Training Camp Injuries
As 32 NFL teams report to training camp this week, 32 staffs of strength and conditioning coaches and trainers will be working hard to keep them healthy. After one day, we have already seen our first significant injury of training camp. Thankfully it was not a severe injury, but we know that more will follow.
Roughly 50% of annual NFL injuries occur during the preseason, a huge number that reflects both larger pre-cutdown roster numbers and a transition from offseason training to contact football. During the offseason, many athletes return home to work with private trainers. While the majority of athletes at this level maintain their conditioning, it’s simply not the same as playing football. It’s similar to when athletes return from injury and we talk about them having to ramp back up because they are not quite in “football shape.”
The New England Patriots kick of training camp on Wednesday and Coach Bill Belichick had this to say about the condition of players entering camp:
I don't think the issue is really conditioning. I mean, you can run around a track forever, that’s not really football conditioning. You need 21 other guys out there to simulate football and the reactions of football…Conditioning is conditioning but playing football, conditioning is part of it but reactions and communication with your teammates and situations down and distances and field position all those things until you get out there and do it it’s definitely not the same. Running around a track, being in great shape, being able to do a hundred sit-ups and all that I mean that’s great but until you start playing football and play contact football, reactionary football and the split-second timing and decisions and critical execution that comes with this level of football. Until you’re doing it, you’re not doing it. You can talk about it all you want but it’s not the same as doing it.
Coach Belichick is right on the money. While many injuries are related to the ramp-up period, most can also be classified as resulting from sort of a less “smooth” and predictable movement of the athlete’s body. When an athlete is running on a field or a treadmill with no contact with a quarterback who is throwing right to his hands that’s one thing. When the athlete is on a field with traffic and reads and scrambles with last-minute route adjustments and making and taking hits and tackles, that’s quite another. The athlete’s smooth, methodical movement is now a little off-kilter and reactive. These situations result in perturbation of the athlete’s movement and, the more the athlete trains under those conditions, the more their neuromuscular system is able to adapt and prevent injury. (If you’re interested in this stuff, you may want to read about how perturbation training is actually a part of many rehab protocols now, including ACL injuries)
By the end of an NFL season, every athlete is beat up. Their bodies need a break. But, that break from the speed of the game, the quick reactions, and the contact may come at a price.
More than half of hamstring injuries occur during the preseason. These injuries incur a huge cost to teams and players, in part because they can linger and resurface as the season goes on. The league has invested 4 million dollars in research to better understand hamstring injuries and how to prevent them. Simply put, teams with fewer lower extremity muscle injuries in the preseason and beyond are more successful than teams with higher lower extremity muscle injuries.
Rookies are undergoing the greatest transition from college football to the NFL, so it’s not surprising that they are at the highest risk of preseason injury. Achilles tendon ruptures are often season-ending and career-altering injuries. 64% of achilles ruptures happen during the preseason. A disproportionate amount of Achille ruptures, 30%, happen to rookies in the preseason. The numbers are so slanted that virtually all of in-season achilles ruptures occur in veteran players.
So how do teams navigate the next few weeks to minimize injuries? That’s a question with an ever-evolving answer. Particularly with common lower extremity muscle injuries, the NFL really hasn’t been able to improve the injury numbers until last season. Every NFL team now uses data to monitor athlete workload very closely. Athletes are tagged with sensors in their shoulder pads and helmets so that the minute they step out onto the practice field, data is being collected on how far they run, how fast they move, how many hits they take or make, and how long they’re practicing. This data is monitored by the team and the league. Last season the NFL mandated a specific ramp-up period at the start of training camp, and a re-ramp period once pads were introduced. They saw an initial 25% reduction in lower extremity injuries during training camp and that number dropped to a 14% reduction over the entire season. Gradually increasing the volume and intensity of load the athletes see can prevent injuries, but more work needs to be done because lower extremity muscle strains actually went up last year in the first 5 weeks of the season - hence the ever-evolving answer. In parallel to what the league and teams are doing to prevent injuries, training staffs also ask players to take responsibility to control what they can control. Nutrition, hydration, and sleep during training camp are all key to preventing injury and illness.