Injury Prevention

1. Find A Balance

Training too much, without a sustained period of rest, will eventually start to eat into your recovery time and ability.

Training at low levels of stimulation can mean that you will get no real effect or gains from your training. You need to stay motivated!

However, over training cannot simply happen from one training session or style – over training is something that happens over time. For reference, over training is when your intensity and frequency of training overlaps your recovery time.

The Jump Manual concentrates on keeping you from over training, to ensure that you have the proper balance and can maximize the bonuses of your training.

Everybody has their own recovery times – you need to find your own, so make sure you alter the volume of your training based on performance and recovery pace.

Making sure that you do not overreach, i.e. take in too much in one session, is a very important part of the training process.  This will allow you to find your limit.

Many athletes find that the first few weeks of the Jump Manual are very exhausting, but by following the manual you will find much more efficient recovery and training times becoming natural to you.

In some of the top training circles across the globe, high intensity training is used because it helps your body and mind learn how to adapt to stressful situations which change rapidly. Being unable to hit these heights can mean your road to a higher vertical jump is a bit longer. Failing to recover is dangerous, though.

By tracking your performance, you can analyse how well you are doing at present. If your training is down, then you may need to decrease training or increase recovery periods for the long-term until your body is ready.

Of course, our bodies require nutrition too. Nutrition gives us the right psychology and mind set to compete and get through adversity. Poor nutrition will hinder your chances of succeeding, and will halt and stall muscle growth. Therefore, staying full of nutrition is a great way to keep things fuelled up and easy to manage.

 

2. Will starting with an injury affect my results?

We simply cannot stress the importance of staying fit enough. The Jump Manual is  designed to prevent and avoid injuries, so starting with one is a bad way to get going. If you have sustained an injury, you should visit the local doctor to find out the exercise recommendations. You may not be able to do everything we recommend – but you might be able to deal with certain things. If you are currently injured, don’t tempt fate and start anyway – starting at full fitness is far more important.

However, the Manual is full of great techniques for relieving pain like tendonitis and hip pain, so make sure you check them out – you may have a solution to your pain within the manual.

 

3. Having completed the first workout, I don’t feel sore at all – why?

Pain isn’t the only way you can tell that you are doing things right. For a start, the “pain” only comes from the Day 4 training which is strength training. You should feel brilliant after day one, not sore. You are training for vertical explosion, not a long-distance run or a weight lifting competition. Therefore, the plyometrics at play during this should not feel too exhaustive, and they certainly shouldn’t cause muscle pain or aches.

 

4. I am still not sore – Why?

The pain in our muscles after exercising is caused through miniscule tears in the muscle, caused by tensed muscles. This tells the body to start repairing these little tears, so the pain is actually your body underdoing DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. This will be sore, but your body will heal itself and be more durable for it.

Again, muscle pain is a not a 100% guarantee that your workout has been a success. You may just have some done damage – as things go on, you will notice less pain as your body gets used to the stresses of working out.

Plyometrics will also create less muscle pain, because there is less tears in your body when using plyometrics.

Making sure that you warm up, and warm up properly, is very important. Most injuries are caused by a lack of warming up – so stretch and warm up every single day if necessary.

When you have muscle pain, don’t over-do it. This is a signal that your body is recovering, not ready for more workout . Trying to work out when in muscle pain is a waste of time, you will only serve to damage the muscles.

As long as you are working out to the right level and aren’t overloaded at the moment with things to worry about, you should be noticing an improvement each week. This is the main indicator to you – not how sore you are, but how much you can feel your body changing.

 

5. Is it wise to train when injured?

This question comes down to your injury and just how severe it is, rather than anything else.

The first thing that you should be doing is visiting a doctor to receive a prognosis of the damage done. Your doctor will be able to give you a more solid directive, relative to the injury that you have suffered. Make sure your doctor is fully aware of the training you are undergoing, so they can manage your regimes to your injury better.

Make sure you listen to this advice – your doctor is not going to make things up, this is a genuinely important part of your training process. Changing intensity and training loads while you are injured is so vital. If, however, you are suffering from a continuous  injury, then it’s extremely important that you get rehabilitation treatment quickly to avoid it returning in the future.

If you find that your pain on the scale is anything over a 3 out of 10, then you should be recovering. If you are not properly recovered, you cannot train to your max and therefore risk further injury.

Lower Back Pain/Shin Splints

Lower back pain is extremely common, especially in the tallest of us. If you are suffering from lower back pain, it could stem from how you are lifting as well as your posture and even how you sit. If you regularly sit in front of the PC, you will most likely have shortened hip flexors which can cause it’s own style of back pain. Our FAQ has an excellent suggestion for helping combat shin splints and lower back pain by using specific hardware.

Upper Back Pain

If you suffer from back pain, especially during the medicine ball throwing process, then you need to find out why. The first thing you need to ask is how well warmed up were you? Warming up right is not one of those super precautions that is a myth, without it you simply cannot perform to your max and it will be a matter of time before you damage something, seriously.

