Peter Francis Column - Rebuilding a broken down GAA player from scratch

Our Health and Fitness columnist Peter Francis explains how he helped to get a hurling player back playing after a series of frustrating injuries.

This week’s article is inspired by a mixture of a project undertaken with a GAA player two years ago and my sports editor’s desire for me to apply the information from the last dozen health and fitness columns to a GAA scenario. Before reading I ask you to keep “Behaviour Change” to the forefront of your mind.

The Problem

Two years ago I had a 28-year-old, secondary school teacher, former hurler walk through my doors after a summer’s debauchery in the Far East and Australia.

Formerly a goal scoring full forward for two All-Ireland winning minor and U-21 teams and a senior panellist at age 20, his inter-county career never progressed any further. After one or two successful seasons with Fitzgibbon hurling he had not had an injury free season for four or five years much to his frustration and his home club. His main complaint was a re-occurring hamstring problem, which meant he never got past the first round of thechampionship and the resultant time off led to weight gain.

Dietary Habits

John’s main reason for seeking my assistance initially was weight-loss, hurling seemed a distant memory. “Right Pete, I’m ready for you to starve me, whatever it takes.” Mistake number one became evident very quickly - yo-yo dieting.

So we began with an education session informing him that correcting the type of food he consumed was more important than the quantity.

I sensed relief when I informed him his new regime would require him to eat on a regular basis. His breakfast was a non-event so we replaced it with a high fibre alternative based on his preference, bran flakes and a slice of brown bread. This negated the need for him to consume chocolate snack biscuits with tea at 11am.

Due to a high fibre breakfast he felt he needed no more than a piece of fruit at morning break.

At lunch time we replaced hot chicken and salad on a white roll with a brown bread sandwich containing lean chicken, low-fat cheese and salad. This was usually accompanied by a soup or low fat yoghurt. Dinner contained lean meat or fish, vegetables and high fibre carbohydrate such as brown rice or pasta. If a snack was required before training or outside of normal meals it was no problem as long as we applied the same rules.

High fibre, low sugar, low saturated fat. John could not believe he was never hungry.

Prevention Rather than Cure

However the reason John had not played hurling in four or five years was not simply down to poor diet. He had repeatedly trained the same way every year until picking up an injury.

If you cannot train you cannot lose or maintain weight. I did not attempt to treat his hamstring, instead performed a number of assessments to diagnose the root cause of the problem.

Throughout the kinetic chain (links from head to toe) there was severe lack of functional movement - eg he could not squat down as far as a standard chair. Like a lot of us he was displaying signs of lower cross syndrome very tight hip flexor/quad muscles and very weak overstretched hamstrings.

So we had two major tasks to perform one find a form of exercise that would aid weight loss without causing injury and two, develop functional movement so that when he did lose weight he would be functional enough to progress his training.

Progressive Exercise Program

We began with a fitness test on an exercise bike to give me some idea of the best heart rates for him to train at. I prescribed a number of corrective exercises (mainly functional movement and stretching) to address his current muscle imbalance.

These exercises were performed before each and every of the 5 exercise sessions in a week he performed. Initially we focused exercise on the bike and cross trainer.

As fitness, functional movement and general conditioning improved we were able to add in more run sessions. John progressed to a level where he began to enjoy running when he formerly despised it.

Coming into Christmas John was almost the lightest in his career. This prompted a barrage of phone calls from his club for him to return to training. I advised caution. He wasn’t ready and would only reinjure. He did not need my caution, he had already said “no”. He understood the process he was undergoing and how the plan was progressing.

Set-Backs

To achieve behaviour change in terms of dietary habits, regular exercise and addressing the causes of a reoccurring hamstring problem, there would of course be set-backs.

Three specific incidents I remember clearly. After the initial substantial weight loss, John became somewhat disheartened when his weight hadn’t changed for a couple of weeks. It was important here to educate him that when he was approaching optimum change would be slower and now other factors including when he had last eaten or drank would affect weight more noticeably.

The second incident was when we decided to perform a fitness test encompassing the fitness components required in hurling. It was a bitterly cold January night. John went through his usual functional movement warm up. After the first couple of tests, we performed a 20m sprint test.

Half-way through John pulled up with a hamstring tweak, the look of panic on his face immense. He had begun to dream of hurling again; the feeling of disappointment was palpable as we departed the pitch.

From my point of view it wasn’t much to worry about. It simply meant we had progressed a step higher on the ladder than he was able for at that point. The next step was simple, stop the session when there was minimal or no damage to his hamstring and continue the hard work which had got us to this point.

On his first attempt at game play, he went up for a ball, received a blow to the head which ended in concussion and severely torn ligaments. I remember ringing a disappointed man on a Sunday morning to be greeted by reasonable optimism given the circumstances. He knew what he had to do to get better. The process had educated him; he now had the tool box to rebuild himself. My input from here was minimal.

Satisfaction

Its early July 2011, I’m standing in Punchestown Race Course waiting for Coldplay to come on stage. I feel the phone vibrate. A text from John. “Just played my first 60 minutes of junior hurling thanks for everything.”

I subsequently got to watch the man play a full 60 minutes that August. The one thing I couldn’t take credit for is his accuracy from frees, he didn’t miss one.

One year on we meet for coffee on the UL campus. He’s been playing senior hurling for the summer. He tells me this is his last year.

Initially I’m surprised; he’s worked so hard to get back to this level and still has plenty to offer. But he is completely at ease. He’ll finish his career a senior hurler, on his terms, his decision.

Given where he came from, a lot of players around the country would surely love to have the same luxury.

>>> To contact Peter Francis, visit www.midwestsportsclinic.com or email info@midwestsportsclinic.com