It’s a pretty well known fact that the Broncos have been sub-par this season for two reasons. Firstly, due to attrition over the years we’ve lost many solid players and have been required to rely on youth. Young players make mistakes, there’s no denying it. We have just been blessed for years with having rookies in small groups and having them for the most part excel. Lockyer, Hunt, Berrigan and Tuqiri come to mind.
The second reason is the injuries that we have suffered this year. Injuries are a part of football and it’s a given that they will occur. Over the years the injury count has slowly crept up and now we are seeing an unprecedented amount of players injured, not just in the Broncos but in the NRL itself. Why is this happening? Can it be explained?
Thankfully the NRL has finally aligned itself in recent times with the AFL and ARU and is now releasing formalised injury reporting. The report shows that the chance of a player to get injured enough to miss the following game increased from 5.5% to 6.9%. It’s also noted that this is a slight increase. I have to disagree here – slight increase? According to this report, at any given time during the 2009 NRL season, there would be 31 players injured each round from the NRL competition (2 a team roughly). The figures for the previous season had this number at around 25 players.
What could be the catalyst for such a sizeable injury count? I agree with the majority of punters that it’s the constantly evolving field of sports science. Due to perpetually improving training/nutrition/strength and conditioning, players are stronger than ever before. Back in the 70’s and 80’s, you were likely to be lining up across from a Brick Layer or Carpenter. Sure, a Brickie is just as likely to put on a monster hit as a professional athlete but let’s be honest – players are faster and stronger than they ever used to be. A by-product of this is that they are also more fragile. Let me make a comparison using automotive engines. Take a V8 engine – V8’s are powerful but stock models are designed to be long lasting as well. They are built for speed but also survivability. Now let’s look at a Formula One engine. On the edge of automotive engineering, these machines push the limits of what is possible for a combustible engine. Awesome stuff right? They also chew through transmissions like crazy and have a limited shelf life. Their potential to break is phenomenal. Over the last few decades, the NRL players have migrated away from the V8 style of physiology and now are heading down the path of Formula One machines.
So we’ve identified what the problem is. What’s the solution? Many voices in the NRL fraternity have asked for interchanges to be dropped from 10 to 8. Eight interchanges will force the forwards to get more conditioned and rely less on their bulk. It means that a Mick Weyman hit may only be 100kg of force instead of 112kg. 12kg less impact each time adds up when there is 15-odd hitups each game from him alone. Reducing the interchanges to 8 should solve help but it also addresses a greater underlying problem. Due to the corporate nature of the game, players are being pushed further and further towards their limits. Career length is at the expense of greater output for a shorter period of time. There are exceptions; Luke Priddis is the latest example of that. Look at the NFL – while a much more specialised sport, the amount of knee and spinal injuries is unbelievable. Why? Because the athletes are being pushed constantly by technology and scientific progress. The players have been forgotten and I honestly fear that the NRL is heading down that path albeit slowly. The fact is that if you push the limits of players, they are more likely to break down physically in a much shorter time frame.
Who does that benefit? Definitely not the fans or the players, that’s for sure.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sorry mate, this column is full of holes.
ReplyDeleteTo start with, you are saying that science is creating stronger and more well conditioned players:
"Due to perpetually improving training/nutrition/strength and conditioning, players are stronger than ever before"
...but you finish by saying that a more conidtioned player is less likely to get injured:
"Eight interchanges will force the forwards to get more conditioned and rely less on their bulk"
While this second comment may be correct, it is at odds with your previous statement.
You are also infering that a stronger player is more likely to get injured, which is obviously wrong.
Also, reducing the allowed interchanges will result in players becoming more fatiuged and this will actually increase their risk of injury.
Finally, the actual mass of a player has very little to do with the power (or potential power) output of a player in hit-ups or tackles.
Trying to draw a comparison to the NFL is pretty silly too (and I wont even bother with the V8/formula1 analogy... hint: the human body is not a combustion engine) as the forces on the body and the contacts in the game are totally different, and you know this. The injury rate has nothing to do with the corporate dollar.
Science is creating stronger players, I find it hard to dispute that. Eight interchanges will mean that the players will pretty much need to weigh less (okay, there's genetic freaks out there that are able to maintain their bulk but in general they can't). Conditioning was probably the wrong word to use, let's run with aerobic fitness instead. I believe it's a valid assumption that as impacts become greater there is more room for injury, I'm happy to have someone with a medical ground prove me wrong.
ReplyDeleteComparisons with NFL are silly? If you think that, more power to you.
In reference to your point about power - Billy Slater is a brilliant athlete and for his muscle mass, has great power. Carl Webb has far greater muscle mass and power than Billy - it's a direct relation. Again, if anyone with a medical background wants to contradict this, by all means go for it.
And lastly, at no point did I say that the human body is a combustable engine. It's a comparison to the strain put on the body and engines (you'll find an engine will break if you ask too much from it, similar to a human being).
You are correct - Higher impacts will tend to increase the risk of injury to a player. So what is the best way to solve this risk of injury? Reduce the impact? Or increase the strength of the player such that they can withstand greater impacts?
ReplyDeleteIf you are looking for someone with a scientific background to support this claim:
"Several studies since the 1970s have reported extremely low to zero rates of injury during training programs of from several weeks to a year in duration and have suggested that weight training prevents injury rather than causes it."
"Practical Programming for Strength Training", pp249 - Lon Kilgore/Mark Rippetoe.
Kilgore is a professor of kinesiology, teaching sport physiology and anatomy. He has a Bachelor of Sciene with a Ph.D in biology. This is just one quote, Kilgore has written extensivly about strength training for injury prevention.
Another glaring error in your comment is that you believe more muscle mass is "a direct relation" to more power. Perhaps you don't understand the concept of "power" in terms of athletic performance. You are either misunderstanding the concept or misusing the term.
I understand the term - in a game such as NRL where players (specifically forwards) are built predominantly for power over endurance. I'm not dismissing the fact there's other elements that they focus on but the primary one is power.
ReplyDeleteAnd cheers for the references, argument accepted. Thank you for the feedback by the way - it's always welcome as I want to improve :D.
No probs mate, although you're still not quite on the money. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, one of your mates has written some good stuff on the topic of strength vs power and the differences and similarities in the training of the two skills.
This is a pretty good read:
http://www.chost6.com/~danbaker/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/using_full_acceleration_and_velocity.pdf
Interesting - will check it out when I get a chance tomorrow. Feel free to come back later in the week - more posts to come later.
ReplyDelete