0 Comments | Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, England), Nov 2, 2009
Byline: LIZA WILLIAMS
THE nights are closing in, the temperature is dropping and the rain is falling with increasing regularity.
For thousands of amateur footballers in Merseyside the onset of Autumn means the Saturday and Sunday league seasons are in full swing.
The fun and banter of taking part in team sports, together with the competitive spirit of a local league make it an appealing way of spending weekend mor nings.
Often hungover or half-asleep, lads turn up week in, week out, to take part in their favourite sport side by side with their mates.
But as age catches up with you, so does the likelihood of injury – whether it’s jarring the same knee which has been bothering you for years, a persistent dodgy groin, or the weak ankle you’ve had since you were 21.
Now city-centre based personal trainer Simon Whitnall is offering to transform injury-prone, half-fit players and free them from the curse of stubborn injuries which won’t go away.
Simon, 29, is a former semi-professional rugby union player from Christchurch, New Zealand, who has adopted the latest in cutting-edge sports science and bio-mechanics methods from time spent playing and living in America.
He moved to Merseyside four years ago and started his own business, Synergy personal training, operating from Greens Health & Fitness club on Riverside Drive.
Now Simon, along with his partner Emma Robertson, a nutrition tony robbins free book and lifestyle coach, has moved to a new base on Lord Street in the city centre where he will run his popular fitness camps, along with football specific camps to boost fitness for the game.
He said: “It doesn’t matter what age you are, everyone is individual and their bodies have ways in which they compensate for tweaks and strains.
“They also have different unique ways they can get injured.
“I assess people and see how their bodies work and where they are vulnerable to injury. Everyone will have their own weaknesses and it’s a matter of finding them and then strengthening those areas up.
“It’s a case of being specific to the movements that they make in football.”
Simon, who was a firefighter for the New Zealand air force and has played rugby in Australia and the UK, believes his methods should be even be embraced by professional football clubs.
“I look at the training and stretching that players do now and a lot of it is not that specific to what they actually do on the pitch. That’s even in the Premier League.
“During a football match players very rarely just run in a straight line for example. Riding an exercise bike isn’t that useful either.
“Every position in football has different requirements and makes different demands on the bodies of players. I would be asking clients what position they play and talking through their injury history but I can usually see where their muscles are compensating for injuries.
“If a player strikes the ball with his or her left foot we will look at how the right foot plants on the ground when they connect with it.
“But if someone just wants help with general conditioning for football we can do that too.”
Simon explained how injuries picked up in our youth can persist into older age.
“You can get injured when you are 12-years-old and your body starts to compensate for that and over time they might pick up another few niggly injuries. But the more your body compensates the more you are likely to get injured