00:01The University of Trinidad and Tobago has been making strides in sport in TNT by fielding teams ranging from cricket
00:08to track and field to football, basketball and netball.
00:12The school also possesses a battery of experts in the various fields like Clayton Morris for football and Tony Gray
00:18for cricket.
00:19And they've been researching ways to get the best out of their athletes.
00:23Considering that some of their sportsmen and women represent TNT, their research also acts as a sample of the national
00:29sporting sector.
00:31When it comes to sport injury prevention, head of UTT's rehabilitation unit Adrian Palmer found an alarming statistic.
00:38So look at injuries, as I said, knee is normally the most dominant injury and even our data in the
00:44past would have shown that.
00:46So during the period we had about 30 different cases of knee injuries that were reported and were treated.
00:53Followed by foot and ankle injuries.
00:56And this is something to note.
00:57I'm not sure what different happened this year, but it's something for us to look into.
01:03Digging deeper into the issue, he noted that athletes with a higher attendance to strength and conditioning sessions, well, they
01:10had a lower incidence of injuries.
01:12In addition, he believes that there needs to be a change in the mindset towards pre-season training.
01:17A lot of times in our context, we have this attitude of considering the pre-season as a relaxed period
01:25because it's not a competitive season.
01:28And that is something that we have to change because, you see, the pre-season should ideally be used to
01:36prepare our athletes for competition.
01:39During the pre-season, he indicated athletes should focus on re-establishing sports-specific skills, refining tactics, increasing training loads
01:48and physical conditioning.
01:50He added that failure to address injuries can lead to, well, other injuries.
01:55Even injuries like an ACL injury, that is associated with the risk of subsequent hamstring injuries.
02:03When we look at previous lower limb injuries, these are associated with other lower limb injuries in different sites.
02:11Former Jamaican female sprinter and the sporting administrator, Grace Jackson, gave an anecdotal experience on what happens when athletes put
02:19emphasis on proper strength training.
02:22I like to talk about this workout that I used to do because I think it was the genesis of
02:27my improvement in the 400.
02:29It was an 8 times 400, 2 minutes rest.
02:33Right?
02:35Psychologically, it is like, oh my goodness, this is not possible, that sort of thing.
02:40And then when you see the 800 runners doing it and you say, oh, let me try and stay with
02:44them.
02:46Psychologically, what you are building within the athletes that you are training is you need to be tough and you
02:53need to be tougher than whatever the event you are in.
02:56Jackson's consistent focus on injury prevention practices saw her rise to prominence in the late 1980s when she eventually won
03:04a silver medal in the 200 meters at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
03:09Flo Jo took the gold.
03:1149-4 TV6 board.
03:1321-34!
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