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First XV Coach Cast Episode 22- Coaching Injured Clients & Athletes
9 Plays23 days ago
In this episode of FXV Coach Cast, I dive into one of the most challenging and nuanced topics in coaching: working with athletes and clients who are injured. I talk through frameworks for managing pain levels, when to modify exercises versus change them entirely, and why “don’t work out at all” is often the wrong answer.
If you coach, train, or work with athletes in any capacity, and want to make more athlete-centered decisions around injury and recovery, this one might be for you.
Make sure you hit subscribe & share on your favorite podcast app and follow me on Instagram- JDykeFXV
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Transcript
Introduction and Format
00:00:01
Jarrod Dyke
Hello everyone, once again, welcome back to the First 15 Coachcast. It's been a minute, but I'm here. My name is Jared Dyke. If this is your first go around, I've been doing this for year and a half now, so...
00:00:12
Jarrod Dyke
um Basically, I'm just going to come at you for about 10, 15 minutes of a topic of usually my choosing. Sometimes a suggestion, sometimes it's something that's out there in the air. But anyway, let's get to it.
Managing Injuries: Strength vs. Sport Coach Perspectives
00:00:24
Jarrod Dyke
So today I want to talk about clients and athletes when they're injured from both perspectives of both a strength coach slash trainer and from the sport coach and like what how I see things best handled and so on and so forth and how I've seen some things mishandled and just general thoughts as well.
00:00:43
Jarrod Dyke
So let's get to it. So we'll start with my true profession, which is S&C coach. So when you have a client or an athlete hurt, number one, it it pays to have ah a list of reliable and quality physical therapists that you trust.
00:01:03
Jarrod Dyke
set And I get sometimes you're stuck with
00:01:09
Jarrod Dyke
The clients are the clients slash athletes are stuck with the PTs are stuck with because they have um issues with financing, whether it's because the this is where their insurance is only going let them go for their physical therapy.
00:01:23
Jarrod Dyke
and sometimes that's not always the greatest place. It's wild to think that as much schooling as is is required for physical therapy, they're still not unlike trainers. Like the bad ones um our the bad ones are a dime a dozen, unfortunately.
Pain Assessment in Athletes
00:01:41
Jarrod Dyke
So make sure that you have that, number one. But number two, if we're talking about less a injury that is requiring PT and or surgery.
00:01:52
Jarrod Dyke
If we're looking at something that's bothering them for weeks on end, that's not quite an injury like that, but it's also clearly not something that's going away shortly. yeah you start to You have to start to figure out what are you looking at for pain?
00:02:07
Jarrod Dyke
What's their pain level with this? if it's eighth For me, if it's anything like below a three, I'm probably not going to do much two to the workout. I'm not goingnna change much. I might manage load better, but I'm not going to manage like what we're doing exactly for the day. isn't to change a ton because i those are usually...
00:02:28
Jarrod Dyke
things that can be worked out with a warmup, with maybe a quick drill, but often not much else and is needed. anything Anything above that, certainly if we start to approach five, six, seven, like that's where things really can go sideways. And at that point, it's almost like you you stop. So that's the other end of it. Like you just, you got to start looking at maybe this isn't the best idea today. And maybe we do something a little bit more,
00:02:57
Jarrod Dyke
know, we just completely move away from the workout we were going
Workout Modifications for Injured Athletes
00:03:00
Jarrod Dyke
to completely. And we're going to go into something else, different something else different, um, in terms of exercise selection. And, know, if it's a lower body injury, maybe we're going to do just upper and vice versa.
00:03:12
Jarrod Dyke
So there's that. And in the middle, there is modification of the workout that you were going to do. And, you know, you're first, you're going to modify the exercise, modify the exercise itself. What I mean by that, like, say you're doing a trap bar deadlift.
00:03:29
Jarrod Dyke
And you want to, you, the person's just, it's like, all right, it's like a four or five somewhere in that neighborhood in terms of their pain level. So, all maybe let's, it's a back injury maybe, or it's, or it's a hip, hip thing that's bothering them. Let's elevate the trap bar. See if we can, uh,
00:03:46
Jarrod Dyke
change how that feels. Or if it's a squat, maybe we do a squat to a box or so change the squat variation as well. We'll talk about that in a second, the variation. But the modification ah I'm talking about first is the exercise that is selected for the day, whether it's strap bar deadlift, barbell deadlift, back squat, front squat, bench. Modify that exercise first.
00:04:08
Jarrod Dyke
See if we can take something away. know, range of motion might need to change. Again, load might need to change. Take it easy for the day. Maybe you just need to refocus on a certain technique. And that's usually somewhere, something that happens more in the zero to two scale, um zero to three sometimes.
