Raphaël Varane | Retires

As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
 
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Can't forget his introduction, just walking on the pitch like a French god.

That summer when we got him, Sancho, and Ronaldo; really thought that our time had come and we might win the League in a season or two.
What happened since that summer has been like a nightmare.
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
Click to expand...

Really appreciate this post. Far too much of the internet is full of pointless drivel.
 
90 + 5min said:
One of best defenders I’ve watched and there are lot of them. His highest level was on par with Nesta and Ferdinand. Shame with his injuries.
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Absolutely disagree. Never even had the presence and command of Nesta forget the defending. As a defender Nesta was cut above. Varane as good as he was once, never was the organiser and never had the leadership skills.
 
kaku06 said:
Absolutely disagree. Never even had the presence and command of Nesta forget the defending. As a defender Nesta was cut above. Varane as good as he was once, never was the organiser and never had the leadership skills.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Nesta is the best defender in my lifetime. I think he's a bit underrated, maybe because he missed Italy's World Cup win with an injury.

Rolls Royce of a defender, he had it all.
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
Click to expand...
Great post with lot of information.
 
kaku06 said:
Absolutely disagree. Never even had the presence and command of Nesta forget the defending. As a defender Nesta was cut above. Varane as good as he was once, never was the organiser and never had the leadership skills.
Click to expand...
Agreed. A level or two below Nesta
 
Nothing left to prove as a player in the game, I wouldn't be surprised to see him move into management.

Always struck me as a thoughtful, studious person, I think he'd do very well.
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
Click to expand...
Good post mate.
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
Click to expand...

Excellent post, I also make sure to do yoga or mobility most days as part of training and it works wonders. Not just the tangibles but the intangibles too such as mental wellbeing and calmness. Everyone should start it early but for those of us over 40 it’s a necessity in my opinion. Plenty of good YouTube channels to follow along to if you want to do it at home and learn at your pwn pace, I can post details if anyone is interested.

Although quite amusing when “yoga for erections” came up on my YouTube feed when the Mrs was scrolling :o
 
@simonhch Great post. A couple of things: just want to make sure, wrt CR and non-traditional fitness approaches, you mention ART and I just want to confirm you mean the term Autologous Regenerative Therapy?
Also:
simonhch said:
Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.
Click to expand...
Respectfully, I want to, if not push back, at least add on to it the exploitation of the individuals by massively powerful and complex organisations such as the clubs. Barcelona is at the forefront, these days, with still developing youngsters broken down with all but assuredly chronic issues, when they should have been protected, but are abandoned by every stakeholder with the power to act on their behalf with physiological concerns, let alone ethical and moral ones. It's unconscionable and aggravating.
 
whitbyviking said:
Excellent post, I also make sure to do yoga or mobility most days as part of training and it works wonders. Not just the tangibles but the intangibles too such as mental wellbeing and calmness. Everyone should start it early but for those of us over 40 it’s a necessity in my opinion. Plenty of good YouTube channels to follow along to if you want to do it at home and learn at your pwn pace, I can post details if anyone is interested.

Although quite amusing when “yoga for erections” came up on my YouTube feed when the Mrs was scrolling :o
Click to expand...

Please do.
 
If it was woodward or Murtough they would have offered him another contract and we would be stuck with him.
 
Sorry to hear about his injury problems. People don't often remember that Varane is actually a month younger than Maguire so it is too early for Varane to retire age-wise but every body is different, I giess.

Varane was our best CB when fit and he served us well, which I will always be grateful for

At the same time it shows good foresight from INEOS to let him go. Glazers may have kept him. Imagine if we still had Varane with this much of injury problem vs where we are now - having De Ligt and Yoro! What a huge difference!
 
Who remembers that game last season where the camera caught him at a weird angle as he approached a United corner and it looked like his knees were bending in towards each other?
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
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Very informative post.
whitbyviking said:
I’ll start a new thread
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Please do - would be interesting to add something like that in to my schedule.
 
simonhch said:
As I understand it, he has completely torn one of the flexor muscles in his thigh, requiring surgery to stitch is back together and a lengthy rehabilitation. It’s apparently a grade 3 strain, meaning a complete rupture to the tendon or tear to the muscle. It’s really unfortunate.

In terms of rehabilitation, there is no reason he can’t make a full recovery and not have any significant long term defects as a result. I guess it’s just a question of if he wants to go through the intensity of rehabilitation required to return to a top professional level again; or if it’s just too much and he’ll do a regular rehab in anticipation of retirement.

Personally think he should sit on it for a while and see how he feels. He’s only 31, he’s had a lot of injuries, but a year out of the game doing rehab work, focusing on all the smaller stabiliser and mobility muscles that often become imbalanced and neglected, might be really good for him. Lots of time doing pool work, as he recovers, time away from impact exercise etc, can allow critical rest and gradual de-escalation of chronic inflammation. This allowing other, perhaps undiagnosed little issues and imbalances to be picked up on.

He could come back in a year’s time, fit, healthy, rested, etc. And have another 2-3 years at the top. He’s easily good enough, and still plenty fast enough. He’s just been beating his body down for a long time, and it’s due a rest. I hope he takes some time to reflect, see how the rehab goes, see how he feels in a few months etc. Too soon now just to quit. He’s been playing endlessly at a high level since he was 17, often playing very long seasons as Madrid went to so many finals, and France went deep in so many tournaments. If he wants to continue in the game, playing, this year off is a good and necessary thing.

If Como want to terminate his contract, I hope it’s purely mutual and he’s not been pressured into it, or they aren’t attempting to do so unilaterally. It’s not his fault he picked up such a big injury. They knew his condition when they picked him up, and they should stand by the contract, no matter how much it sucks - unless Varane himself comes to them and says he’d like to let them off the hook. If they approach him first, that’s just disappointing to kick someone when they are down and show no integrity.

