Apr 22 2011
How The Mountain Bike Has Benefited The Professional Footballer
Due to the fact that top professional footballers are worth so much money to their club and the high wages that they are paid; most of them are banned from undertaking extreme sports. Clubs are unable to insure their players for such activities due to the fact that the risk of injury is so high. Yet there has been a move towards using the mountain bike in professional football in recent years. Read on to discover why this is the case.
Aiding recovery
The first use of the mountain bike in professional football came about as a way of helping injured players overcome injuries. Of course players were not permitted undertake extreme mountain biking, but their clubs did realise that casual riding offered benefits in recovery. Clubs found that cycling is a great way for their players to rebuild muscle tissue in their legs without having to subject the body to activities that cause impact, such as jogging. In the past swimming had been the preferred sport for this stage of rehabilitation, but clubs now began using both in unison to build muscle and improve joint movement.
Injury avoidance
The next step of the role of the mountain bike in football was to help prevent players from sustaining injuries in the first place. Football clubs always worry in the build-up to big games that one of their best players will pick up an injury. By getting their players to carry out fitness conditioning on bikes rather than through running and jogging clubs remove the risk of impact injuries and twisted joints.
Targeted performance
Fitness coaches then realise that by utilising the mountain bike they had a risk free way of recreating sprint exercise, which is required for footballers to reach peak physical fitness. Rather than instructing players to do shuttle runs and short sprints to develop short burst stamina; intensive bursts on the mountain bike became more common. This helped the player build the correct type of fitness levels, whilst again reducing risk of injury.
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