00:04:29
Jarrod Dyke
the other but with and sometimes but sometimes it's it's the same uh and then after that change the exercise itself you know if you had planned on doing squat that day maybe you're not doing a back squat maybe you're doing a goblet squat instead or maybe you're doing a single leg exercise which feels much more comfortable on whatever the pain that's bothering them is those are that's where we go with that So that that's how, for me, that's how it is should be managed
Challenging Physical Therapist Advice
00:04:59
Jarrod Dyke
on one end. And i am I am personally not someone that will buy, this has happened to me, I can't work out.
00:05:10
Jarrod Dyke
You can. um Obviously, if something's at a pain level of like seven, eight, nine, ten, that's probably the limit. and you're going to be like, yeah, but you need to go get this taken care of and be seen. And once you're seen, we can figure out what you can still do and what you need to have off limits. That's that's one thing. So anybody that for me.
00:05:34
Jarrod Dyke
The sign of a bad PT. is when they when their patient comes to them and says oh this is bothering me a little bit okay don't work out today no that that's an awful idea awful idea modify okay and you know and especially without asking more questions and for me i've i've actually challenged some of my younger athletes like if someone tells you that ask them questions like figure out hey could i do this instead and if the answer is still no
00:06:07
Jarrod Dyke
and the pain level is not that high, then start questioning whether or not you need to change your physical therapist. And that's not a knock on physical therapist. I know many of them and many of them are friends are good friends of mine. So don't don't say sit here and think I'm knocking physical therapist by
Athlete Safety and Participation Balancing Act
00:06:26
Jarrod Dyke
any means whatsoever. I'm not. I'm knocking bad physical therapist as much as I would knock a bad coach. So there's that.
00:06:32
Jarrod Dyke
um On the other end of it, So let's look at looking at from a if you don't know, if you haven't, if this is your first time on this, I also have um a job coaching us a team sport in the spring. It's actually coming up.
00:06:46
Jarrod Dyke
So I have the both lenses that I look through with this. So this is why I have a lot of different thoughts on this thing. So from the sport coach, it's um
00:07:01
Jarrod Dyke
it's one of those things where as a sport coach, sometimes you do need to save your athletes from hurting themselves more. um For me, without having a you know, any sort of, you know, medical experience or anything like that, there are certain injuries for me when my when some of my players tell me this has happened,
00:07:23
Jarrod Dyke
I got to give it to them straight and say, that's going to be a long layoff. And there's a chance that you miss, you miss out on a lot of the season or you miss out on the, on the season entirely. And the big one being ACL injuries.
00:07:37
Jarrod Dyke
um And I've talked with many people that agree on this in terms of young athletes, ACL injury, of someone that's still growing should be a year minimum and that hurts i understand that really hurts lot high school athletes to miss a year of sport and sometimes it's their last year sport and that really sucks and while that is true at the same time they're, we're looking at, you're looking at another 70 years of your life down the line that you need to be able to walk and walk comfortably and and you don't want to go do, redo something. And I know, you know, sport, sport,
00:08:19
Jarrod Dyke
participation and sport growth windows are short. You know that's going to be, they may have another 10 years and that and that's if they're if they're lucky. So I understand that's short, but still longevity of it is you got to be able to, I would be more comfortable with myself if, you know, my players, my athletes are going go to be able to walk when they're older and I need that to happen. And high school sports are not the end of the world. You know, they're really not. And any coach that says otherwise is not doing this for the right reasons. So there's, there is that you have to and you know we talk about, I've talked about it before with head injuries. You got to save them for themselves. And honest again, I'm not a doctor. So athlete comes over and tells me, you know, they hit their head and they don't feel good.
00:09:07
Jarrod Dyke
Go, go, get go, go get seen. Like I, I pine them for the day and they got get seen because I'm not messing around with that. And, The really crappy thing is there are some athletes that try and get out of, you know, conditioning or whatever, and they try and do it that way.
When Coaches Should Intervene for Safety
00:09:21
Jarrod Dyke
It's like, you're you're not smart by telling me that because, and you're not going to get away with, you know, just missing out on conditioning, but then re-participating in the rest of the practice. Like, no, no, no, you're you're gone. You got to go get seen.
00:09:32
Jarrod Dyke
That's end of story. So there there is that. And then there's there are times when you got to get out of the way. And that's hard too. And that's ah that's that's nuanced and that takes experience to understand that there are certain injuries that aren't going to, and you have to kind of, and you also have to be able to communicate with the athletic trainers and the doctors, and in some cases, surgeons, hopefully not surgeons in this case, But doctors and and athletic trainers and understand like, all right, what is the potential for damage for this person? If it's high still, then yeah, you got to just advocate for what's better for the athlete. And while it might be painful, but there are times, there are times when you can sit there and say, all right, whatever, whatever else might happen from here forward is minimal to none.
