Common PT Mistakes That Cause Injuries - Insights from Victor Popov
We’re excited to bring you this guest article by Victor Popov, one of Australia’s most respected Sports and Exercise Physiotherapists. Victor shares his insight into the common mistakes that often bring personal training clients to his clinic
With over 40 years experience in the Sports Medicine industry, I have been involved with many great athletes, teams, coaches trainers and many quality Sports Practitioners. I have also seen the rise of popularity of Personal Trainers and the positive influence that PT’s have had on the general health and fitness of society in general. Certainly (as with all professionals- Physio’s included!) there is a variety of experience and quality in the PT world, largely influenced by the education and work-place experience that any PT is exposed to.
There are many options for Cert III- and Cert IV-type qualifications out there, and as with all qualifications, they form only the basis of understanding of how to create either a general fitness or strength program for a client. What I have observed over the years, are certain common ‘mistakes’ or issues that usually lead a PT client to find their way to my Clinical Rooms with an injury. In this brief article I will outline some of these common programming errors- and some solutions!
Progress vs Progression
Progress for a PT client should be measured by the fitness or health goals they are achieving- not by the load or complexity of their program. I see many PT clients whose injuries are simply a function of ‘over-progression’ of their programs. Too much load, too much intensity and too much complexity are often the down-fall for a ‘beginner’ early in their training journey. I can’t say exactly why, but about the 10 week mark into a new program that has too much load is where clients often break down with injury.
Progress needs to be explained as consistently turning up for sessions, building base strength and flexibility and not caring how ‘heavy’ you lift, particularly if your technique is poor. A good PT will guide their client through months rather than weeks of progress, and explain that sometimes training has to be boring to achieve the desired results. It’s up to you as their coach to convince them to progress at a level and rate they can cope with without a resultant injury. Explain to them that 12-16 weeks of training uninterrupted by injury will lead to better outcomes that ‘breaking’ after 10 weeks of training ‘hard’.
Movement Literacy
Another common error that leads to injury at all levels of physical training is a lack of ‘movement literacy’ for the training program being executed. Someone who has never played sport as a kid, has had a desk-job or studied for years will definitely have poor movement literacy or movement capacity as well as poor strength. At the other end of the scale, an athlete that has spent years training with heavy weights but with largely linear movement will not have great capacity for dynamic movement or direction change activities.
Assessing the movement literacy of your client prior to giving them a program can be as simple as talking to them about their exercise (and life) history in detail and watching them execute basic movements such as a push-up, squat or lunge. Injuries will often happen when training tasks (such as complex Olympic lifts, or plyometrics) are given to a client who does not have the capacity to execute them properly. Put simplistically, make sure the tasks or exercises you give your client match their capacity to do them with good technique. If they have poor movement capacity, spend more time on basic body-weight exercises and focus on posture and control of movement rather than load.
Age-inappropriate exercise
For either end of the age scale- and I talk about U16 as ‘younger’ or Over-50’s as ‘older’- prescribing age-appropriate exercises is important. When programming for a younger client, posture, technique and control should be paramount. One of the greatest challenges is to get kids to slow down and not care about how heavy they are lifting. Improving neural drive through slower movement during the developmental years has big up-sides for an athlete as they get older.
For the older client, be mindful of age-related joint changes- particularly in shoulders and hips. I always say to my older clients (and I have plenty of over-40 surfers) that vertical overhead press of any sort should be left to people under 40 to keep your rotator cuff intact! Also, keeping squat range under load to a 90 degree or above knee angle is a fairly good way to have both hip and knee load in a ‘safe’ zone. Older clients also need more recovery – building in a recovery week every 4th or 5th week of a training program (3+1 or 4+1) will help minimise injury and enhance adaptation in training. Unload by 30% and add massage/physio/thermal recovery during the recovery week and many overuse injuries can be avoided.
Keep in mind that for any client, both their chronological age as well as their weight-training age will determine how you program them: so consider both.
Referral Reticence
Knowing what you don’t know is a very important part of being a successful Sports Practitioner. As a PT, developing a network of Health Professionals such as Physios, Osteos, Chiros and Acupuncturists that you can trust and refer to when appropriate is critical to providing the best possible service to your clients. So don’t be reticent to refer…
Final Thoughts
In Summary, you can improve the results for your clients by understanding their ‘starting point’ with you. Programs should be designed to include the appropriate level of exercises, load and progression based on the clients’ capacity, and executed in a way to avoid being injured in the process. Understanding the concepts of progression, movement literacy and age-appropriate programming will help you achieve optimal outcomes for your clients.
About the Author, Victor Popov
Victor Popov is one of Australia’s leading sports physiotherapists, heavily involved in elite sport both domestically and internationally, with many clients who are World and Olympic champions.
His professional achievements include:
- Worked at 4 Olympic Games, multiple World Championships, and Tour de France events
- Establishment and management of successful Sports Medicine clinics in Australia
- Consultation for AIS, QAS, NSWIS, and international teams such as British Swimming and Cycling
- Awarded the Australian Sports Medal in 2000
Victor is the Co-founder of NETT Global and author of Onfit Training College’s partnership courses NETT Foundations and NETT Advanced.