The morning after her first footy practice session, Catherine Haslock knew she was in a fight.
“I basically pulled lame,” she said.
“My thighs couldn’t run and kick at the same time.”
The Melburnian had just joined the 35+ team at Darebin Falcons AFLW. And because she’d been cycling every day for years and was no stranger to kicking soccer around, she assumed she’d be fine.
“I thought I was a reasonably fit person, but when I started playing football I realized my body just wasn’t up to it,” says Catherine.
Her hamstrings were so tight and sore that she couldn’t complete a full workout for weeks.
“I was really frustrated in the first sessions because I really wanted to participate.
“It made me feel really old and unfit, and that’s not how I perceived myself before I started.”
It was slow going, but Catherine’s legs eventually got used to kicking, sprinting, and stopping quickly.
Now that lockdowns appear to be behind us, various leagues and tournaments are up and running again and Masters competitions – which typically attract those aged 35 and over – are no exception.
There seems to be more demand for Masters sports these days, says Mandy Hagstrom, a sports scientist at UNSW.
“People will often want to come back for the social connection, maybe they’ve gotten to the point where their kids are self-sufficient enough to get back into exercise, or maybe they don’t just want to go to the gym.
“We now also have a better knowledge of what is happening to our bodies [as we age]but maybe our approach to that hasn’t quite caught up.”
Australia doesn’t collect data on injuries sustained in community sports, but ask around any Masters team and you’ll find many who suffered sprains, strains and pain early in their playing careers.
So if you’re interested in starting a new sport as a 35+ year old, how can you play without taking an early break?
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It’s never too early to prepare
There’s not much you can do about injury, such as being knocked down or being enthusiastically attacked. However, they can reduce the risk of non-contact soft tissue injuries such as muscle strains.
According to Alan Hayes, a muscle and exercise physiologist at Victoria University, this preparation is less about overall fitness and more about getting your body used to the movements your new sport will require.
“If you take an elite AFL footballer and have him play a professional tennis match, there’s a good chance he’ll get injured,” he says.
“They may be fit enough, but they’re not used to using their arms in the same way or the sideways movements that tennis players do all the time.”
Ultimately, it boils down to conditioning your body in preparation for the season so your muscles are used to the activities they will actually be doing once you train and play properly.
It’s helpful to talk to club managers, coaches and players to find out what goals you should achieve before the season starts and then work backwards from there to outline a training plan.
So if you’re thinking of taking up a new sport early next year, now is the time to plan your preparation for the season, says Professor Hayes.
“The later you leave it, the more difficult it becomes.”
build me up
It may be tempting to go to the gym with a heavy weight and low reps, but that doesn’t reflect the reality of the sport, where you’re likely to kick, throw, or jump over and over again — not just once or twice.
“Rather than lifting really big, heavy weights, which is more for height, you can lift lighter weights for 15 to 20 reps,” says Professor Hayes.
“When you use free weights, you can set your grip and weight in different orientations, because in many sports you don’t know exactly what angle and position your body is at when you’re applying forces.
Done correctly, kettlebell swings can help condition your hamstrings, glutes, and back muscles for explosive power on the field.Getty Images: Thomas Barwick)
“You don’t always walk in a straight line, for example.”
Of course, there is no machine in the gym that can fully replicate the feeling of kicking a soccer ball or hitting a tennis ball.
It’s a cliché, but practice makes perfect.
The more comfortable you feel performing an action and the more natural it feels to you, the less likely you are to injure yourself, says Professor Hayes.
“A lot of people can run, but if you hold a soccer ball in front of them and they suddenly have to kick while running, they become less coordinated and that increases the risk of injury.”
The line between good and bad pain
It’s normal to feel a little pain when you start moving your body in new ways.
When you exercise, the muscles that do the work and the connective tissues around them become damaged, hence post-exercise pain.
As your muscles repair this damage, they grow back stronger.
The trick is knowing when that pain turns into a warning that you’re taking it too far.
On a pain scale of one to ten, two or three — more of an uncomfortable feeling — is usually fine and a sign the muscle is adapting to exercise, says Professor Hayes.
“But once you start hitting fives and sixes, you could be stressing the muscle beyond what could absolutely be safe.
“If you come eight to nine, of course you stop.”
Don’t forget that you need time to recover and also give your muscles a chance to rebuild.
Overtraining is just as bad as undertraining, and according to Professor Hayes, two to three sessions a week is enough for beginners.
And when your team hits the pub after practice, don’t reward yourself with a few pints. Alcohol can increase inflammation, increase swelling, and slow healing time.
Important: If you are not ready for the first game of the tournament or league, do not play.
“The temptation is always that people want to play in the first round and as soon as you play under 100 percent things can go wrong.”
Even professional athletes fall into the trap of gambling before their bodies are ready.
“Oftentimes, AFL players who have a disrupted preseason will have minor soft-tissue injuries recurring throughout the season, even when being cared for by professionals, from trying to play round one,” says Professor Hayes.
Remember to give yourself a break
Even before you step onto the pitch, court, or field, it pays to get checked out by your GP, says Dr. Hagstrom, especially if you’re a little older or play a high-impact, high-intensity sport.
“I would go to my GP and say, ‘I haven’t done an exercise program, but I want to do a sport that involves high-intensity running. Can I train safely?’” she says.
A 2018 Canadian study looked at about 800 Masters athletes and found that nearly 8 percent had underlying coronary artery disease.
And while sudden cardiac death is rare, a handful of studies have shown that coronary artery disease is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in people aged 35 and older who play recreational sports, particularly in beginners.
Along with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, the reality is that older athletes’ muscles just aren’t what they used to be.
As we hit our 30s and 40s, muscle mass, strength, and power begin to decline. The muscle fibers that allow us to make sudden, powerful movements like sprinting and jumping begin to shrink.
Menopause makes this worse, says Dr. hagstrom When estrogen levels drop, so does muscle mass.
So if you find that you’re not improving as quickly as you might have when you were younger, don’t worry about it.
In hindsight, Catherine already has plans to prepare her body for the 2023 season.
“I plan to meet up with teammates and follow in their footsteps and walk around a bit and keep doing that until practice really starts.”
Joining the Falcons, she says, is “the best thing I’ve done in a long time.”
“Even though I had all the frustrations that my body wasn’t quite up to it at first, I absolutely loved it all.”
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