SPACE Physio helps Scottish Sport II - Mens' Volleyball (and social media helped too-here's how!)

Another competition another trophy for @SpaceClinics from Edinburgh! As described earlier in our blog Scotland benefits from SPACE there was a key contribution made from our physio, 'King' Kenny Watt. Here in his own words, he describes the experience of assisting these terrific part time athletes prosper in European competition.

In Sight-The Championships!!!

Proof he was in Cyprus!

"Being a small nation in the world of volleyball, qualification for any European or World championships is achieved through a two stage process starting with eight teams in two groups of four (with our group meeting  last June in Luxembourg) competing for the first two places in each group then the top four meeting a year later. 

This final qualification group was played out in Limassol, Cyprus at the beginning of June with the prospect of a first place finish providing qualification to the World Championships and second place qualification to the next round of the European Championships.  We entered the competition having spent the previous few months training almost every weekend so motivation was high as were expectations. 

The medical management of the squad in the build-up to this competition had been adapted and changed to allow for improved dissemination of information through the use of social media. A private Facebook group and YouTube channel were set up to allow the players access to videos of specific rehab exercise, travel health information, links to pertinent scientific papers and to give the players the chance to report any changes to on-going issues or new problems. 

Healthcare like so many other professions is now making more use of social media to raise their profiles but its use a “treatment tool” as such is just in its infancy. One of the first pieces of information placed on the Facebook group was new a review paper looking at the effect of travel on performance that had been published online by the British Journal of Sports Medicine in November 2012. The players were provided with the paper and then given the opportunity to discuss any information they didn’t understand or were given advice on how to implement the papers recommendations.  Some of the recommendations we implemented as a squad were:

-shifting the body clock to the new time zone through means of gradual, 1hr shifts in sleep   scheduling

-exposure to natural light, where possible, was preferred to artificial light

-Caffeine was avoided during travel, as a stimulant it can interfere with appropriately timed restorative sleep and alter ability to effectively adapt to a new time zone

-short (20-30min) naps were recommended in recovering from sleep deprivation and to help with restoring a normal state of arousal

-extra fluids were taken on during the flight to prevent dehydration

-players were instructed to avoid any non-bottled water, and where possible to avoid raw or minimally cooked foods and wash and peel any fruit.

On a performance front the first game against Luxembourg was to be one of our most important. We have struggled over the previous few meetings to get over the winning line pushing them to 4 or 5 sets each time but always narrowly losing out. 

Pool Session post victory

If we had any hope of qualifying we would have to win and sure enough we did, 3-0, with one of the best team performances I have ever seen us give. This was celebrated with a trip to the hotel pool to run through our post-game cool down and stretching. This active recovery was all important with three training sessions and three games in three days and was carried out after every game. 

Our next opponents Cyprus have consistently won the Small Nations competition and our record head to head is heavily in their favour, as such, we went into the game more hopeful than expectant. While we pushed them incredibly close in each set, once again we came up short and lost 3-0. 

This meant that a win against San Marino, and anything but a Luxembourg win against Cyprus would give us second place. The first two sets went to plan with comfortable wins but in the third set we

found ourselves 8 points down and only through a fantastic run of serves from GB Olympian Mark McGivern did we claw our way back in to win, confirming our place in the next round of the European Championships, one of the greatest achievements for Scottish Volleyball in the last 10 years. 

The trip was once again rounded off with a great personal achievement when I was presented with the trophy in recognition of my work and we can now look forward to SPACE being represented at one of the highest levels of international volleyball. "