Guest post from James Yeo — sports trainer spotter/ all-around-guy for Wildcards!
Injury Management: The what and how
Dealing with injuries can be tough, since it’s often a waiting game with hopes that recovery will happen quickly so that you can return to the mats. Therefore, this post is to written to share the things that can be done in order to support your body while it recovers. For those who’re lazy to read through, a cheat sheet has been created.
| Post injury Cheat Sheet Things to do: Rest and your body Nutrition management: Increase calorie intake by 20% to provide body more nutrient resources. Increase protein intake to 1.5-2.0 grams/body weight (kg) Fill the rest of the macros with 1-2 servings of fibre based carbohydrates per meal, and the rest of the calories to whole grains and unsaturated oil (omega 3 counts as part of unsaturated oil) sources. Supplement with zinc (15~30g), vitamin C (1000-2000mcg/day, preferably 500mcg/4hr) and omega 3 (3-9 grams) Take food high in iron to increase red blood cell production Drink lots of water Mental skills training such as imagery and watching of video of correct movement you’re training to execute Physical training should be targeted at movements that don’t risk changes in postural or muscle imbalance. |
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Recommended food sources for injury management
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| Zinc | Iron | Omega 3 | Vitamin C |
| - Oysters - Red meat - Poultry |
- Beef - Sardine - Mussels |
- Salmon - Flax seed - O3 Fortified egg |
- Capsicum - Oranges - Guava |
| Fibre | Unsaturated Fat | Protein | Whole grains |
| - Any dark leafy green vegetables (eg. spinach) - Fruits |
- Avocado - Extra virgin Olive oil - Plant oil |
- Meat - Eggs - Soy - Legumes |
- Brown rice - Oats - Millet |
| Disclaimer: There are many other food sources from the different nutrients, but the food list is to give a good example of what constitutes as recommendable food to take | |||
To start the topic off, the most common thing to do post injury is to rest. The last thing you want to do is to aggravate your injury further and slow the healing process down. If your injury is in a swollen state, cold therapy such as icing (with the RICE method) will be essential in managing the level of inflammation. DO NOT allow ice to be in direct contact with your skin. Place a thin layer of cloth (such as using T shirt) in between your wound and the ice.
Nutrition
Taking care of your nutrition is probably the bulk of injury management. When you own a Lamborghini, you don’t fuel your car by pumping diesel, but instead pump V power petrol in order to allow your car to move smoothly and quickly right? Likewise, when putting nutrition into perspective, you must treat your individual bodies like the Lamborghini you own and feed it with nutrients of the best quality to see the best results.
In general, the calorie intake of a person who’s managing an injury should be more than a healthy individual. This is because the basal metabolic rate (BMR) of an injured person is higher compared to a healthy individual due to the increase in cell activity in the wounded area. If the injured is eating the same amount of calories as the healthy individual, said person will be eating lesser than required, which will therefore slow down recovery.
When dealing with injury management, macro (carbohydrates, proteins, fats) and micronutrient (vitamin, minerals, water) plays big roles in giving aid to the body’s recovery. While there’re a lot of nutrients that plays a role, protein, zinc, iron, omega 3 and vitamin C are the major nutrients hat is a must have in order to aid in recovery, and will be further discussed.
Proteins are responsible for building and repairing of your muscles. During injury management, to aid an injury, more protein will be required so as to provide the body more resources to help repair the body. While a sedentary will be taking 0.8g of protein/kg, an injured individual will be required to up his protein intake to 1.5-2.0g of protein/kg.
To support the use of protein in the body, energy is required. The rest of your calories should be filled with many servings of vegetables, some whole grains and some unsaturated fat. With vitamin B in the vegetables and unsaturated fats, efficiency in energy utilisation can be increased to allow greater active recovery in the body, which would translate to better recovery.
Especially in the case of an injury with an external wound, a person with an injury is likely to suffer blood lost. Iron will therefore act as an important role in helping the body to produce more red blood cells. Other than just making up for lost blood from the case of an external wound, cases with internal wound will require increased blood levels to help transport nutrients to the injured area so as to aid in the recovery of injury.
Next to iron, zinc is possibly the most important mineral required for the body. This mineral is responsible for over 300 enzyme activities happening in the body, with some of them helping with the repair of tissues in the body. Poor wound healing has also been known to be associated with a lack of zinc. It is therefore important to ensure that zinc is placed as a priority in your diet when it comes to injury management.
Along with certain specific amino acids in protein, vitamin C is required to aid in the formation of collagen, making it very essential in injury management. Vitamin C will also help to protect your immune system, which greatly reduces the chances of you becoming sick.
Omega 3 is also essential in managing and reducing inflammation. They’re also one of the essential nutrients used to manage injuries around the joint. Omega 3 will also be able to lower LDL levels and increases HDL levels, creating better blood flow. These are just some of the many benefits that can be provided from omega 3. However, the quality of omega 3 supplements is very important. This is because many of these sources come from fishes, and some of these fishes can be intoxicated by mercury or other heavy metal. Furthermore, cheaper omega 3 supplements are usually filled with lower of DHA and EPA levels, which will thus not be useful to consume at all. Good sources of omega 3 fish oils are usually extracted from Norwegian fishes.
While these are important, some food will require supplementation while others don’t. To provide convenience yet at the same time not compromise on the rate of healing, I recommend getting supplementation for vitamin C, zinc and omega 3.
Post Injury Training
Just because you’re injured, doesn’t mean you cannot train. However, how you conduct your training out of mats matters and therefore this must be discussed.
With the physical body down, the next closest thing that can be done is mental training. One such skill that is often used by elite level athletes is the use of imagery, where one visualizes in his mind on how he or she executes the action. On a cheer level concept, it’s basically replaying your stunt sequence in your mind and doing it over and over again. This skill can be used in 2 scenarios, from the point of you executing the action, and from the point of you watching yourself execute the action, both essential to giving you information on how to further improve your stunt. From the information you receive, you can mentally train yourself, reconstruct your mental images to fix mistakes, sharpen your skills etc. Watching videos of the right stunt/gymnastics movement will also be useful to enhance your imagery experience (especially useful for those who find it hard to visualize in their mind). Research has shown that mental skills training can lead to increase in muscular strength.
After a period of time, usually within 5-21 days post injury, many of the tissues in your body should be properly fixed, at least to the point of mobility. While recovery training of the injured area is a whole topic by itself, training the healthy portions of your body will now be possible. However, when hitting the gym, it is important to have a longer warm up to prevent injuries, and isolation movements should not be a focus during this period of time. It would be advisable to perform functional movements symmetrical to the body so as to keep a balance of muscle, reducing possible effects of postural changes.
For more information on injury management, here’s a great website that you can watch to get a better understanding of what is happening to your body during injury and what else you can do to help speed up the recovery rate.
Reference
BERARDI, J. AND ANDREWS, R.
Nutritional Strategies for the Management of Sports Injuries
In-text: (Berardi and Andrews, n.d.)
Bibliography: Berardi, J. and Andrews, R. (n.d.). Nutritional Strategies for the Management of Sports Injuries.
YUE, G. AND COLE, K. J.
Strength increases from the motor program: comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions
In-text: (Yue and Cole, 1992)
Bibliography: Yue, G. and Cole, K. (1992). Strength increases from the motor program: comparison of training with maximal voluntary and imagined muscle contractions. Journal of neurophysiology, 67(5), pp.1114--1123.
Resources from Plaskett International College, Health & Nutrition Courses
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