TAKING THE HIGH ROAD TO RECOVERY

by Rebecca Roberts - 28.07.10

For Alistair Brownlee, after being crowned World Champion after the season of his life, any athletes’ worst nightmare struck...injury.

A stress fracture in his femur meant that winter training would take on a whole new dimension for Leeds based Brownlee and, despite a disappointing performance in the London World Championship Series last weekend, having the right support team around him has enabled him to return to competition, winning the Madrid World Championship Series event and European Championships in recent weeks, in stronger shape than ever.

“Usually with a stress fracture there is a structured programme for recovery; when athletes can put weight back onto the injury, begin training and increase their load” says Emma Deakin, Physiotherapist at the English Institute of Sport (EIS) working with British Triathlon.

“For Alistair we tore up the rule book and worked on a rehabilitation programme that was symptomatically led by his own individual recovery and feelings on his progress.

“Things had to be cut right back at the start; crutches at first, then a few weeks off-load where Alistair couldn’t kick in the water or push of the wall and cycled with no resistance, after which we started to increase the cycling.

“When it came to getting back into running, Alistair and I worked up a rehabilitation programme together, which gave him some ownership and responsibility for the rehab process” she adds.

According to Deakin, the recovery process helped to develop Brownlee’s understanding of his body and the impact that each sport science and medicine element of his programme, which all relate to the run, bike and swim of triathlon and helped him come back even stronger.

“We undertook some running analysis of his technique prior to the injury with his coach. We were able to use this injury as an opportunity to strip back Alistair’s technique and improve it as he made his return into training” she adds.

Adapting training and improving stability have been key elements to Brownlee’s recovery, something his coach Malcolm Brown says has created a ‘fourth’ discipline.

“The problem with stress fractures is no one can be 100% sure exactly what causes them” says Brown.

“There is a list of different explanations or causes that can each contribute. We have been working on run technique and general stability and Alistair’s training has been amended and added to, reflecting stability as a fourth discipline” he adds.

Whether in physio sessions or in the strength and conditioning gym, Brownlee maximised the impact sessions were having on each aspect of his sport and improved his technique on the way. 

“Although the content of the strength and conditioning programme was very different to the training group, it was important to keep Alistair involved in the sessions” says Ian Pyper, EIS Strength & Conditioning Coach who worked with Brownlee at his training base in Leeds.

“Working closely with the physio, coach and of course Alistair, a number of key areas for improvement were highlighted. From these discussions the goal of the programme was to improve the lower level areas of strength and conditioning that would help speed up the return to full fitness following his eventual return to full training. This included technical work on the key exercises, low level general conditioning and also body awareness and postural work” he adds.

Recovery also required effective performance nutrition to adapt to the change in programme Brownlee went through.

“My main role was to ensure the right nutrients were available to help the injury recover as quickly as possible” says EIS Performance Nutritionist Dr Kevin Currell.

“Without putting the right building blocks in, the body will take longer to repair itself” he adds.

For more information about Physiotherapy and it’s role in helping prevent as well as rehabilitate athletes from injury, visit the EIS pages on physiotherapy here.

For all the latest results from the GB squad visit the British Triathlon website here