AWBASICS BOUNCING back from injury How can you return as quickly as possible from an injury setback? AW Basicsexplains Icing injuries is one of thekey stages of treatment

ALMOST every athlete will suffer from an injury at some stage in their life and the most important piece of advice is not to train or race on an injury. Trying to rush back will only lead to problems. However, there are ways to get back on track sooner rather than later and here are some ideas to help you prevent a small niggle becoming something more serious and longterm.

RICE – Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation THIS acronym is one of the bestknown in sport and should be the first thing on your mind if you feel you have an injury. It is particularly important during the first 48 hours of feeling the injury. Whether your problem is a sprained ankle or an overuse injury, attentive care during these early stages can substantially speed your recovery. Rest can be anything from a complete lay-off to simply slowing down and cutting back your training load considerably. Sometimes you can train gently through some minor injuries, but if they show no sign of improving then back right off.

Injuries should be compressed and elevated simultaneously

It is better to take a few days off training in order to let an injury fully heal than try to train through it only to make it worse and end up having to spend weeks or even months on the sidelines. To help deal with any frustration – and also aid your fitness during this break – then do some cross-training – cycling, swimming or gymwork – assuming they do not aggravate the injured part of your body. Icing an injury can be done with a bag of crushed ice, or by rubbing ice cubes on the skin. Just watch you don’t give yourself ice burn. Some companies also make special cold wraps too – which can be useful, although they are of course more expensive than ice or a bag of frozen peas, which many athletes use when injured. Spend a few minutes chilling the area and then repeat this several times during the day. Compression and elevation are done simultaneously. Simply wrap the injured extremity in an elastic bandage and prop it on a stool. Some people are led to believe heat is better than cold in treating injuries. It feels nicer for starters. However, during the early stages of an injury, ice is far better as it helps reduce inflammation. Heat is more likely to make the injury worse

because it will cause the area to swell. So whereas sportspeople used to get into warm baths two or three decades ago, in the modern age they are more likely to jump into an ice bath to chill their limbs following a hard session or competition. But as the injury begins to heal (that is, after several days) try alternating hot and warm treatments. The heat opens the blood vessels and flushes nutrients to the site of the injury and the cold then shuts the blood vessels back down again and prevents inflammation. Over the counter antiinflammatories such as aspirin and ibuprofen can also help by reducing the swelling of an injury. But be

Injury is part and parcel of athletics

careful not to take too many. Consult your doctor if you have any medical problems and study the label before giving any to children.

Should you stretch an injured area? INJURED tissue has generally been overstretched, from overuse or a sudden pull, so further determined stretching of the area is usually not advisable. However, total immobility is also bad, so very gentle stretching is often better. This will increase the blood flow to the area and promote healing and also prevent the tissue from becoming less flexible – and more injury-prone – as it heals.

Seek help from a professional IF you sustain an injury, reading up on the potential problem yourself will do no harm. But if the injury is more serious than a minor niggle, or if that niggle persists for some time, then book up to see a sports injury specialist. They will then be able to give you advanced therapies that will speed up the healing process such as ultrasound, massage, taping and electrical stimulation.

Getting back to action IF you feel the injury is healed or has subsided, then move back gently into your athletics. The longer you have spent on the sidelines, the more slowly you should build back into your usual training routine. Returning to running, for example, after a week off is not too hard. But coming back to running after two or three months off will require a gentler approach. Start with very slow jogging for no more than five to ten minutes on your first few days back. Be careful – and try to avoid whatever you think may have caused your injury (running downhill or on the roads, wearing old trainers, etc).

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Product of the week ... This week AW Basics recommends a book on cooking ...

FOOD FOR FITNESSby Anita Bean is a sports nutrition book and recipe guide in one. Such is its popularity, the third edition of this book has just been released and improvements include the high-quality colour photography and new recipes (there are 99 in total) and up-todate research. Judging from initial appearances, it seems this book is a simple guide aimed at housewives who want to spend 30 minutes keeping fit three times per week. But that would be doing the book a grave disservice. Instead, such is the attention to detail, there are different sections on

nutritional strategies for not only running but also other similar endurance sports such as cycling, swimming and triathlon. Indeed, the section on nutritional strategies for runners includes:

Information on carbo-loading.

