Sideline Conditioning

Collegiate athletics offers fans an opportunity to witness great plays, athletes a chance to compete and Strength Coaches a chance to figure out how to make this happen. What I mean by this is that the athlete has to be strong, fast and powerful to compete at the highest levels of competition. To attain these attributes they have to train, and train hard.
I wasn't long into my Strength and Conditioning career when I learned that not everyone is able to do the pre-planned workouts. Not long after that I realized that if they can't do it in the weight room, most likely they can't do it on the field or at least not do it well whatever it is. For a sport like football this is more than obvious.
In the weight room you can replace an exercise that might aggravate the shoulder with an injury. On the practice field where that injury may prevent full participation, there is no such substitute. Either you do the job or you don't. All or nothing. In or out. It's not an a la cart situation where you take what you want and leave what you don't.
This brings on the need for a modified conditioning plan for athletes that are sidelined with an injury. This can be called a "sideline reconditioning" program. When the rest of the team is practicing, there is still plenty of opportunity to get better. There are a multitude of steps and departments that have to be coordinated to make this happen.
These steps are:

1. Communication between Sports Medicine, Coaches, and Strength and Conditioning
2. Movement Assessment
3. Corrective Exercise strategy
4. Execution and observation
5. Re-assessment
6. Plan modification

This is the first of many blog entries that address this issue that affects every collegiate sport program, personal trainer or anyone that works with a client/athlete that has sport performance goals but is limited by injury or discomfort.