It’s a familiar story: You play local level sport for most of your life – making friends, being part of the sporting club community and sharing the highs and lows of hard-fought battles on the weekends. As mid-life starts to approach, you’re noticing more muscle strains, pulling up stiff and sore after the weekend, or that annoying pain in your knee that just won’t go away. Then, comes a more serious injury – one that keeps you off the field for a good chunk of the season… you do the right thing and rest – maybe even get some physio treatment so you’re all set to go for next year. Next, a surgery – maybe it’s an ACL or a rotator cuff. This time, it’s not just annoying – it’s meant you can’t work and it’s putting strain on your whole family while you’re incapacitated. It’s just too much to risk again, and your days of being part of the team are over. Is there a way to combat injury risks and maintain your community sports involvement after 40?
Ness is a 45 year old woman who has been involved in a variety of sports from the moment she could walk. Over the years, Ness has played State League level soccer, touch football, OzTag, League Tag, and rugby league with the highlight being her selection for NSW City and playing at the NRL National Women’s Championships, as well as being a keen surfer. She’s also got a physically demanding job, being a professional firefighter for over twenty years and full plate of carer’s responsibilities, with three school aged children and ageing parents. Although her social network has been built around relationship she’s formed through community sport over her life, over the past 10 years, Ness has seen more and more of her friends resign themselves to the role of side-line supporters, or step away completely as they have succumbed to a range of injuries. Having experienced a string of her own in the past five years, she is determined to avoid the same plight as best as she can. In this article, we’ll use Ness as our guinea pig to seek out expert advice on optimising her body against injury risk. We’ll discuss the importance of maintaining physical and mental health through community sports, the risk factors associated with aging, and how proactive measures can help.
The impact of ageing on physical and mental health
Getting older is unavoidable, but there are two very distinct camps of people when it comes to their attitude around ageing. As far as our physical health in concerned, it’s not uncommon to experience decreased flexibility and strength, a propensity to gain weight, and an increased risk of injury. Some factors are a matter of physiology – metabolism changes, hormones, illness or accidents might be unavoidable. More often than not, however, lifestyle is a contributing factor.
For example, a sedentary lifestyle working behind a desk or driving long hours can lead to poor posture and tight hips. In contrast – a physically demanding job or years of playing sport without the proper preparation and recovery can place excessive load on joints and mobility issues. The business of mid-life with full-time work and carer’s responsibilities can leave little time for self care or lead to poor dietary choices, opting for convenience over nutrition. Stress is also a major factor with financial pressures, relationship struggles and work demands impacting our bodies both mentally and physically.
You have a choice – accept it or take steps to combat ageing. The old adage “use it or lose it” might sound trivial, but it’s so very true. We have one vehicle to carry us through life, and it is up to us to service the engine so we can get the most out of it.
Mental health is a huge factor too. Not only does physical activity offer proven benefits to maintaining and improving our mental health, there are obvious mental health implications that come as a result of our loss of physical health as well. Put simply, when it comes to physical and mental wellness – the two are inextricably linked.
Don't underestimate the role of community sports
Photo by Roman Biernacki
The benefits of being involved in local sporting groups and community groups can’t be understated. As a player, there are the obvious physical activity gains to be had and getting a sweat up playing a game with a bunch of your mates is a fun way to get your exercise in. The sense of camaraderie and belonging that team sports offer is also extremely important.
In a post-pandemic world, where more people are working remotely, the coming together with a team on the weekend is a fabulous way of filling our cups when it comes to social interaction, and can be a much needed emotional outlet when life’s other stresses are weighing us down. This social and mental health aspect of what playing sport offers is especially noticeable when it comes to men. Whereas women tend to connect in more incidental ways (dinners with friends, involvement with the school community etc), men are more likely to have those more meaningful conversations with one another over a shared activity. We see this in the way men tend to come together through a shared activity, such as golf, fishing or through an interest in sports.
Of course, the often unsung heroes of our local sporting clubs are the volunteers who aren’t running onto the field each week. For those who do find themselves unable to lace up the boots, being part of the club in another way can still provide an meaningful way to stay connected, but in some cases it can be too frustrating to be that close to the action and not be playing anymore.
Understanding injury risk as we get older
So, what are the common injuries that see people withdraw from weekend warriorhood? While there’s always the potential for a trauma on the sporting field, many injuries can be avoided and stem from muscle imbalance, poor flexibility, and improper technique.
Aaron Sculli is a professional athletic performance coach and the founder of iPerform Lab on the NSW Central Coast. Determined to better her chances at combatting further injuries, Ness visited Aaron to get an injury risk profile done and discover where she could focus her attention.
iPerform Lab is a unique facility where everyday Aussies can get access to world class performance testing equipment and its’ insights – technology that is usually only reserved for elite level athletes. Aaron currently works in the Australian NRL as a strength and conditioning coach for the Newcastle Knights. He has previously held roles with other professional NRL clubs, NSW Wallabies and the NSW Institute of Sport. “My purpose is helping people be the best they can be,” says Aaron.
