re: Arsenal 2013/2014 Season Long Thread

i'm not in the camp that thinks our physios are imbeciles, or that AW trains them too hard (though he probably does bring them back too quickly and overwork injury prone players), but i think it's time for a complete overhaul of how we view player health. Jonah Keri had an interesting piece on the Red Sox today which talked about how they've completely changed their approach to health with highly specialized care for each player.

quote:

---

Boston’s approach to treating conditions like Ortiz’s is simple, yet brilliant. For most teams, the process of getting players healthy and keeping them that way has remained the same for a long time. Every club employs a small group of trainers and a strength and conditioning coach, and many also employ an orthopedist. This personnel group is built for broad treatment, because baseball players suffer a wide array of injuries. The Red Sox, however, have come to believe that broad treatment isn’t enough, and that specialization is an essential part of fostering player health.

“We recognize that the management of soft tissue is the critical component to a player’s health,” said Red Sox GM Ben Cherington. “As it relates to David [Ortiz], that was an issue of soft-tissue management. His Achilles had not ruptured. There was no broken bone. He was a 36-, 37-year-old who had soft-tissue management issues that were causing a lot of pain and discomfort. It wasn’t a lack of effort on his part to get better. We just had to figure out what would help him do it.”

In the same way that teams employ roving pitching, hitting, fielding, and baserunning coaches to help players focus on certain elements of their game, the Red Sox realized they could find specialists to deal with these soft-tissue concerns. Physical therapists craft regimens to help players avoid the kind of nagging injuries that can linger for far too long; when those injuries do occur, they can help players recover in weeks instead of months, or days instead of weeks. In essence, the Red Sox are using a physical therapist like a roving medical coach. This helped Ortiz last year, and the Sox hope it will help players like the oft-injured Grady Sizemore this year. In fact, if the Red Sox weren’t this confident in their health regimen, they probably wouldn’t have gone after a beleaguered player like Sizemore at all.

While Cherington understandably wouldn’t go into great detail about the team’s physical therapist program, he lit up when talking about the potential benefits. “If we can find people who are at the top of their field to be hands-on with our players and create, I don’t know, a 5 percent difference in how much [the players are] out there or their level of physical fitness when they’re out there, that can translate into greater performance. So, yes, we have spent a lot of time on the medical area in the last two years, and that’s only going to continue.”

---

i think this is something we definitely need to look into and invest in. our injury situation has been too unreal.

that or copy whatever approach the phoenix suns use

well, clearly this stuff is kept close to the vest. i would be a little surprised if there was in depth, personalized training/health/diet plans for each player in most sporting teams. while some have become quite advanced in that stuff, i've only heard of generally-based team programs.

quote:

---

cwil177

---

You going Sunday?

quote:

---

You going Sunday?

---

Probably. Sunday will be a week out from exams so we'll see how badly I'm panicking by that point haha

Rambo out for two more weeks, probably, according to AW. best case, he comes back on the bench vs. City :(

said he's still having pain. I'm glad they're being careful with him.

quote:

---

frick injuries. frick pessimism. frick Spurs. Let's do this shite.

---

Bravo, Stewie.

Not that it wasn't already big, but today's results make the NLD even bigger, IYAM

x1000