Coaches Cause Injury
(Note - this post updated 19-11-13) I coach developing athletes. One of the keys with this is teaching a good quality technical basis for the skills they need to become expert in. We work in on these techniques in 2 different ways: establish the flexibility and strength to execute the skills, and teach the technical aspects of the skills. Even with enormous care in developing the physical parameters concurrently with the technical parameters, athletes get injured. It occurs to me that without a coach teaching these techniques, players would focus very little on technique, and just 'play'. When they just play it is likely that they will only use techniques which fall within the range their body can properly support. Basically, they would naturally reduce their injury risk by playing within their physical limitations. Which makes me think, maybe coaching is actually causing some injuries in athletes. By teaching athletes techniques that are at the limits of their