Round 1, Super Coach and Tips

Round 1 (and Lewis Jetta, above) is here.

I went and had a look at the Tigers and Blues last night and really it didn't matter who was playing or what standard the game was, I just wanted footy to start again.

Now with another season comes another year of Super Coach and Footy Tipping.

Last year was simply a disaster for my Super Coach as I started off ordinary and then had used all my trades by the split round leaving with half a team by the end of the year.

Not this year.

My line up is as follows:

Backs - Goddard, Hodge, Gilbee, Kennelly, Josh Hunt, Schonemakers, Beau Waters with Moore (Port Adelaide) and Maguire on the bench.

Midfielders - Ablett (captain - you gotta have him), Goodes, Selwood (the good one), Kerr, Cotchin, Dustin Martin (Richmond) with Barlow (Fremantle) and Bastinac (North Melbourne) on the bench.

Rucks - Cox, Naitanui with Robbie Warnock and Grimley (Hawthorn) on the bench.

Forwards - O Keefe, Franklin, Brent Harvey, Hall, Ryan Murphy, Dangerfield, Hitchcock (Port Adelaide with Ballantyne (Fremantle) and Rockliff (Brisbane) on the bench.

A winner definitely.

My tips for this week are Carlton over Richmond, Geelong over Essendon, Hawthorn over Melbourne, Sydney over St Kilda (I'm a Swannies fan), Brisbane over the Eagles, Port Adelaide over North Melbourne, Western Bulldogs (my premiership favourite by the way) over Collingwood and Adelaide over Fremantle.

Again, definitely a winner.

Now that my wedding is done, I'll be able to put more time into posting more regularly so as usual send any content requests through if you have some idea's.

Ankle Sprains

We've all had one and they can be just as debilitating short term, as a serious joint injury. It's very hard to run and kick with 1 leg.

There are 2 kinds of sprains.

The most common is the lateral ankle sprain which stretches and tears the ligaments of the outer shin. The peroneals muscle group runs down the lateral side of the lower leg and it's job is to quickly activate and prevent inversion by contracting fast and powerfully enough to straighten the foot before the ankle rolls in. When it is not trained to do so, which is often the case, a more serious sprain is the result.

The less common one is a medial ankle sprain which is very rare but if anyone remembers the Jason Snell injury from the 90's, this is definately one you don't want to do but it's a luck of the draw for the most part.

If you have had an ankle sprain in the past or recently, then it's a great idea to grab a theraband and do some inversion reps for 10 sets of 10secs each day.

If you had a medial ankle sprain then do band eversions for 10 x 10secs daily.

I suggest just doing both anyway and you can do them in between sets of other exercises without them affecting your workout.

Bosu balls and discs are good for initial rehab to improve proprioception for message relaying efficiency but after that you really need to hammer home the single leg work (split squats, reverse lunges, dynamic lunges, single leg romanian deadlifts etc) to really get the stabilisers working under a decent load.

Shin Splints

Shin Splints is actually a localised injury and you get it mosly from a history of repetitive movements, especially running. If you're running on concrete then it only makes the problem worse because of the higher impact.

My suggestion here is to back off the running a bit (you might be able to replace some road running with sprints) and/or move to grass if you haven't already. Try doing do 1 long distance run a week and then some 200 - 400m sprints.

You'll also need to activate and strengthen the psoas (a hip flexor muscle) that will actually "lift your leg up" each step so the stress of the impact goes through the entire leg, not just the lower leg.



The point of this exercise is to hold your knee above 90 degrees of hip flexion (higher than parallel) while keeping your lower back flat against the wall. Do 3 x 15secs each leg.

If you haven't done any foam rolling before then I suggest you start, especially for the lower body.

If you find a tender spot then sit on it and hopefully it dissipates. It will over time anyway. Do this daily.

A Joint by Joint Approach to Training Part 4

Lets run through some exercises we can do for each joint to provide it with mobility or stability.

For ankle mobility we can do wall ankle mobilisations making sure to keep your patella in line with your second big toe and keep your heel flat on the ground. Start with your toes against the wall and draw back as far as you can while keeping the heel down. Push down, and forwards, into the wall.

For knee stability we want the aforementioned wall ankle mobilisations as well as some a knee to knee stretch for hip internal rotation and some hip rockbacks for hip external rotation. For the rockbacks make sure to assume a neutral spine position and only push back as far as you can maintain it. Turn your feet out away from you and do these for a bit more extra stretch. knee to knee

For hip mobility as well as the aforementioned knee to knee stretch and hip rockbacks, some hip circles will also help out too. Just make sure that your range of motion is coming from the hips and not your lumbar spine.

