No matter what sport you participate in, it’s vital that you cross train in some manner.
This is a point I bring up a lot, and was brought back to the fore in conversation with a Thai Boxer I was working with this week.
He has been suffering knee pain recently, which in itself isn’t too unusual.
Upon assessment we discovered that his normal standing posture was pretty far from level, in fact, his stance and his gait revealed that his Thai Boxing training had started to overrule his natural human movement.
He had become his sport.
And he was in pain because of it.
This is not unusual.
All sports have certain positions of motions they emphasise above all others.
It’s the reason I wrote the Fighting Back eBook!
And if left unchecked that can cause the body to move in an unbalanced manner, loading joints and soft tissues in an unbalanced manner and potentially leading the athlete towards pain.
As I explained this, the boxer, who’d recently returned from a trip to Thailand where he’d been training, looked at me with a realisation in his eyes.
“Is that why all the Thai’s do other things?” he asked, “They all play basketball and stuff”
Yes, it is exactly why.
Training in another sport keeps other motor patterns fresh, it loads the body in different ways and gives a physical and mental change of pace. It’s non specific, but the second sport may even improve performance in the primary activity.
Is there a better way?
In my opinion, yes.
Get assessed and have a strength and conditioning program built around that assessment.
Not only will this improve the attributes needed for your sport, but it should also mitigate the injury risks by restoring some balance.
And the more seriously you want to train and compete, the more important this becomes.
The choice is yours.
Regards
Dave Hedges
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