It has been a while since the last time I wrote something here. It is extremely time consuming to write something with quality for the website, and due the growth of social media over the last few years, people’s attention span (including mine!) got reduced and blog posts are not so attractive as they used… Read More Peak Velocity & Peak Power: are they telling us the whole story?
A lot of attention is usually given to starting players within a football team. This is a common and understandable practice, since those are the players who have more playing minutes within a season, hence being more important to that particular team. However, football season is long and injuries, illnesses, suspensions, bad performances or even transfers are likely to occur throughout the competitive year, making the reserve/substitute players a crucial part of a team’s success. Are clubs missing a piece of the puzzle?… Read More Why is my substitute player under-performing?
Although often forgotten the mechanical profile of an exercise and its variations can be decisive to strength/power development. First of all, it should be clarified that there is no difference between strength training or power training. We should not infer that, for example, power training is associated always with low loads and high speed. Power… Read More Deceleration during acceleration in the weight room?
Hamstrings injuries are a plague in football (or soccer for our American friends). Science and technology continue to evolve, but surprisingly hamstrings injuries increased around 4% since 2001 (Ekstrand, 2016). So what’s happening? Hamstrings injuries increased 4% since 2001. (Ekstrand, 2016) It’s a fact that football matches’ demands have increased over the years (Barnes et… Read More Small-sided games vs. Hamstrings injuries
Every athlete wants to become faster, either if it is a sprinting, field/court or marathon type athlete. Success lives within the first 3-4 steps of acceleration, mainly in field and court sports. The ability to decelerate and accelerate quickly in any direction is an absolute game changer. By improving this capacity, athletes’ performance will improve… Read More The importance of speed in football
Movement Preparation, or as traditionally called – warm-up – is a key component to performance enhancement and injury risk reduction. 10 minutes per day, 50 minutes per week, 210 minutes per month, 2520 minutes per year that can be an absolute game-changer for your athletes, clients and/or patients. Almost everybody perform some warm-up drills prior… Read More The Science of Warm-up
“Which is the best exercise for my low back pain? Or for my patellar tendinopathy? Or for my shoulder impingement? Or to avoid the recurrence of my hamstrings tears?”. For sure you have been hearing these questions for ages. Is there a solid answer to those questions? My answer is NO! There are not exercises… Read More Which is the best exercise for injury prevention?
During the last decade, proprioceptive training has been described as one of the most important aspects in a rehabilitation or training program. Training facilities often use the term “proprioceptive training” to describe balance exercises with the premise that it will prevent injuries to occur. Rehabilitation professionals also use “proprioceptive training” exercises as a mean to… Read More Proprioceptive training: are you really improving proprioception?
The first episode of Questions and Answers section is now online. As your questions arrive to my mailbox, I will update this section in order to create an organized debate. Don’t forget to send me your questions through Bridging the Gap: Rehab and Performance Facebook page or Contact me. Q: I would like to ask… Read More Q&A Episode #1: Strength/Power training and motor unit recruitment
Training under fatigue is an actual trend among elite level athletes. Experts suggest that by simulating real match conditions, athletes will be more prepared to fatigue exposition, resulting in reduced injury risk. But is it the best strategy? This article has concluded that training under fatigue reduce risk of fatigue-related injuries during the late stage… Read More Training under fatigue: does it matter?
Bridging the Gap: Rehab & Performance 