Why do we care so much about things being sport specific?
In athletics the concept of “sports specific” rehabilitation and/or training has become more and more prevalent over the years. There are endless resources and ready-made programs for strength & conditioning coaches to implement. Rehabilitation programs for Athletic Trainers and other professionals are available for common injuries found in sport. Social media is littered with so called ‘gurus’ who have staked their reputation on being a specialist in a field, quite often related to a sport or philosophy. Some of these people are true experts in their field, others may better be defined as specialists, influencers, and even snake oil salesmen.
The whole concept of making things sports specific seems logical. Programming, either the training or rehabilitation program, focuses on skills needed for the sport, targets muscle groups that will enhance performance, mimic movement specificity to each athlete in competition, and can train energy systems through specific conditioning principles. Of course, there are many more examples of ‘sports specific’ programming too. The whole idea is to make training and rehabilitation translate directly to on-field performance.
I have one question about it: Why does it matter so much?
I’ll go a step further, why has this become so popular?
Now, I’m not saying that this concept is complete BS. I’m also not saying that I don’t apply sport specificity to my programs. I’m simply asking the question: why has this proliferated sports medicine and sports performance?
Do we need to have a solid needs assessment for a sport/athlete that we’re working with as an athletic trainer or strength & conditioning coach? Yes. Do we need to make clinical decisions based on the specificity of both the athlete’s and sport’s needs? Yes. Do we need to introduce concepts of the athlete’s sport into the rehabilitation process so that they feel reconnected with their sport as they heal? Absolutely yes. Do athletes and sport coaches need to understand the correlation between training and on-field performance? Of course they do.
Research on early sports specialization is continuing to show how hyper focusing on one sport is generally bad for patient long term health and well-being. Early sport specialization is corelated with increased risk of overuse injuries…could this be where ‘sports specific rehabilitation’ fever came from? In my mind, yes. Obviously, we need to prepare injured athletes for the demands of their sport while helping them heal. But, isn’t it more important to restore function? Isn’t it more important to restore athleticism? Isn’t it more important to fix the problem, rather than just get people back on the field by any means necessary? Finally, isn’t it more important to get athletes to move well and promote healthy lifestyle habits, rather than just focus on them as athletes? They aren’t JUST athletes.
I’m not in favor of throwing the baby out with the bath water; having specificity to an athlete’s sport is important to achieve results. I am saying, focusing on ‘sport specific’ things all the time is stupid.
Can’t we focus on developing better athletes, regardless of sport? Shouldn’t we rehabilitate an injury based on the individual, not their sport? Are strength & conditioning coaches responsible for developing better athletes or are they responsible for only enhancing their performance in their sport? Shouldn’t we let the sport coaches worry about most of the sports specific details?
Every sport is different. Every athlete is different. Every injury is different. So, why are we over complicating everything? We have too much sport specialization already, I think it’s more important to focus on simple things: just rehabilitate the injury, improve athleticism and movement quality, and don’t worry about anything else. As Athletic Trainers, we have enough responsibility. If we just focus on the little wins of return-to-function and return-to-sport, everything will take care of itself. Besides, not everyone should be a specialist. You wouldn’t expect an orthopedic surgeon to perform an advanced brain surgery, just like I wouldn’t expect a brain surgeon to repair an ACL.
If we get too focused on the sports specific fever, what are we missing? There are plenty of big buckets we need to fill as movement professionals. Is the ‘sport specific’ bucket the bucket we should always be focusing on?
