The injury prone players need to go!

[Thaiphoon]

1 hour ago, Slateman said:

It's literally impossible to avoid injury in this game. 

 

Blaming the S&C coach for the injuries is like blaming the service technician at your local Chevy dealer for GM going under

Sorry. You're right and you're also wrong. I just don't know any other way to explain it.

One of my majors in college was in Kinesiology. I spent time learning about the human body (classes in anatomy, physiology, sports medicine, etc... as well as practical use in sports training)

Your list is hard to avoid for sure (although concussions can be reduced with better tackling methods). But those are not the only injuries that players sustain are they? Torn muscles, ligament tears, tendon issues, etc... are also on the hotel bill (so to speak).

So yes. Injuries are part of the game.

HOWEVER...

How you go about S&C with exercises and recovery and the methods by which you conduct S&C have a major effect in how you can make an injury less likely to occur.

And with those, the S&C program plays a huge part in helping the player avoid injury. For example, did you know that when you work out, the catalyst by which your muscle increases size and strength is because it is first torn down a bit at the cellular level? If not, now you do. But you wouldn't just keep blasting your pecs or biceps every day would you? Why not? Because of a whole host of issues. Fatigue being one. But the other is the muscle is not getting the proper rest and recovery it needs to become stronger and less likely for injury. In fact, the more you blast that muscle in the weight room without proper recovery, the more likely you are to cause serious injury if you go play a sport. 

Same with tendons and ligaments.

Tendons do not grow at the same pace as muscles. Muscles respond to weight training differently than tendons do. The tendon's job is to connect the muscle to bone at the origin and insertion points.

Same with ligaments. Ligaments are not designed to do anything but hold bone and bone together. That's it. Is it possible to "strengthen" one? Yes and no. Weight training, like with muscles, will break it down at a cellular level and cause a bit of rebuilding. But this is, again, not at the same pace as the muscle. So in terms of what responds favorably to weight training, it goes muscle....then way down the list is tendons....then ever further down the list is ligaments. In fact, the better exercises for tendons and ligaments are plyometric exercises. But again...improper conditioning of the tendons and/or ligaments with improper recovery methods and timeframes will cause them both to be weakened (because they have not had enough time to recover).

So with ligaments. Ligaments are like salt water taffy. They are designed to keep bone and bone together. But they are only designed to be one length. Once you pull a ligament, however slightly, you have weakened the area where the ligament was doing it's work. So it's like taking the solid taffy and stretching it. Does it snap back like a rubber band? No...it doesn't. Same with ligaments. They not longer are at the smaller size to keep things tightly wrapped. Which is why when surgeons are doing ligament surgery (I've watched a few), they will actually cut the stretched ligament down to it's original size and then screw it back to the bone. 

It's why we should've shut down RG3 once Haloti Ngata killed his knee. That knee was not structurally sound. And the ligaments were stretched to hell. Which made it easier...since they were not keeping the knee as tight as it could be...for the rest of the ligaments to stretch out due to use. And then in the 2Q of the playoff game he tries to bend down to get the ball (something that should not have caused an injury in a healthy knee) and it rips the other ligaments as well.

I literally could go all day talking about this stuff. But the point is clear. Yes, nerve issues? Can't avoid that really. Broken bones? Maybe not play too many players over 30? Other than that, can't avoid it too much. Sprains? Gonna happen. Rest and recovery are key. Concussions? Stop using your head as a battering ram and most will disappear.

But torn muscles and ligaments (which we get quite a lot of)? Yeah. That can be reduced by a better S&C program. 

And our S&C program sucks. We've been at the bottom or near the bottom in games missed since at least 2012. Other teams have taken their turns in "unlucky" years. But we seem to remain at or near the bottom every year. That speaks to the wrong people in charge of S&C.

[Thaiphoon]

36 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

But you can do things to prevent certain injuries. Or do things that help speed up/improve/recover from certain injuries. We have so many lingering injuries on this team too. Again, not talking about the Alex Smith/Colt McCoy stuff.

If you want to infer that we're Top 10 in injuries for 4 straight seasons just to bad luck also, by all means. I don't buy it though. 

Past 6 straight years.

Yup. The "luck" excuses don't wash do they?

[naptownskinsfan]

33 minutes ago, MKnight82 said:

I would be interested to see what the stats are on the injuries we incur at home vs on the road, because fedex field is usually a terrible mess.  

It actually was not this year, for much of the year we had a pristine field.  I wonder if that was a Lafemina thing or not.  

[naptownskinsfan]

2 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

lazyshrug.jpg 

to each his own. Again, I'm not advocating Callahan is doing anything wrong. It's my thought vs your opinion on the article vs what Hoffman said. He sees what he sees. He's in a better position than we are tbh, so I wasn't brushing it off is all. 

Given my family history with football, Hoffman is wrong.  It's not just my opinion. 

[MikeT14]

6 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

Given my family history with football, Hoffman is wrong.  It's not just my opinion. 

And it's not just his in his eyes. Again to each his own. 

