Have you ever wondered what is common and what is the difference between professional athletes and the most advanced amateurs? Well, let’s say, among skiers (we choose this fashionable, advanced and generally wonderful sport quite arbitrarily).
Inventory? Well, yes, we probably have more pairs of skis and the manufacturers try to bring us the latest models first – but all skiers know that in certain conditions skis from years past roll better. For example, I ran the relay at the Olympics not on the latest model, it shows in the photo. The military will put sandblasting and “rolling” powders for us and for you. In general, skiing and its preparation are accessible to amateurs in almost the same way as to professionals.
Knowledge of trainers? Of course, the level of the coach is of fundamental importance. But now more and more often the trainer monitors your condition remotely, also sets tasks – everything is based on readings from sensors on the athlete’s chest and wrist. There are even attempts to create algorithms that will “train”, completely replacing the coach, based on objective data. This is probably the future, but in principle today, as an amateur athlete, you can convince a specialist, even of the highest class, to write you a training program, and then control the process . There are quite a few such advanced wealthy amateurs, for whom it is a matter of principle that their national team coaches “lead”, in Norway, Sweden, Finland … I personally know a couple of them.
So what is the difference? Oh, it is fundamental and not only separates the amateurs from the professionals, but also makes the top teams inaccessible to the lesser. It is thanks to this advantage that a professional will almost always beat an amateur, and a Russian or Norwegian athlete will beat a conditional Pole or Canadian.
Those who read Sergei Ustyugov’s latest interviews paid attention to where he says exactly what it’s like to stay in the national team and why it will be much more difficult outside the team.
Medical help. I totally agree.
Sport, especially the sport of great achievement, is truly endless, pushing your body into a zone of absolute discomfort every day. The body is like an engine, constantly spinning at high speed in the red zone. Almost every day you don’t reach your hotel room – you crawl there.
Professional sports are not a “pleasant pain in tight muscles”. These are problems with the body that keep coming out of somewhere, each of which can undo months of intensive training.
It seems to me that many fans do not fully understand that today the team doctor and physiotherapist are not only important – they are key members of the team, participants in the process.
No column is enough to describe how many times (in just a season and a half!) I have been saved from a failed practice or race, put together by the national team physiotherapists. The main “physios”, as we call them, have their own secrets for preparing the muscles before the race – and such exercises really work. Massage is necessary at least twice a week, from one to one and a half hours. In case of problems – much more often and longer. And a specialist must be “narrow”, understand the specifics of the muscle fibers of his particular sport, the “physio” of the wrestlers will not suit us, and vice versa.
The area of responsibility of team physicians is usually immense.
I still see in this part of my story the smirks of some particularly cynical readers, who, with the expression “team doctor”, see handfuls and liters of prohibited substances being used. I will answer: in 2022, it is enough to be an enchanting idiot to deliberately take something to the forbidden. We are so often and suddenly tested that it is simply unthinkable. Any prohibited pharmaceutical can only enter the body by mistake.
Another thing is that we are all very nervous, we are afraid of accidentally eating or drinking something. Not necessarily from the WADA / RUSADA list – for such cases there is a very intelligible online guide: what is possible, what is not. But only a qualified sports doctor can advise taking a particular drug – or the side effects of it for that particular athlete are such that you can end up without a season at all. Although the decision always remains with the athlete. We athletes are responsible for everything that enters our bodies.
The most important weapon in our doctors’ arsenal is advanced trauma management techniques. Injuries are an inevitable companion. If you come to the national team, you can be woken up at three in the morning and you can confidently name the difference between bursitis and tendinitis, I don’t know of any exceptions.
Here is an abbreviated and incomplete list of how team doctor Anastasia Tikhonova works with me every week: shock wave therapy, acupuncture, laser therapy, electromagnetic therapy, cryotherapy… For each type – special devices, sharpened for sports injuries. “On the device”, as they say, with a doctor it takes at least an hour a day on average, plus an independent striker and pressotherapy (pneumatic compression, these are such “pants”) – this is a hour more.
Now imagine that you are, well, the most advanced amateur athlete on a very decent budget. Maybe you even have 4-5 hours a day to train, such people of free professions are known to me among “amateurs”.
But do you still have three hours for recovery and therapy? Do you have the best healthcare professionals in your industry working with you? Do they have the full arsenal of necessary devices?
That’s why we run faster than you. This is why the Canadians and the Poles, who do not have a significant part of our capacities (and the talent of our specialists), are losing us.
Science, supply and qualification.
Miracles don’t happen.
Other columns of Veronika Stepanova on :
Source : MatchTV
I am Sandra Jackson, a journalist and content creator with extensive experience in the news industry. I have been working in the news media for over five years. During this time, I have worked as an author and editor at various outlets producing high-quality content that attracts readers from different demographics.
