One of the main purposes of pre-season training is to prepare your body for the upcoming season, so you are in the best position to withstand the rigours of the game and perform at your best. 

Maximising the amount of sessions you can complete during the preseason program has been shown to have a protective effect on in-season injury rates, meaning the more sessions you can complete with the team, the less likely you are to get injured later (Windt et al. 2017). Picking up an early overuse injury, such as a sore knee or achilles tendon, can derail this process so finding strategies to avoid preseason injuries is key.

What do you need to know?

Rapid increases in training load can increase the chances of injury

Athletes who attempt to rapidly increase their training load (amount or intensity of training) after a period of decreased or in-activity, are at higher risk of a preseason overuse injury. This is because the body needs time to adapt to a new stimulus and the stressors being placed on the body can be greater than what your deconditioned body can cope with (Paterno et al. 2013). It’s like being on holiday from work for a month and then suddenly going back to full time plus adding in some overtime; and you know how you’d feel about that! It takes time to get back into the swing of work and adapt, and it’s the same for our joints, bones, muscles, neural systems when training. Think boom bust and graded exposure to load – you feel great after some time off, so you go full tilt at the start of preseason (BOOM) and then you get an injury (BUST) and then you are out for a couple of weeks. 

Instead, the goal of returning to preseason is to have a graded exposure to load (gradual increase) in the early stages to allow your body to adjust, and avoid injury.

Understand your current level

Another suggested mechanism for injury in the preseason is when athletes return to training at a higher level than they were previously used to (Paterno et al. 2013) – the body isn’t used to a higher demand or more advanced skills and again this takes time to adjust to. An example would be that the previous season you were playing reserves or junior level, and now you’ve been called up to the seniors or first team where the demand on the body is higher, the game is faster and potentially the hits are harder. 

You will likely fatigue quicker trying to keep up with the other athletes who are used to this level of training, or you might try and push yourself to prove that you belong at this level, and we know being fatigued can increase your chances of picking up an injury. 

Again, it’s about knowing your limits and pushing them gradually – ego lifting in the gym is a great way to injure yourself in the preseason and the same can happen on the pitch and training grounds.

Recovery and cross-training

Athletes who specialise in one activity and or consistently train and play at a high level with minimal rest/recovery over the off-season can also be at a higher risk of injury upon return to full preseason training (Paterno et al. 2013). The same can be said of the adolescent sports person who has a goal of being an elite single athlete in the future and continues to train for that sport at a high level (Bell et al. 2018) in the off season. 

Both of these groups can help lower their risk of an early preseason overuse injury by having an adequate level of relative rest in the off season but also by staying active in their down time with other activities to give the body a sport specific rest. A basketballer who plays 2-3 games per week and trains 2-3 times per week in-season and then tries to maintain a similar level of basketball specific load in the offseason, would benefit from some basketball specific training but also mixing it up with some swimming, cycling, hiking or gym work, and having adequate rest and recovery days in between times. These days may include yoga, pilates or mindfulness activities. This regime would help maintain fitness, while also giving your body (ands brain) a chance to deload from basketball and recover, and be robust with different movement patterns going into the preseason. 

The body loves to move, just not in the same direction over and over and over again, so mix up your training in the off season and have some fun. And get quality sleep.

Tips for lowering injury risk in the preseason

  • Keep active in the off season but also try non-sport specific activities like cycling, swimming, hiking, gym, yoga and pilates to allow your body to recover from the previous season
  • Build into the new training load gradually and let the body adjust – if you haven’t run in 3 months since the season finished, then start off with shorter running drills at submaximal effort rather than jumping into 20km worth of running load in the first week of preseason
  • Don’t ego lift or ego train – know your limits early and gradually push them over the course of the preseason
  • Allow yourself adequate rest, recovery and nutrition – sleep is just as important as the actual training stimulus – the body needs adequate sleep and nutrition to heal and repair and we know that being tired on the training pitch or the gym leads to average training sessions and increased injury risks. 
  • Lack of quality sleep has been shown to lead to impaired muscle damage repair, alterations in cognitive function and increase in mental fatigue (Nedelec et al. 2015)
  • Monitor fatigue – know how your body is feeling and adjust the training load that day or week to respond to that – sometimes you may not feel right for that sprint session or heavy gym session because you are tired from work, study and training– still train but think about training at a lower intensity. Your body will thank you for not pushing it into injury risk zones just because you felt like you had to
  • Know your previous injuries and target them with rehab in the off season – one of the biggest risks for a soft tissue injury like a hamstring, groin or knee injury is a previous injury to that area
  • Injury prevention programs like FIFA11+, Netball Australia Knee program and FootyFirst are great warms ups for training and have been shown to reduce the risk of lower limb injuries but can also be used as performance enhancing programs because they focus on strength and control

Our physio team love working with sports people to address previous injuries, and then helping guide them to be able to progress their training, so they can perform at their best. Contact our team if you’d like some help and guidance on getting the best out of yourself this season.