Introducing the Athletic Heat Map
During the early stages of any injury rehab, taking extra time and care to lay a foundation is critical to long-term success. Our most successful athletes are the ones who complete the basics with ruthless precision!
For this reason, there are no new exercises this week. Spend this week foam rolling and doing the knee isometrics every day, repeating what you learned in week one. This will have huge benefits in the later, more advanced stages of the program.
While you continue with these exercises, take an opportunity to learn how to track your training load. This is a crucial skill in remaining pain-free after the seven week program, something we have written about here.
Activity: Map your training loads
A heat map shows you how much sport you are doing and its distribution over the week.
We have built a heat mapping spreadsheet specifically for junior athletes to complete.
Enter your weekly sporting commitments into the spreadsheet and fill in the number of minutes the session lasts and a rating of perceived exertion (RPE)*.
*RPE is an individual’s measurement of how hard a training session was. 1/10 would be an easy walk, 10/10 being your hardest sporting session ever. Some sessions may have a mix of hard and easy components, but most athletes have a pretty clear idea of an overall score. Get them to use that score.
We recommend athletes create a copy of the spreadsheet and complete a new heat map every school term in order to track ongoing loading and determine if there is enough rest incorporated into the week.
There is no magic number for weekly training load, as we all handle training stress differently, but keep an eye out for large spikes or changes, and aim to have at least one day (ideally two days) per week that have light training volumes.