait in minute detail, re-worked it to protect his hamstrings and until a few weeks ago had a good run with injuries after a period when he questioned whether he could even have career). We seem to ignore a lot of 'new' science and keep doing what everybody else does.

North's decisions are against the grain but are working for them. They are also under instruction to ignore their conditioning staff if they feel good and want to practice shots on goal after training (something Ben Brown does regularly) but that's another story.

I know you have mentioned North before, and maybe they are doing things better.

Here is their current list:

Player	Injury	Estimated Return
Taylor Garner	Hamstring	5-6 weeks
Billy Hartung	Hamstring	TBC
Ben Jacobs	Concussion	Test
Ben McKay	Knee	Test
Declan Mountford	Hamstring	2 weeks
Ed Vickers-Willis	Knee	Season
Jarrad Waite	Calf	TBC
Declan Watson	Knee	3-4 weeks
Mason Wood	Hamstring	TBC

4 Hammies and a calf - not looking good at present.