One thing that you definitely do not want to deal with is working through the pain. Especially if you have a “sharp” pain anywhere, you should not be aggravating it by working, especially working out. You may need to avoid weight training like medicine ball throws until your upper back heals – once the upper back is damaged, it takes time for it to knit together. Even then, you need to watch from there on out as the damage has already started.

“Jumpers Knee”

Everybody who uses jumping throughout their career is, at one stage, going to need to deal with patellar tendonitis, or jumpers knee. Recovering quickly and smoothly is very important, so it’s vital that you can loosen your knee and your hamstrings from each other. A tight hamstring will cause even more pressure on your tendon. Making sure that you stretch both your quads and your hams after every exercise regime, and at the least once a day, is a great way to release the tension within your knee.

As well as this, you need to have a balance of strength and finesse in your knee. A bulky but rigid knee is capable of popping at any time, and an agile but weak knee will be broken easily. The Jump Manual shows you how to strike the perfect balance between strength and agility.

Having ice on your knees is an absolute must, every single day. Your knees are so, so important to your jump they need to be wrapped in cotton wool. Getting rid of inflammation or damage in general is vital to the success of your jumping ability. Using an ice wrap can make the whole process so much simpler, too. Simply store these wraps in the freezer, and wrap them around your knee and let the coolness release the stress in your knees.

Taking anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen can also cut down on the inflammation within, but make sure you are compatible with these drugs by checking with your GP.

One of the most important parts to dodging this type of injury, though, is managing the impact that your knees take when you are training. Sports like swimming and cycling are brilliant substitutes if you want to build strength but need to keep your knee safe. Removing the sore exercises until you feel completely fit is necessary before you do more damage. You can even do your plyometrics at the pool. This will allow your knees to recover while still allowing you to fit your workout in.

Taking supplements and extras like glucosamine and MSM are good ways to keep your diet full of healthy, natural supplements. This can help you repair tissue in your body, especially your patellar tendon which needs all the help and support it can get!

If you find your knee is under a bit too much pressure, get a knee cap or sleeve. These can help keep heat in your knee, and help keep swelling down for a period of time. This can help you get by through the day or night without any real problems.

Elevating your knees to above your heart can be a great way to reduce swelling overnight. This will keep your legs in better shape over the course of the night, and avoid any inflammations or damage from continuing.

Another great tip for staying fit is using a slant board. With your toes pointing down to a 25-40 degree angle, start to perform squats to a 90 degree angle, on counts of 3. If you feel that you are suffering from pain more than 5 on the chart, then you need to cease and try again the next day until the pain subsides. Once you can perform this without pain, add some extra weight to your body like a backpack. This is not to help you build strength, but to help stimulate the recovery and regeneration of your tendons.

On the other side of treatment, things like salt baths and ultrasound treatment have been shown to help aid the speed and quality of recovery. Likewise, a shower can be a solid treatment ideas as it helps open up your pores, allowing you to regenerate your blood to help your body run at its very best. This will help accelerate your healing and help blood flow to the areas that need it.

 

6. Ankle Strength

Making sure that your ankles are in tip top condition is very important, as they go through a huge amount of stress during the day.

Walk on the sides of your feet when you are warming up. This helps to build ankle strength over time and is actually quite comfortable to walk like.

If you have a bosu ball, then using one foot to bounce on the ball is a great way to build your ankle strength, too. Besides that, you can hop on one foot each way, then switch to your other foot. This will help build an exterior stabilizer for your feet, giving you greater strength and agility within your feet.

 

7. Groin Pain

Groin pain is one of the most difficult to deal with, and can take a lot of different solutions and attempts before you find something that can actually help. Groins are usually extremely flexible, especially if you warm up enough, so flexibility tends not to be the issue. The problem tends to be the comparative lack of strength in our adductor region, as well as having balanced power and flexibility throughout our legs.

The best, quickest way to recover from groin pain is to leave it alone. If it anything more than a small tear or a strain, you would know about it! Many people believe the best way to help a sore groin is to move it and try to get the strain out – not so.

Instead, stay to ices and massages, as the elevation from a massage will help put it back into a more normal style of pain. Don’t go into a stretching exercise if your groin feels tight – it’s not worth a few weeks sitting on the sidelines.

 

8. Can I Take A Break?

Sometimes, we just need to take a little bit of a step back to analyse our fitness and our strengths accordingly. Taking a break of up to one week is completely fine, allowing you to unload stress and get over any knocks and bump.

However, you may want to continue doing something or other just to keep yourself busy. Doing smaller weights, and smaller amounts, will help your muscles to recover without putting any extra strain on them. This means when you return to training, you aren’t totally out of sorts!

We’d recommend that you still do a warm up and stretch session every day, as this can help you stay nimble and injury free throughout the day. Remember, a yawn or something is the world telling you that your body does not have enough gas.

Using your time sheet given to you with the Manual, you can understand how to time and plan your breaks accordingly, to allow for the right rate of recovery and that you aren’t taking on too much of a load.