Pretty obvious that even on a pay as you play deal, he’d not have been able to withstand another PL season. At just 31. A year out of the game, will do the rest of his body good.

There is a lot you can work on and improve physiologically, while you are injured. He should be looking into log term strengthening and lengthening rehabilitation work of his lower back, pelvic floor, and psoas muscles - which are so often a source of repetitive injuries elsewhere in the legs - and routinely neglected as part of an overall fitness regime. So often, excessively tight psoas and pelvic floor muscles occur in athletes and it’s rarely diagnosed, nor relieved when repeated high level performance is required. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has a fairly significant anterior/posterior chain muscle imbalance, which is causing him tons of problems; and can be addressed with a year off. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these injuries are caused by excessive overuse and scar tissue causing layered muscle groups to stick together rather than slide over one another smoothly. Spending time doing no impact pool work and getting tons of graston muscle scraping, can really transform and fresh those muscle groups, breaking up the artificial muscle bindings. A flexor getting torn like that is a classic symptom of exactly that issue, because as a standalone injury, it’s quite rare.

More players who started early and played heavily and started to break down with injury in their late twenties/esrly 30s, should take several months off (4-6) at some point in their early thirties, to address these issues and improve their mobility, flexibility and muscle imbalances. I remember Giggs did exactly that in his early thirties, taking up yoga, doing lots of graston and ART, addressing tight stabilizer muscles and weaker smaller muscle groups, and it gave him another decade in thee game. I read that Clarence Seedorf and Paolo Maldini went down similar sorts of paths, and their longevity was nearly equally as impressive. Problem is, most elite athletes think they know it all, or are stuck in a box of doing the same thing, focusing on the major, larger muscle groups following orthodox football fitness approaches, and they are toast way before they need to be.

Ronaldo, as much as I despise him, has been doing ART, deep tissue massage, Pilates and other non-traditional fitness approaches for years, and subsequently remained super fit by addressing those smaller muscle groups I discussed and balancing his posterior chain development appropriately.

Milan started a whole longevity division of their sports science department some years ago focused on exactly these sorts of issues. I have generally found the Italians to be well ahead of the curve when it comes to sports science compared to many of their European counterparts. It’s something United should look at implementing at the revamped Carrington, because a player that can extend their career by 3-4 years, remaining at the level they were in their early thirties, is not only highly possible but highly desirable. They being enormous experience, consistency, and great value as they are often on lower wages and rolling 1 year contracts. It’s a hugely under developed part of the game still, as the fitness and physical well being approaches required are some way outside of the traditional sport science orthodoxy; and hence the receipt of a fair amount of skepticism and resistance from incumbent sport science experts. The idea that players almost irreversibly decline physically from the age of about 30/31. Will eventually become antiquated, outdated thinking, with the new threshold of serious decline being more like 34/35.

Sports science and how we think about managing players bodies and their fitness approaches just has a lot of catching up to do. The players who play at a high level into their mid or late thirties aren’t freak of natures, they are merely those players who do additional, more unorthodox fitness/wellbeing work of their own volition, on their own time. They remain in the minority, but it will eventually become a part of mainstream club thinking.

A bit of a passion subject for me, if you hadn’t guessed.
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Good post. It’s even more important now because with the pressure on teams from finances and their own fans, many of them are turning to younger and younger players. Yet no real thought is given to how can we extend their careers? Instead they are being overplayed from 17. Look at Mainoo, he’s expected to anchor the Manchester United midfield at his age. Fans calling for Harry Amass at 16 to take over LB.
Look at Shaw. Broken right? Perhaps not if he took some of the fitness regime from Giggs
 
whitbyviking said:
Excellent post, I also make sure to do yoga or mobility most days as part of training and it works wonders. Not just the tangibles but the intangibles too such as mental wellbeing and calmness. Everyone should start it early but for those of us over 40 it’s a necessity in my opinion. Plenty of good YouTube channels to follow along to if you want to do it at home and learn at your pwn pace, I can post details if anyone is interested.

Although quite amusing when “yoga for erections” came up on my YouTube feed when the Mrs was scrolling :o
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Me too, started 2-3 years ago to help my jogging (plodding) but do all the time now and exactly what you say… feel better physically and mentally. And hopefully reduces mobility issues in later life (that I see in family generation above me).
 
Will be sad if he does retire, I hope he doesn't. He should just recover and go to the MLS or something.
 
stevoc said:
Will be sad if he does retire, I hope he doesn't. He should just recover and go to the MLS or something.
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I think he's fed up/demoralised. He still wants to play competitive football, and if he's not mentally ready to drop down to such levels, it'll probably do him more harm than good.

Those end of [footballing] life moves are supposed to be a victory lap when the player is either satisfied with where they are in their own process, or when the player is seeking a massive payday (Saudi). Varane doesn't strike me as either, yet, at least, so not being able to do what he wants to do must sting.

Must be a terrible feeling when your body gives up before you do.
 
Poor Rafa, this is not the way I would want a player like him to end his career and I hope if it is the end of his career he at least recovers enough to play a part of testimolial game for him between us and Real.
 
Fortitude said:
I think he's fed up/demoralised. He still wants to play competitive football, and if he's not mentally ready to drop down to such levels, it'll probably do him more harm than good.

Those end of [footballing] life moves are supposed to be a victory lap when the player is either satisfied with where they are in their own process, or when the player is seeking a massive payday (Saudi). Varane doesn't strike me as either, yet, at least, so not being able to do what he wants to do must sting.

Must be a terrible feeling when your body gives up before you do.
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Yeah you may be right. He is only 31, which seems crazy.
 
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