Woodville-West Torrens SANFLW side signs experienced strength and conditioning trainer Josh Smith
A strength and conditioning trainer who has worked with many high-profile athletes has joined Woodville-West Torrens’ women’s team with an aim of helping reduce the growing knee injury rates.
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He’s worked with high-profile female athletes including dual AFLW Crows premiership star and Matilda Jenna McCormick as well as Chilean soccer star Maria Jose Rojas.
Now Josh Smith is flying into the Eagles nest as the head of physical performance for Woodville-West Torrens women’s team.
Smith, who owns Mile End’s Mitise Health and Fitness gym, specialises in helping female athletes reduce the risk of suffering ACL injuries.
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According to the inaugural AFLW injury report released in September last year, torn anterior cruciate ligament injuries increased from 4.31 per 1000 hours in 2017 to 6.47 in 2018.
Women are 9.2 times more likely than men within the AFL system to sustain an ACL injury – and in this year’s AFLW grand final Crows star Erin Phillips and youngster Chloe Scheer both ruptured their ACLs.
Some research suggests women are more susceptible to ACL injuries than men because of physiological factors, including body structure and hormones.
But Smith believes the rise in ACL injuries among female athletes is due to their bodies not being prepared or trained properly for the rigours of the sport.
“The importance of training and delivering applicable, tailored and communicated information is of the utmost importance in ensuring we can reduce the likelihood of players injuring their knees,” Smith says.
“I am relentlessly pedantic in my demand of my female athletes that they move efficiently within their workouts.
“My philosophy starts with first minimising the fear around sustaining such an injury.
“After this, my philosophy is to coach and train the athlete through high-quality, efficient movement that dissipates forces effectively throughout the body and minimises the chances of any twisting or hyper-extending occurring.”
The Eagles joined the SANFLW competition this year but finished their inaugural season winless.
But Smith said the players, who began pre-season this month, were positive heading into their 2020 campaign.
“The professionalism and vision that Woodville-West Torrens has for its women’s program is what attracted me to this role,” he says.
“They do want to compete and be in finals contention (next year) so they are putting pieces in place to be able to develop that culture to develop that system to move upwards.
“We started a couple of weeks ago and the players have been great to work with.”