Cricket Tests
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Gentle exercises do wonders for a fast bowler's back and joints, UQ physiotherapists have shown.
Australia's best young cricketers at Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence in Brisbane earlier this year spent 13 weeks re-learning how to flex their deep stomach and back muscles to stop joint and muscle injuries.
Centre of Excellence performance co-ordinator Dr Shaun McMahon said the program had resulted in significant improvements in the deep muscles of the squad of 24.
Dr McMahon said there were even improvements in players who already had good core muscles. He said cricketers, particularly injury-prone fast bowlers, were just as likely as Australian Rules footballers to suffer muscle pain.
Scans of the cricket squad had revealed players who used their stability muscles incorrectly had wasted back muscles and switched all their abdominal muscles on or off at once.
Nine players, mostly bowlers, said they had some back pain before their scans and two players were ruled out of the squad due to a stress fracture of the back and a shoulder reconstruction.
The players followed a gentle exercise program similar to Pilates under the guidance of UQ senior physiotherapy lecturer Dr Julie Hides and her team from the Division of Physiotherapy and The School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.
They followed simple exercises using mats and leg loading, progressing to exercise balls. Some of the exercises involved players lying down and tensing their lower stomach without moving their back or while still on their back, raising one leg with a bent knee.
Dr Hides said some players had lost their deep muscle use because their brains had forgotten how to coordinate the body's natural corset after injury.
She said they were taught movements, not heavy physical exercises, to re-learn how to use those hidden muscles for joint stability and pain relief.
"It's really brain work. The bowlers have really had to go back to basic levels and re-learn a pattern that will protect their back sitting and standing," Dr Hides said.
"This is a very effective strategy for motor re-learning. They start off in a lying position and progress to learning control of their deep muscles in sitting and standing before progressing to more commonly used exercises."
While it was not hard to envisage "couch potatoes" with back problems, she said most people would not expect it of top athletes.
"They're our best physical specimens and yet nine of them have motor control problems beneath the surface," Dr Hides said.
"Ideally we would like to develop preventative programs for these athletes, rather than trying to treat problems after they have occurred."
Dr McMahon, a former UQ student, said the aim of the partnership with UQ was to test the squad's training program and have a history of players' back pain.
He said he believed the study provided more evidence on the sorts of exercises that cricketers, particularly fast bowlers, had to do to improve any back pain and their postural muscles.
Study results will be used for the Centre's cricketing program next year and will be sent to Cricket Australia.
More Information: www.shrs.uq.edu.au/physio
