Keeping Olympic triathletes in top form
Photo: Emma Snowsill, © Eyes Wide Open Images
For the past eighteen months La Trobe University sports physiotherapist Mark Alexander has been helping boost the gold medal chances of Australia's Olympic triathlon team – and prevent injuries to team members.
Mr Alexander, a lecturer in physiotherapy, heads to Beijing with the team in August. As sports physio to the team, he has so far kept all six members free of major injuries during their pre-Games training.
An injury, according to the coach's blueprint for the team, is a 'muscular or skeletal symptom' that puts the contestant out of training for one to two weeks or more. Mr Alexander's role is to ensure minor weaknesses are rectified with massage, manipulation, acupuncture and exercise.
For training camps, Mr Alexander assesses all athletes from head to toe and puts programs in place to deal with such things as tight muscles, stiff backs and stiff joints.
He says the triathlon team has a few good medal chances. In events scheduled for 18 and 19 August, Emma Snowsill is one of the gold medal favourites for the women. She won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 and has been world champion three times.
'She's a world-class athlete,' says the physiotherapist. 'She's had a great injury-free run.' Brad Kahlefeldt was also a gold medallist in Melbourne. He came third in the world championships and is also a medal favourite for Beijing. 'If we don't get a medal the team will be disappointed.'
Mr Alexander runs La Trobe's popular Master of Sports Physiotherapy program, most of which is done off-campus in clinical placements to suit busy professionals.
One of his ex-students is a physio with the English Olympic team while others work for the AFL and have followed him into the Australian Olympic team.
'My main roles are injury prevention and performance enhancement,' he says. 'If an athlete sprains an ankle I treat it and try and prevent further injury. Unless it is treated properly the athlete won't perform at a high level.'
A sprained ankle may mean just one or two days off training with proper care. A stress fracture is more serious.
'One of our athletes got a stress fracture and they're out for three months. We performed our role but sometimes it comes down to training decisions made by the coach and athlete.'
Mr Alexander likens an Olympic performer to a thoroughbred. 'You are treading a tight line between hard training and tipping over the edge into injury.'
A triathlete must swim 1.5 kilometres, ride 40 kilometres and run 10 kilometres. This takes women about two hours and men an hour and fifty minutes.
'Athletes of this calibre are a different breed of people,' he says. 'Their specific psychology allows them to get to this level and sustain it. They are very dedicated, overachieving, persevering and sometimes can be obsessive and self-driven.'
Mr Alexander comes out of the competitive sports tradition himself. He ran in track events at State level as a teenager and wanted to be an Olympic athlete, but came up against what he calls his 'genetic limitations'.
Now, instead of pushing his own sports career, he is keen to put his expertise to good use, not just for top athletes but for the public as well. He is writing a book on back pain for the general public – an ailment that affects ninety per cent of people.