In our latest Triage Militia article, we discussed the relationship between training load & injury risk.
Some of the key points that you can take away are:
• Session RPE is a valid and reliable method of calculating training load.
• Injury risk can be estimated via the acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) (rolling average or estimated mean weight average), or the weekly change in load.
• An ACWR of 0.8-1.3 seems to be a good general recommendation.
• Load increases of 5-10% per week are probably a good idea, with greater spikes increasing injury risk.
• The relationship between load & injury risk is not as simple as some dogma would suggest — more load doesn’t equal more injury risk, and higher chronic training loads may have protective effects.
While the article is on our membership site, here are some papers that are worth a read:
Eckard, T., Padua, D., Hearn, D., Pexa, B. and Frank, B. (2018). The Relationship Between Training Load and Injury in Athletes: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine, 48(8), pp.1929-1961.
Gabbett, T. (2016). The training—injury prevention paradox: should athletes be training smarter and harder?. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(5), pp.273-280.
Hulin, B., Gabbett, T., Lawson, D., Caputi, P. and Sampson, J. (2015). The acute:chronic workload ratio predicts injury: high chronic workload may decrease injury risk in elite rugby league players. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(4),
pp.231-236.
Soligard, T., Schwellnus, M., Alonso, J., Bahr, R., Clarsen, B., Dijkstra, H., Gabbett, T., Gleeson, M., Hägglund, M., Hutchinson, M., Janse van Rensburg, C., Khan, K., Meeusen, R., Orchard, J., Pluim, B., Raftery, M., Budgett, R. and Engebretsen, L. (2016). How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(17), pp.1030-1041.
If you have anymore questions, feel free to email back and ask us anything you wish.
Kind Regards,
The Triage Team
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