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Haha…so,
how are spasms caused by emotions?? |
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Ronald
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A spasm
is emotionally induced. You’ve got two sides to your brain. If you’re
strong mentally, you’ve got the fight. If you’re not strong mentally,
you’ve got the flight. It directs you to what you’re scared of, and
then a spasm occurs. It’s an immense contraction that won’t release.
Marcus Yeap at the World Juniors, had so much aggression around him,
that his antagonist muscles were getting involved, emotionally. That’s
where players screw up. He didn’t want to do that, but with the
pressure so great and people yelling at him, that provoked antagonism.
That’s why; athletes have to enjoy their game. |
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Right…what are the common problems squash
players have? |
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Ronald
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Umm…lower back problems, due to muscular imbalance and instability in
the pelvic area. The core strength is so important. In racquet sports,
the legs and the pelvic area do the actions. If there’s some
instability there, towards the later state of your performance, back
problems will occur which is due to the lack of strength in the legs
as well. Subsequently, that will bring elbow pain, shoulder pain, and
up to knee problems. Also, the fact that you always lunge on the same
side, the muscular structure will be shorter and stronger on one side,
and overstretched on the other. And because it’s too weak, it produces
a lot of spasms. That’s where the nervous system could get
strangulated or compressed. Eventually, that gives you some pain that
will only be a resultant but not necessarily the cause. So, pain
sometimes doesn’t mean you’re injured, but an indication telling you
the needs to work on the opposite area, the antagonist. |
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So, what kind of exercise can help squash
players to prevent this? |
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Ronald
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There’s
a certain ball in the gym that enables you to work the whole core, in
symmetric. It helps a lot. Also when you do weight training, it’s
important that some exercises should be done unilaterally and not
bilaterally. Let’s say the bench press using a bar. As one arm is a
bit weaker than the other side, it’s gonna become dependant of the
strong arm. That will increase the imbalance. If we do it with a dumb
bell, then automatically, your weak side will be working. It’s a
question of bringing your body to be symmetrical and balanced. As long
as you’re balanced, your brain won’t be requesting for help. |
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I see. Well, if an injury occur, what’s the first thing an athlete
should do? |
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Ronald
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Yeah…ok,
the first thing is to find out if it’s an injury, or just a spasm. If
it’s an injury, the first thing he should do is put ice on it.
If he feels his muscles just ran into a spasm…then, he should rub
with ice…and then take contrast baths; hot and cold, hot and cold like
I did at the World Juniors in Italy with Kelvin. After he finished a
five-setter against a Canadian, he didn’t even remember his last three
shots! I had to carry him to the shower, lay him there, and put the
shower on him. |
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Then you
sang to him like in your shower? |
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Ronald
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Haha……no,
I didn’t have the time. I was out of breath carrying him! But the
thing was, right after that, I put him into a sauna, lying down. Then,
I put him back into the cold shower, and then sat him into the
whirlpool. Right away you could see the change of colour in his eyes!
First it was pearly, and all of a sudden, you could see that he was
able to react. Ten hours after that, he beat the Spanish boy 3-1, who
he lost to 3-0 at their previous meet. And he was the only one to win
a match against Spain for us. Everybody couldn’t believe how much
energy he had! That was quite an achievement from his part. |
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Is the after match treatment different from a
pre-tournament one? |
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Ronald
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Ok…for
pre-tournament, I will give a normal sports massage to make sure that
the muscles are well-balanced. Just superficially, I would do some
lymphatic drainage to make sure that there are no toxins in his legs,
to make sure he’s able to play. For after-match treatment, my first
priority is to regenerate you so that you’d feel like you’ve never
played the day before, that you’ve got full range of motion, balance,
and that you’re moving……sliding on the floor during your matches. Kay?
Coz spasms will restrict that motion. I won’t massage you 90 minutes
right after your match. I’ll put the electrotherapy on you to let the
central nervous system accept and actualize the information of your
match. |
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Hey…doesn’t Epsom salt help to relax the body?
I remembered you mentioning it before. |
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Ronald
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Yeah.
Epsom Salt is a natural muscle relaxant. You put the salt in the bath,
but don’t make the bath too hot though, between 25° to 30° would be
the proper temperature to help you recuperate and rejuvenate your
nervous system. If you put it to 35°, it’ll put you to sleep. Like
applying ice on your muscles, it’ll help you to produce a prophylactic
treatment, meaning turning the acidic content into water. The more
water you’ve got, the more oxygen you’ve got to rejuvenate your
muscles. The higher the acidity, the more problems you’ll have with
digestion, and muscle fibers will burn as well. And that’s eccentric,
that’s your stretch reflex that you have in your muscle that gives you
power. You could have normal contraction, that’s no problem but as
soon as you absorb your body and react, you cannot because it has been
damaged. |
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Ok…Does stretching help players to improve
their performance? |
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Ronald
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Stretching is one thing…but also proper nutrition and rehydration. I
cannot stress enough how important rehydration sessions are. The fact
that you guys are training in an environment where it’s so hot and
humid, you need to drink more! After a match or practice, you should
rehydrate yourselves with electrolytes to bring back the balance of
minerals and carbohydrates that are lost during the match. If not,
there’s gonna be spasms during your sleep. Most of the time, when you
have a spasm, it’s because the minerals in your body were depleted.
One of the food that I’d suggest athletes to take are grapes. Grapes
are one of the best fruit to increase water into your intestines, and
it’s got a lot of fibers as well, so you get fewer problems in the
bowels. Yes. |
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