Storm on the road to recovery

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Storm on the road to recovery
Topic Started: Mar 7 2010, 02:39 PM (60 Views)
stacey	Mar 7 2010, 02:39 PM Post #1
Administrator Posts: 5,739 Group: Admins Member #1 Joined: May 22, 2009	TO MELBOURNE Storm sports science coordinator Troy Thomson, the so-called one percenters – the little details that may give an edge over opponents — really do make a difference in modern sport. It is even more important for the Storm this year as it prepares for its National Rugby League first-round clash against Cronulla on Saturday. The team arrived in Melbourne last Wednesday after two weeks in Britain where it beat Super League champion Leeds to win the World Club Challenge. Two years ago, the Storm made a similar trek and had a sluggish start to the season, dropping two of its first three games, as players battled fatigue, and let-down, from that unsuccessful tilt. But this year, Thomson devised a schedule that is expected to have the Storm primed to begin its premiership defence full of running. The task facing the Storm fitness staff in getting the players ready for this week’s opening round was highlighted by skipper Cameron Smith, who on Friday told an audience at the team’s season launch, about how he was feeling two days after his return. “[I am] pretty ordinary at the moment. I’m all over the shop,” Smith said. “Last night I went to sleep about 8.30pm, woke up at 3am and haven’t been back to bed yet so I’m still getting back on Australian time.” Thomson said the issue was how to help the players overcome the fatigue as quickly as possible, because with fatigue comes a higher risk of injury. The fitness and medical staff will be adjusting each player’s program, including reducing the amount of time spent training, depending on how they are recovering. “We’ll be monitoring their training loads quite closely and looking at their sleep patterns will probably be one of the most important things,” Thomson said. “We know if they can get back into their normal sleep patterns then physiologically their bodies will return to normal.” Coach Craig Bellamy said his players seemed to be in a better state than two years ago and credited the strict regime that Thomson devised for the tour to Britain. The players and support staff were required to stay awake on certain legs of the return flight, with cabin lights in the business-class area, where they were seated, left on while they were dimmed in other parts of the plane. Food was served at specific times and all members of the group had to keep to a strict regime of taking vitamins, anti-viral sprays and hydration tablets and drinks. “It was all pretty much choreographed down to the last minute,” Bellamy said. The Storm did employ some cutting-edge techniques — which Thomson was not prepared to discuss because they were at the trial stage — but he said most came down to meticulous planning. “It probably wasn’t a lot of real heavy science, it was probably more practical science that’s applied to everyday life which we made sure that we used and got the guys to follow to the nth degree,” he said. “You’ve also got to draw a line between being totally scientific and being practical as well. There’s a thousand things we can do which are in the laboratory setting that we’d love to be able to apply to a bunch of rugby league players, but sometimes it’s just not practical.” Thomson said such details did make a difference to performance and prevention of soft-tissue injuries. He said the lessons from the long-haul flights would be applied to the Storm’s travel this season, which includes games in Adelaide, Perth, Auckland and Townsville. “Even if it is just a little one-percenter, the competition is that close these days, these little things are just that important. Everyone is lifting weights the same way, everyone is doing conditioning the same way, everyone is doing their recovery the same way, so if you can try and [find] a one-per-cent edge somewhere, I think it’s definitely going to help,” Thomson said. “The big thing about sports science at the moment is it’s going to become really big because of the demands and the loads put on the players. If clubs and organisations do not do these things, you’re going to have players who will break down and careers will be shortened.” Source: theage.com.au
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