Examples of pre-race meals and post-race snacks.

Advice on drinking during a race.

How to avoid hitting the wall in the marathon and preventing diarrhoea during an event. The book also, very usefully, explains in layman’s terms the many ingredients in popular food supplements. Ever wondered what

conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is for instance? Or the difference between glucosamine and glutamine? It is all explained in Food for Fitness. FOOD For Fitnessby Anita Bean is published by A&C Black (£12.99)

The inspirational English Schools

IF you are not good enough to make your county team for this month’s English Schools’ Championships, do not let that stop you going, writes Jason Henderson. Watching the best young athletes in the country is an inspirational sight

for young athletes and coaches and is highly recommended. As a young distance runner, I made the English Schools’ Cross Country Championships once, but was never quick enough to qualify for the English Schools’ Track and

Sainsbury’s gets youngsters on the move

LINKED to its sponsorship of the English Schools, Sainsbury’s ‘Active Kids’ scheme continues to grow in popularity two years after it was launched in 2005. The Sainsbury’s Active Kids aims to get Britain’s children more active and eating healthily and this ground-breaking initiative has developed into the nation’s biggest school sports scheme. Much of the programme is based around customers earning Active Kids vouchers, which can then be exchanged for sporting equipment. And in total Sainsbury’s customers have given more than 26,000 schools (four out of five in the UK) a total of £34 million of sports equipment. Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers can be donated to any school, Scout or Guide group participating in the scheme and redeemed for over 450 different pieces of exciting sports equipment – everything from space hoppers, to skipping ropes, trampolines, climbing walls and cricket bats. Athletics-related items also figure high on the list of the most popular pieces of equipment to

be ordered through last year’s Active Kids scheme. They are: bean bags (57,684 collected), skipping ropes (57,429), playground ball sets (55,872), foam javelins (13,889) and stopwatches (13,068). With over 1.7 million children in England alone expected to be obese by 2010, Sainsbury’s efforts in this area are being widely applauded. SEE www.sainsburys.co.uk/activekids

Redeem your vouchers for equipment

Field Championships. But, aged 21, I went along to the event in Derby in 1990 and left the arena inspired by what I had seen and keen to take to the track to improve my own performances. This year’s event is being staged at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium on Friday and Saturday July 13-14. You can guarantee that some of the athletes will go on to compete for Britain at senior level and may even win Olympic medals one day. But many of the also-rans who finish further down the field could be destined for great things and it is good fun trying to spot who you think has the most potential. At the turn of the millennium the future of the English Schools’ Championships looked in doubt due to lack of funds, but a number of former athletes began a campaign to “save the Schools” and the event then found a sponsor in the guise of Sainsbury’s. The supermarket giant now supports the event, which will be held for the 77th time this month.

FOR ticket information call 0121-4648 0008 or see esaa.net. The championships will also be shown on Sky Sports from 2.30-5.30pm on July 14

Web wise Stop surfing around and let AW Basicsdo the legwork for you instead. Every week we profile the most informative and inspirational sites on the net

www.iaaf.org UNLESS you are a total beginner to athletics, you will be aware of this site. It is run by the global governing body of the sport – the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – and is one of the best sources for athletes and coaches. The site carries reports and news stories from major world events, many of which are organised by the IAAF itself. It also has an extensive section on statistics, with annual and all-time world ranking lists in every track and field event, plus details such as continental records. There is a calendar of events, with links to top events around the globe. There are useful sections on anti-doping, competition rules, addresses of national governing bodies, advice for coaches and officials and the history of the sport. Certainly, if you have a strong interest in athletics outside the UK, then iaaf.org is an essential place to visit.

Want to see your name in Athletics Weekly? EVER wondered how to get yourself into the results pages of AW? If we printed every run, jump and throw that took place in the UK, we would probably need a magazine with a thousand pages every week, so in order to make best use of our space we only print results that make certain standards. There are standards for every event in every age group – from young athletes through to masters or veterans – and these can be seen on pages 52-53 of this issue. In addition to this, results and rankings are available on our sister website athleticsdata.com. If your performances have been improving, have a look to see if you are there. For most athletes it has traditionally been a milestone when their name appears in the magazine for the first time.

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