00:10:27
Jarrod Dyke
and sometimes the doctors in that and the ats are going to be a little overly cautious and i can respect that and understand that but again sometimes you gotta just get out of the way and let the athlete do what they want to do there's certain situations where it's more appropriate than not i had injuries is not one of them i'm not messing around with that uh and i really and again knees are probably not it either but there's a lot of other ones where i'm willing to let be like, all right, you advocate for yourself and you're telling me you're fine and the ATs approve it, even if they're not happy about it, I'm i'm okay.
00:11:03
Jarrod Dyke
I'll go with it. um But i'm not I'm not interested in certain situations trying to do that. But there are a few limited situations where the coaches just got to get the heck out of the way and let the athletes do their thing as long as they've gotten, you know, even if it's a...
00:11:25
Jarrod Dyke
You know, squinting, the i guess we're okay, thumbs up. Let it go. You know, let it be. And again there's again, there's certain situations where I'm like, I'm not comfortable with that.
00:11:36
Jarrod Dyke
That you got put your foot down and say, nope, you're you're done,
Training Around Injuries for Recovery
00:11:40
Jarrod Dyke
you're you're sitting. You know, things that ri are going to require you to... use when you walk when you're older are on the list and you're in the head i'm just not messing around with it you know you only got one of them there's no replacement surgeries for her what's going on between your ears that's what you got so i gotta be very very cautious with that but again there are situations where you get out got you out of the way and going back to being a strength conditioning coach
00:12:09
Jarrod Dyke
The advocacy for working out while someone is hurt, even if they're recovering from some sort of surgery, if they can, if they're mobile enough without discomfort or pain to get into the weight room, then start, yeah, find something to lift.
00:12:26
Jarrod Dyke
If you haven't heard of Tony Genicor, his adventure of his, aki when he did his Achilles, go go look that up. That's a good example. And I know he's an older guy and he's a well-trained, strong guy, but It's not dissimilar in terms of what I'm talking about here. You're looking at situations where you have what he calls the trainable menu. What can you train? Can you train one leg still? Can you train both arms still? you know Can you train one arm and both legs still?
00:12:55
Jarrod Dyke
Whatever it is, um you can you train everything, but you need to go really light? awesome you know anything like that and yeah know there's plenty of research out there and maybe there's there's probably some research that contradicts it but there is enough research out there for me to be convinced that if you train while you are injured and you have you know say your left arm is you know has a has some sort of ligament tear in it if you can still train the other muscles the other parts of your body the healing, there is a positive effect on the healing. What what that positive effect is exactly, not a scientist and I'm not an anatomy person necessarily to that degree, but from what I've seen and just from just from experience, what I've seen is the process goes better when you can train, even if you have to kind of leave your leave that arm limp or that leg you know propped up and and not used, it still does more than, certainly does more than sitting on your ass.
00:13:54
Jarrod Dyke
You know, because there's also the element of an athlete is down for, know, four months, say they don't they they're out.
00:14:05
Jarrod Dyke
They have to recover from said injury or surgery or whatever for four months. and okay, they get cleared by four months. They're cleared to do thee to do whatever they were doing. They're not ready to do the sport that they choose, likely, unless they've been training.
00:14:25
Jarrod Dyke
If they've just been sitting around, it's very unlikely that they're ready to jump back into whatever sport they're unless they've been training and they've been trying to keep up their conditioning and so
Summary and Communication with Medical Professionals
00:14:35
Jarrod Dyke
on so forth. So there's also that element as well. So even if you don't believe the um the part about the injury healing a little bit faster by, by the other muscles being trained, there's still the deconditioning that happens if you do nothing.
00:14:50
Jarrod Dyke
So at the very least there's that and enables you to get back to what you were doing faster. So there's, there's many blips there about, injuries, how, how to look and how you handle it from different perspectives there. But, uh, those are my views and those are my thoughts. And, uh, I hope everyone else, everyone at least can take it on,
00:15:11
Jarrod Dyke
um So hopefully someone agrees me with me out there. If not, oh well I stand alone so well. Uh, but I do appreciate everyone that listens to this and, um, make sure that, yeah. So I, and I'll wrap it up here just a little bit. So from a strength conditioning, you know, pain levels, observe that, know, good PTs to have, to be in touch with. And then, uh, yeah. What can you train?
00:15:36
Jarrod Dyke
What can be trained? Can you train and what can be trained? And then from a sport coach level, um, take extra precautions with certain with certain injuries, communicate with ATs and and doctors and so on so forth, and any medical team required, and sometimes get the hell out of the way.
00:15:56
Jarrod Dyke
that it's that It's not an often occurrence, but there are moments where you just need to let it happen and not be overly cautious. So that's what I got for you today. I appreciate everyone that listens and and supports me on this. So thank you very much. And I plan on being back sometime in the next couple of weeks. So have a good one, everyone.