The Injury Risk Profile came about because Aaron saw how common it was for people to get injured playing recreational sport, particularly as they got older. He wanted to create something to help mitigate that risk for people. “They don’t really do anything leading up to it – that’s specific to that [the sport]. They just go and play OzTag, which is a high speed, high change of direction, highly reactive sport that actually comes with a lot of risk” said Aaron. “If there’s a 15-20 percent imbalance there, there’s a weakness, and that weakness could very well manifest itself in a game like OzTag as a hamstring injury, or a calf injury, or an ACL.”
Check out the video below to hear more about Aaron’s motivation behind launching iPerform Lab.
Strategies for injury prevention
Having access to data such as what can be collected at iPerform Lab is a gamechanger when it comes to identifying imbalances and weaknesses. Unique to Aaron’s offering is the data-driven insights that make up the report he provides following the assessment. Aaron has collected data from athletes that come from a range of different sports, including football, basketball, MMA and surfing, as well as every day ‘non-athletes’ from all ages and genders.
He can tailor his assessment to whatever your goals might be, whether it’s being able to keep working in your chosen profession, peak performance in sports, avoiding injury, or overall longevity. The level of depth his report goes into is second-to-none and can be used as a standalone tool for the individual to adjust their training, or in conjunction with a health professional or fitness trainer, to optimise their plan of action.
“If you think about the medical world – when you hurt yourself, the physio or the doctor sends you to get an x-ray, or an MRI. That MRI brings objectivity to what they already think and how you’re progressing with your recovery. I want to be the x-ray place in the fitness world.” said Aaron.
For most everyday Australians, their injury prevention toolkit is limited to warming up properly and some stretching. Without knowing about underlying weaknesses and imbalances, there’s an obvious vulnerability that simply isn’t being addressed. Aaron has worked with people of all ages and fitness levels. “Seventy-plus men that I’ve had in – they SUP (stand up paddle-board), they surf, they ride… it’s a couple of things for them, that’s going to enable them to do what they’re doing every day for longer. The whole thing is about performance and longevity,” he said.
Image: Aaron Sculli, iPerform lab
Maintaining engagement in community sport
So, aside from identifying where your risk areas lie and addressing them, what else can you do to keep involved in your local sporting team? First of all – knowledge is power, but if you do nothing with that knowledge then it isn’t really serving you. Aaron suggests having a structured training routine that fits in around your chosen sport – one that focuses on strength and mobility. Just because Ness got away with skipping the warmup for the first few decades of her life and running on to the field at the eleventh hour, doesn’t mean she can keep going that way. In order to keep doing the things we love, there has to be a level of commitment in our preparation.
Ness has received her injury risk profile report and has a custom program to work with. So what now?
“I’ve been pretty lucky through my sporting career up until the last year or two, with major injuries mostly resulting from impacts. When I was younger I suffered a knee injury playing rugby league, and it was a shoulder injury when I was about 43 that forced me to hang up my rugby league boots for good. Since then, I have to be honest, my preparation for game day playing 90mins of soccer on the weekend has been pretty limited. I regularly lift weights, surf and play social tennis, but have not done any “sport specific” training for years. I was one of those lucky ones that didn’t have to, but I guess I could only get away with that for so long.” says Ness.
“In the last few years this has definitely caught up with me, as I’ve suffered Achilles pain, strained calf muscles, and this year a pulled hamstring that kept me in goals for a good chunk of 2024 (as a running midfielder, this was far from ideal).
I have lots of friends who have suffered similar re-occuring strains, who feel like their only way to prevent these injuries is to quit playing the sports they love. Witnessing people who thrive on the sporting field, be forced to retire because of injury is heart breaking to see. I feel like I’m at a bit of a tipping point, I can go on as I have been and run the gauntlet for more injuries that could force me out of the sports I love, or I can take a bit of time training and preparing my body for the rigours of weekend sport. I feel like it’s a no-brainer.
Weekend sport is such a positive environment for me, I love being part of a team and it is crucial for me to stay well with my mental health. When I got the opportunity to go to iPerform Lab for an injury risk profile, I was pumped. After my assessment, I got Aaron to use the data to write me an individual training program based on the results. I have had plenty of gym programs over the years, but never one that has been so specifically designed around my physical weaknesses and imbalances. My hamstring is feeling stronger with every session. I’m playing Summer soccer this year, and I am hoping that putting some time and effort into my physical preparation will pay dividends and reduce my chance of injury”.
Proactive injury prevention might not sound fun, but it really is vital as we enter into the middle years of life. Overlooked essentials like balance can be genuine factors in preventing falls and building muscle and strength is more important than ever as our bodies naturally start to lose muscle mass through ageing. Recent statistics tell us that more than 2 in 5 (44 percent) Australian adults experience a mental health disorder at some point in their lives. The numbers are only going upwards and we know that keeping active is a major factor in our mental wellbeing.
In some cases, there does come a time where we need to modify our activities. Full tackle rugby league might be replaced by League Tag or you might switch positions from midfield to stopper in soccer to save you from quite as much running. One thing we know is that once you stop for a few years, it’s hard to get going again, so exploring your options now is imperative.
Of course there are always coaching and manager roles than need filling in community level sports and not only are these the lifeblood of our grassroots sporting clubs, but the friendships built through these roles can last a lifetime.
To find out more about iPeform lab, visit https://iperformlab.com/
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