[naptownskinsfan]

1 minute ago, MikeT14 said:

And it's not just his in his eyes. Again to each his own. 

He's literally the only person who has that opinion amongst the media.  You can even go further back in NFL history to the days of the Hogs when two-a-days were prevalent (now no one at any level has two-a-days anymore) and you didn't have this kind of injury problem back then.  Larry Allen played just about every game in his HOF career.  Callahan's never experienced this kind of problem before.  There is nothing worse than a supposed "expert" talking out of his behind, which is what he is doing.  

[naptownskinsfan]

And look guys, I'm not trying to make this personal.  But when I have a cousin who was the S&C coordinator for years for a major Power Five team where it was expected they compete for conference and national titles year in and year out, tell me that that story is bogus, I'm going to call Hoffman out on the carpet.  There is no reason to drag a top coach like Callahan through the mud because someone doesn't know what he's talking about.  

[Thaiphoon]

4 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

And look guys, I'm not trying to make this personal.  But when I have a cousin who was the S&C coordinator for years for a major Power Five team where it was expected they compete for conference and national titles year in and year out, tell me that that story is bogus, I'm going to call Hoffman out on the carpet.  There is no reason to drag a top coach like Callahan through the mud because someone doesn't know what he's talking about.  

To be clear. I wasn't calling out Callahan either. I was calling out our piss poor S&C program.

[naptownskinsfan]

22 minutes ago, Thaiphoon said:

To be clear. I wasn't calling out Callahan either. I was calling out our piss poor S&C program.

To which he also agrees is a serious problem.  Though he said part of it is on the players, because they can only recommend a training regiment, it has to be followed by them.  It's a lot different than college.  

[Thaiphoon]

2 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

To which he also agrees is a serious problem.  Though he said part of it is on the players, because they can only recommend a training regiment, it has to be followed by them.  It's a lot different than college.  

Very true. The players bear responsibility as well. But that also goes back to coaching. Your players should be following the direction of the S&C as well. If not, then the proof is in the pudding as to why that is important. And players who refuse to follow it, maybe they don't need to stay here?

[Slateman]

You cannot strength and condition your way into avoiding ligament damage brought on by 300+lb humans colliding with you. 

I dont care what you studied in college.  You're wrong. If that were possible, someone would have figured it out by now and made a mountain of money by now.

You even proved my point. We've had multiple different S&C coaches over the last few years with no difference in the results.  

[Thaiphoon]

21 minutes ago, Slateman said:

You cannot strength and condition your way into avoiding ligament damage brought on by 300+lb humans colliding with you.  

I never said that S&C makes you "bulletproof". I said that you can reduce the likelihood of that collision causing damage. If you weaken the ligament through improper conditioning and recovery, you will suffer injuries at a greater rate. The torsion that ACL may take on a tackle may not cause a tear (partial or complete) if the ligament is not already weakened through improper S&C. That isn't an opinion. It's scientific fact.

Strike 1

Quote

I dont care what you studied in college.  You're wrong. If that were possible, someone would have figured it out by now and made a mountain of money by now.

Yeah? They have. The teams that have good S&C programs in both the pros and the collegiate level do wonderful jobs. They suffer less injuries than their counterparts do. And their S&C coaches make quite a bit of money. There are right ways and wrong ways to go about S&C. This is fact.

You're free to call me wrong all you want. But the fact is that S&C plays a huge part in helping to lessen the amount of injuries you have. 

Strike 2

Quote

You even proved my point. We've had multiple different S&C coaches over the last few years with no difference in the results. 

Yeah? No. The "new" S&C head was a holdover from the previous regime.

https://www.redskins.com/team/coaches-roster/chad-englehart

Quote

Chad Englehart is entering his ninth season with the Redskins and his second as the team's head strength and conditioning coach in 2018 after being promoted to the role during the 2017 offseason. He initially joined the team as an assistant strength and conditioning coach on February 26, 2010.

 

He kept most, if not all, of the previous staff. So no...the reason why there was no difference in results is that it was the same approach to S&C.

Strike 3.

 

But by all means. Keep believing that the last 6+ years was just us being "unlucky".

[Slateman]

Thai, they simply have better/more athletic players. That's it.

You said, "We've been at the bottom or near the bottom in games missed since at least 2012"

Since then they've had three different coaches, with at least three different training staffs, and multiple different assistant coaches. We even have Dr. Andrews as the team doctor.

This is a combination of bad luck mixed with unathletic/injury prone players. If any part of what other teams do that makes them stay healthy was repeatable, the entire NFL would be doing it. The person who knew how to do that would be more valuable than any coordinator position. 

[turtle28]

On 1/15/2019 at 10:12 PM, Slateman said:

You cannot strength and condition your way into avoiding ligament damage brought on by 300+lb humans colliding with you. 

I dont care what you studied in college.  You're wrong. If that were possible, someone would have figured it out by now and made a mountain of money by now.

You even proved my point. We've had multiple different S&C coaches over the last few years with no difference in the results.  

Thank you.