5 Point Plan to Combat Stress Fractures
5 Point Plan to Try & Prevent Stress Fractures
Back injuries and Stress Fractures in particular seem to be at an all time high at the moment
Fast bowlers are dropping despite there being more studies, more physios, dr’s, S&C’s and sports therapist involved in trying to help
In short, what ever is being done, isnt working
And fast bowlers are being let down
Its not good enough to say Fast Bowlers will get injured, that’s the nature of it
We have to be striving to be better than that, not just give up and be resigned to it
What message is that giving the young players?
Based on things that I’ve seen work, and not work, here is my 5 point plan on how we can start to make a hole in this mess and start to help the Fast Bowlers
1- Put best coaches with academy and youth players
Too often the junior players get the junior coaches. Either a first time S&C out of Uni or a coach who has just started his career, usually just after finishing playing.
So these people have very limited experience, and the training sub optimal, a lot of times S&C looking like a normal gym plan, and every player pretty much having the same thing to do
Which when you have different maturation stages, muscle dominant types, multiple movement issues can lead to the deluge of injuries we see
The bowling coaches as well pretty much have no clue about S&C, and will just impart wisdom such as don’t bowl wide, and no no balls. Any technical work gets washed over
2- Put movement competency before the barbell
Following on from that far too many players have conditioning routines which are pretty much barbell based
Let me say this now, im not against strength, we want strong stable robust bowlers
But going straight to the barbell is not the way
We have players across the board with so many movement dysfunction issues that putting them under load on a barbell is nothing short of crazy
We are exacerbating the problem
We need to take the time and assess then fix the issues first, before we think about loading them under a barbell
And even then there are so many more ways we can help get them strong than just squatting and deadlifting
Its been the party link for so long it needs to be questioned now
Strength is important, but strength on dysfunction is not the way to go. When we tell technical coaches that the bowlers just need to be stronger we are creating a huge issue and a level of understanding that is doing a massive disservice to everyone involved
3- Stop putting bowling interventions before knowing movement limitations
We need to understand that how people bowl is a direct result of their capacity to move
That is the starting block, and the foundation
Going in trying to give a bowling intervention before looking at the body can lead to a hell of a lot of frustration and poor results
The coach might have been told the drill, and how good it is, but on a basic physical level, if the bowlers body can not get the range, there is little hope of it sticking
And it could get worse
Just throwing a new drill at a bowler that you learnt at the weekend without context, could well create a bigger physical issue
4- Ensure bowling is part of plan at least 11 months of year
Once we are happy with how the bowler is moving, their motor control patterns, then we cant be shy of having them do the thing that we actually want them to do.
Bowl
If there are no red flags then introducing bowling as part of a conditioning plan will help build the chronic workload and help the body adapt to the rigours of bowling
Each delivery has a plyometric impact on the spine which will help it get stronger and more robust. It doesn’t need to be flat out bowling all the time, there are a number of different ways it can be done to get the player in a bowling type situation without it being 100%
The regular dose response will do wonders for the player
5- Have bowling coaches understand movement and working closely with (good) conditioning coaches
There is far too big a gap between bowling coaches and S&C’s
They need to be hand in hand with each other
Too many S&C’s have no clue about what the parameters of bowling are, the positions we want to see hit and the nature of the forces acting on a bowler during delivery
They are trained just to get better numbers on the whiteboard in the main lifts, and now being sprint coaches too
Get strong and sprint. It’s not working, this isn’t rugby
By the same token the technical coaches aren’t armed with the conditioning knowledge they need
They might learn part of it on 1 module, but then stop there, and don’t do their own work to dive deeper into it
If they’ve been taught all you need is to be stronger, and then you have an S&C who thinks that’s all they need to be doing, then we are in a dangerous place and these injuries will keep happening
And we cant just blame the bowling as its happening during training and rehab
So there is what I think can massively help to curb the amount of back injuries
I’ve had to learn a lot of this the hard way as well
We need to put egos aside and focus on the player
We need to upskill a lot of people and get them out of the 1 dimensional thinking that is plaguing the game
Far too many players who come on my 1-1 plan tell me the same thing
They just get told to get stronger
When that doesn’t work there is nowhere else to go with it
Lets be better
Lets help young quick bowlers stay quick
I’ve actively seen bowlers actions change through the years, which I believe can be put down to really poor programming
Everyone should be doing everything they can to make sure the next generation doesn’t suffer the way this one has
Lets get after it
Dewsy
@cricketstrength
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