THERAPEUTIC MAGAZINE
S P O R T S P H Y S I O T H E R A P I S T AT R O YA L R A C I N G C L U B D E BRUXELLES
“The most important things for a good recovery are sleep, hydration and nutrition.” – Xavier Troessaert –
Holder of a sports physical therapy diploma awarded by ULB in 2011, Xavier Troessaert quickly became involved in the medical supervision of hockey club Royal Racing Club de Bruxelles. This team plays at the highest Belgian level with players from various national teams (Belgium, Canada, France, Ireland, etc.). Due to his sporting past in volleyball, Troessaert always felt particularly attracted to competitive sports. Setting up the most efficient framework possible is his way of contributing to the team’s performance. His motto is: players must be at their best every day, so we should try to do the same! Mr Troessaert, how do you deal with the recovery aspect within the club where you work? First of all, it is important to clarify exactly what we mean by recovery. The work and performance of an athlete is a continuous effort. Truly empty moments between matches, training sessions, sessions in the gym, and so on are extremely rare. So I prefer to speak of ‘load management’. Indeed, depending on the work being done, the body will be challenged in some way to generate a benefit at the end of the period required for this adjustment. And this certainly includes the mental aspect. It is therefore necessary to clearly indicate which structure (nervous system, cardiovascular system, joints, muscles, etc.) is to be addressed and in what way (volume, intensity, aggressiveness) in each of the scheduled working sessions. Depending on this, we can estimate/ monitor the time the body needs to adapt. This is where the concept of ‘optimal loading’ comes into play, which we try to put into practice every day in physical development but also in rehabilitation.
So, adequate monitoring is very important? That’s right. And we use various tools to monitor all this, because we want to know how the athlete reacts to the different applied stresses (physical or even mental). First and foremost we have the ‘Daily Morning Report’, a daily collection of data relating to sleep (quality/quantity), pain, fatigue, stress, etc
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