Round 23 v Gold Coast Suns Home Game at Marvel

[goswannies]

Goswannies, I’m not understanding the Mills injury. How do make an injury better by continuing to play? A number of players have said that Mills’s injury needs game time to improve.

I’ve always been conditioned to think that injuries need rest and targeted rehabilitation to improve.

What is the difference with Mills’s injury?

Without going into the minutiae of the rehab specifics, Achilles’ tendon injuries, tendinitis & tendinopathies are often managed with an incremental progressive loading program. This initially respects the acute injury and inflammatory period, followed by progressive loading the tendon to “normalise” the tendon via a process of remodelling. This should improve the tensile strength and elasticity of the tendon, strength of the calf etc. The loading program would be quite tailored and specific in terms of amount of load/force and timing of increased loads (some of which, in the longer term, would have been achieved by match simulation or game day). Mills’ 2 week quarantine, as a result of attending the rugby game, would likely have disrupted the schedule (while he could have continued to rehab in isolation, accurately managing the program would have been far more challenging).

Bottom line - most tissue (eg, tendons, bones) require some loading at the correct time and correct amount to facilitate recovery, and the nature of the injury (complete rupture, strains, sprains, tendinitis, tendinoparhy etc) will determine the amount and timing for the optimal recovery. This is hard to get right under ideal circumstance. An unanticipated 2 week hiatus stuffs it up royally.

[Bangalore Swans]

Without going into the minutiae of the rehab specifics, Achilles’ tendon injuries, tendinitis & tendinopathies are often managed with an incremental progressive loading program. This initially respects the acute injury and inflammatory period, followed by progressive loading the tendon to “normalise” the tendon via a process of remodelling. This should improve the tensile strength and elasticity of the tendon, strength of the calf etc. The loading program would be quite tailored and specific in terms of amount of load/force and timing of increased loads (some of which, in the longer term, would have been achieved by match simulation or game day). Mills’ 2 week quarantine, as a result of attending the rugby game, would likely have disrupted the schedule (while he could have continued to rehab in isolation, accurately managing the program would have been far more challenging).

Bottom line - most tissue (eg, tendons, bones) require some loading at the correct time and correct amount to facilitate recovery, and the nature of the injury (complete rupture, strains, sprains, tendinitis, tendinoparhy etc) will determine the amount and timing for the optimal recovery. This is hard to get right under ideal circumstance. An unanticipated 2 week hiatus stuffs it up royally.

Thank you Goswannies. Brilliant insights.