7 Ways to an Inspiring Comeback

Overcoming Injury Using Periodization

If you are a racquetball recreational player coming back from an injury or an elite player wanting to peak your training for that special most important tournament of the year, then you must learn about “periodization”. Periodization means phasing or cycling your training so that you recover from your injury most quickly, or, if you are not injured, to cycle your training so that you avoid over training or burnout. This article will focus on injury recovery. After resting any acute injury and completing physical therapy if indicated, the next cycle in your training and recovery is to strengthen the affected part of your body. While you are strengthening your body at least 3 times a week you can return to the racquetball court to start practicing lob serves. At this point in your recovery, you would want to consider hiring me because I have supervised many players starting at this point all the way back to complete recovery. Besides the strength training and lob serve practice, this phase includes aerobic conditioning as tolerated, in the water with pool training (including racquetball swings with a specialized “water racquet”), stationary bicycling if nonweightbearing is indicated, or “SAQ” (speed, agility, quickness) training if weight bearing is tolerated. The next part of the transition is a gradual progression from slow to high speed agility training. Agility training is where you practice footwork drills on a court, learning to change directions rapidly again without having the worry of a speeding ball or opponent. During this phase harder ball hitting is initiated from a stationary position to relearn pivoting while hitting. Following this phase is playing modified games. E.g., since 80% of racquetball is serving and service return, one of these games involves having the injury overcomer serve to me as the coach, I hit one return shot which has to be perfect or my student will win the point over me. The games gradually get more and more game like with more moving until full recovery. Please note- most of these injury modification games and exercise strategies can be modified to group sessions. Bev Supanick