Welcome to the Team!
A massive welcome to our new Occupational Therapists, Grace and Mel.
Grace is a new graduate Occupational Therapist who studied at the Australian Catholic University in Brisbane. Grace has relocated to Cairns from Bloomfield in Northern Queensland.
Mel is also a new graduate Occupational Therapist who studied at Griffith University in Brisbane. Mel relocated to Cairns from Brisbane in South East Queensland.
Grace and Mel are excited about getting to know the team and our fantastic clients here in Cairns!
Don’t Be a Hero
Prepare Yourself for Pre-season
Pre-season is an exciting opportunity for athletes to start to increase their fitness and hone in on their skills prior to the season commencing. For many sports, preseason will include a combination of working on skills, plus high intensity cardio efforts to enable those cardiovascular gains. For some people however, preseason brings unwanted injuries, often resulting from overtraining after a period of inactivity. This article will outline a few key tips to avoid injury and get the most out of your preseason.
OUR TOP TIPS
1. Monitor your training load
We’ve all got that one friend that has gone too hard too fast. That friend that screams out to home base “I’m coming in hot” and then sprints in, does a cartwheel over home base and dislocates his elbow. That was Josh. Don’t be like Josh.
2. Hydration
It is vital to stay hydrated not only during a training session, but in the days leading up to and between sessions. It is not uncommon for athletes to go into a training session in a fluid deficit, however this can significantly affect the athletes sports performance and recovery. Other effects of dehydration include muscle cramps, cardiovascular strain, increased fatigue during exercise, reduced sleep/recovery and reduced maximal power.
3. Rest and Recovery
Our bodies are so incredible at adapting to the different stimulus we place on them, but adaptation takes time! During preseason, cur bodies are required to overcome the stressors of a changing training load, often at a rapid rate. Just as our minds need time to recover from a day of thinking, our bodies need time to recover from a session of training.
4. Don’t be a hero! Niggles are your warning sign.
As someone who is highly competitive, | can understand the urge to show up to preseason and absolutely blitz yourself every session. The atmosphere and energy associated with team sports is addictive and the endorphins from absolutely destroying yourself at training can be such a rush. The downside of this rush however, is that it becomes very easy for us to ignore little niggles in our body. Niggles or mild pain in our body is often a warning sign. It may be a warning that we’re using muscles we haven’t used in a while, or that we did a little more than our 10% extra loading,or that our body is not tolerating the current training load we’re thrashing it with. Whatever the warning, don’t be a hero! It’s important to get your niggles looked at early, because early intervention could be the difference between a reduced training load for a week and missing out on the entire preseason.
