At times, critical choices are necessary to reach a goal.
This was the case for Darya Klishina who took an intense route in her preparations for the world championships in London 2017, training for long periods of time far from home.
In addition to determination, talent and commitment, even the choice of the athlete’s working team is crucial. Being coached by Loren Seagrave, a guru within the international sports community, surely had a profoundly positive impact on her performance in London. And an important silver finish made all the blood, sweat and tears along the road to get there worth it.
As developers of technology, applications and programmes to optimise performance, we often find ourselves explaining the importance of continuity. Ten days of treatments carried out consistently and continuously will triple the quality of the results compared to the same number of treatments spread out, unstructured, over the season.
With Darya Klishina, we had the perfect opportunity to illustrate this axiom. In addition to treating her during the main events of this year’s Diamond League events, as we do with many other athletes, we worked with Darya to create a special 2-week project carried out in the final training period leading up to the 2017 world championships.
Special thanks and congratulations go to the senior WINTECARE specialist Simone Collio, who has accomplished an extraordinary task.
Without going too far into detail, we can summarise a few of the project’s most important elements: the athlete’s physical condition is a crucial starting point to carrying out quality work in a period which is so close to the competition.
Even if perfectly trained and in top condition, an athlete may be experiencing fatigue due to the training programme’s high level of intensity, which must be managed as a top priority to avoid complications.
And every athlete, no matter how perfectly trained or fit, has his/her Achilles heel – structural fragility of the hamstrings or adductors, tendon insertions prone to inflammation, stress reactions or stress fractures in certain parts of the body invoked by the athlete’s speciality. No performance programme can be effective without knowing these critical points inside and out. They’re to be identified, explored and taken into consideration for each and every treatment.
As a third stage, we concentrate on biomechanics. In this specific area, three heads are better than one, and collaboration is essential between the athlete, coach and therapist, who must become one single team.
A given treatment is created according to the day’s training programme and the athlete’s feedback with respect to how s/he feels about the practice session held the day before.
Multiple daily treatments are a good way to increase effectiveness and to be able to use different stimuli and tools according to that specific moment. What happens in a PRE-workout treatment session is much different than that which happens in a POST-workout one.
The impact which the treatments have on the athlete’s focus aren’t to be underestimated either. There are specific therapeutic actions which can help improve attention, proving to be incredibly useful when training revolves around coordination and precision.
We’re in seventh heaven for Darya and we congratulate her for having achieved her goal in London. We can’t wait to see her back in action again.
