Maximise Your Pre-Season: Top Injury Prevention Tips for Athletes
As an athlete, the pre-season is your opportunity to set the foundation for a successful and injury-free season. Whether you’re playing football, soccer, or netball, the work you put in now can make a huge difference in your performance, injury-risk and overall well-being.
Build Strength and Stability
Incorporating functional strength training into your routine that is specific to your sport is really important in improving your ability to physically cope with the demands of your sport and sets a great foundation to build the skills required to improve and maximise performance. It also reduces the risk of overload-related injury and improves resilience of the body.
Our Physiotherapists and Exercise Physiologist can help to design an individualised program for you, using our VALD technology and other physical assessments to identify aspects of your performance needing improvement or areas requiring further attention that may not be as obvious with observation alone.
Warm-Up and Cool Down Properly
A good warm-up gets your muscles ready for action and reduces the risk of injury. The more individualised the routine, the better effect it will have on performance. A well-structured warm-up increases blood flow to your muscles, enhances flexibility, and primes your body for activity.
Cooling down with an effective routine involving elements of gentle stretches, compression, cold water submersion, massage/foam rolling and rehydrating adequately also helps your body recover after a session.
Gradually Increase Intensity
Jumping into high-intensity training too quickly can lead to burnout or injury. Most athletes train multiple times per week with games/competition in between and gym sessions to accompany this. Progressive overloading is the gradual increase of stress placed on the body during training to improve strength, endurance, and performance. By steadily increasing intensity, volume, or resistance over time, athletes allow their bodies to adapt and grow stronger. This method helps prevent plateaus and reduces the risk of injury, ensuring continual progress and peak performance. Always increase load cautiously to avoid overtraining or injury and schedule rest days to allow your body to recover and rebuild.
Prioritise Sleep, Rest and Recovery
Don’t underestimate the power of recovery. Ensuring you're getting enough rest between sessions/throughout the season optimises performance and allows for muscle repair, growth and a mental refresh to optimise cognitive function, leading to better decision-making, reaction time and concentration. Sleep is a large factor in injury prevention. For athletes, there’s an increased injury risk of up to 65% for athletes sleeping less than 7 hours per night. As the demand on the body is higher for athletes compared to non-athletes, some individuals may need even up to 10 hours per night to meet their requirements. Importantly, adolescent athletes with poor sleep are at a high risk of injury as they typically already require more sleep than adults.
Listen to Your Body: Address Concerns early
If something doesn’t feel right, stop and address it. Early signs of pain or discomfort should never be ignored, as they could lead to a more severe injury if left unchecked. Seeking advice from a physiotherapist early can help you avoid prolonged time out of sport with injury.
By following these tips, you’ll give yourself the best chance for a strong and injury-free season. Focus on proper preparation, listen to your body, and remember: consistency and balance are key. If you ever need help with injury prevention, load management, recovery or rehabilitation, don’t hesitate to reach out to Back In Motion Rosny Park for an assessment from our Physiotherapists or Exercise Physiologist.
To book an appointment, call our lovely reception team on 03 6281 25499 or book online.
Author: Isabelle Higgins, Physiotherapist