For lumbar stability you can simply do anything from my video from the 21st Century Core Training blog series.

For thoracic mobility we'll opt for some thoracic extensions over a tennis ball or a foam roller and also some thoracic extension-rotation stuff with the aim being to get your top side shoulder to the floor without your hips rotating even an inch.



For scapula stability we need to address some different muscles. First we'll address the serratus anterior muscle which when active, clings the scapula to the ribcage where it belongs so for this we'll try some scapula prone hold push ups but hold each rep x 3secs. We'll also activate the lower traps with a prone trap raise where you'll want to make sure that you depressing (pulling down) the scapula the whole time so as not to "shrug" your shoulders up as you do the movement.

For glenohumeral mobility, in most cases addressing thoracic mobility and scapula stability will clear most restrictions up but feel free to pop some of these in but if you don't have thoracic mobility and scapula stability, don't do these until you can.

Here is a video of each exercise. Just note that the hip rockbacks are called roll backs in the video, Adam couldn't read my writing.

A Joint by Joint Approach to Training Part 3

Yesterday we discussed one basic example if one joint does not have the mobility or stability it requires and how it can affect other joints in the body.

Here's a list of each joint and how it can negatively affect the other joints if it does not possess what it is supposed to (mobility or stability).

Ankle
Requires: Mobility
Implications: Range of motion is increased at the knee and the lumbar spine, joints that require stability.

Knee
Requires: Stability
Implications: More stress moved to the lumbar spine, especially during high impact activity.

Hips
Require: Mobility
Implications: Range of motion is increased at the knee and lumbar spine, joints that require stability.

Lumbar Spine
Requires: Stability
Implications: Range of motion is increased at increased at the same joint, the lumbar spine, a joint that requires stability.

Thoracic Spine
Requires: Mobility
Implications: Range of motion is increased at the lumbar spine, a joint requiring stability.

Scapula
Requires: Stability
Implications: Range of motion is decreased at the glenohumeral joint, a joint requiring mobility. Range of motion is also increased at the lumbar spine, a joint requiring stability.

Glenohumeral Joint
Requires: Mobility
Implications: Range of motion is increased at the lumbar spine, a joint requiring stability.

In the next installment we'll go through various exercises you can use to train each joint and provide it with what it needs.

A Joint by Joint Approach to Training Part 2

Now that we know the requirement of each joint of the body, we'll now move onto implications of not adhering to this.

Remembering that the body alternates joints requiring mobility and stability as you go from the feet up to the head, it's important to know how this continuum effects the rest of the body.

The hips are the center of the body, where all your strength is generated so we'll take that as a starting point.

The hips require mobility as they are a much deeper ball and socket joint then the shoulder and with the sedentary lifestyle that is lead now, is severely lacking in everyday movements.

The joints either side of the hips is the knee and lumbar spine, both of which require stability. The biggest problem when a joint requiring mobility but doesn't have it, is that mobility will need to be generated from somewhere else. That somewhere else is the joint above or below it. This a would mean that mobility is required and thus developed at the knee and/or the lumbar spine which goes against the whole mobility-stability continuum.

What this results in is knee and lower back pain as you it giving the range of motion that the hips can't give you and now a joint that is mean to be stable and strong, is mobile and weak and prone to injury.

This is only one example but each joint will need to compensate somewhat for the lack of mobility or stability at another joint.

Pain is often referred from another area of the body so next time we'll discuss how everything links up and how you can determine your actual problem, rather then treating the symptom of your pain.

A Joint by Joint Approach to Training Part 1

This method of training each joint in the body was made popular by Gray Cook.

Simply each joint in the body requires mobility or stability.

What's the difference here?

Well mobility is the ability to perform a desired movement where stability is the ability to prevent an undesired movement.

As part of this training methodology, a mobility-stability continuum was developed to better explain what each joint in the body requires.

Starting from the feet and moving up each joint alternates in it's demands.

Ankle - Mobility
Knee - Stability
Hips - Mobility
Lumbar Spine - Stability
Thoracic Spine - Mobility
Scapula - Stability
Glenohumeral Joint - Mobility

Training joints on purpose, or in many cases without knowing, for what they aren't meant to do will result in a decrease in performance and potentially injury.

More tomorrow.