The Invisible Surgeon
Injury is a complicated phenomenon. In complex environments such as sport, it’s nearly impossible to pin-point the root cause. The news heading reads: “Athlete “X” pulled his groin and will not return to the ice for up to 2-3 weeks.” How did this occur you ask yourself? Truth be told, if I’m sitting in a room and someone who has no affiliation with the team has the answer, I’d prefer to change rooms. Nothing wrong with healthy conjecture, but a dose of epistemic humility goes a long way in off-setting overconfidence. The paradox is that many times those closest to the ice or field don’t have the answers as thousands of confounders are at play. Lifestyle, biomechanics, programing, and poor medical intervention may all play a role in injury. It’s impossible to predict.
If an injury does occur (pending severity) our goal as the performance professional is to serve as the invisible surgeon. How can we safely get the player back on the ice without re-injury, or worse yet, surgery. In the private sector, we focus on:
Lifestyle education: This occurs at the onset of the hockey season and in our coaching briefs – debriefs. We lecture on nutrition, hydration, and the importance of sleep. Equipping our athletes with the requisite knowledge enabling and empowering them to make better decisions away from the weight room, and the ice.
Programming: Great invisible surgeons have a solid understanding of:
o Soft Tissue Healing Timelines: Inflammation, Repair, Remodel
o Physics: Levers, Torques and strain re: exercise selection
o Muscle Function
o MVF (Maximal Voluntary Force Production): Lowest for concentric contractions and highest for eccentric contractions
Medical (End stage Rehab)
o The “gap” between the weight room and the ice
o Proper On-Ice Progression: Intensity, rink geometry
If an athlete does sustain a soft tissue injury during the hockey season, we make modifications based off the above criteria. Injuries are difficult to pin-point and impossible to predict. There are no certainties in complex environments. Our goal is to continually iterate our processes and improve the controllable, which in the big scheme of things is a small piece in the performance puzzle. Injuries and surgeries will occur. Health ends where sport begins. Those are the cards we are delt. Having said that, I view great practitioners as invisible surgeons, mining the gap between set back and return.
