West Ham United’s first-team stars underwent a series of physical and psychological tests on their return to Rush Green Training Ground ahead of the 2022/23 season.
Head of medical services Richard Collinge and his team of doctors, physicians, therapists, coaches and sports scientists were joined by visiting medical staff to run the rule over those Hammers not involved in international football in June.
The players arrived at Rush Green in three groups throughout the morning before changing into their new training wear and visiting a succession of stations: Electrocardiogram and echocardiogram testing; Height, weight and body fat measurement, a doctor’s assessment and Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) test; concussion and impact testing; motion and flexibility testing; sports science data collection. The first day back ended with a 1km time trial run.
Collinge sat down with West Ham TV to explain what exactly was going on and the benefits of testing players ahead of the new season.
Welcome back Richard! We always look forward to the first day back every pre-season and you can sense the excitement around Rush Green, can’t you?
“Yes, absolutely, it’s great to have the guys back. I look forward to these days. So today is a case of screening, so there'll be some gym testing that we do so we're going look at some strength and power attributes. All the guys who have programmes to go with over the summer, so today is probably the day that the players dread a bit more than the staff!
“We'll be doing some cardiac screening, so we look at the players’ heart rate effectively, and we’ll also do an ultrasound of the heart. We do the concussion screens nowadays, so we want to make sure if there's a head injury during the season that we've got good baseline data, and then we're going out to the pitch and there'll be doing a time trial on the pitch to just to see whether the cardiovascular fitness is at at this stage.”
Let’s run through the different stations the players are visiting, starting with the ECG and Echo testing?
“The ECG is pretty much the heart rhythm, so they have electrodes placed on the chest and we look at a graph that's created from the electrical rhythm of the heart. And the echocardiogram is the ultrasound of the heart effectively where we start to look at the muscular chambers of the heart to see how thick they are and we look at the data in elite athletes to make sure that everything is in good order.
“These are the mandatory tests that we do nowadays, the due diligence we do at the start of every season. We look at the heart screens and now the concussion side of things is where we're really starting to emphasise things as well, definitely.”
You measure height, weight and body fats, presumably to check the players haven’t let themselves go over the summer!
“It's height, weight and body fats, yes. Obviously, height generally doesn't change so much, but during the growth spurts of the younger players, we always keep an eye on the height. The weight and body fats are something that we do throughout the season, and they do a daily weight anyway, every time they come into Rush Green. The body fats, we do probably twice a month, but we want to make sure that everything's in good order effectively and we're creating a good athletic culture here at West Ham.
“Gone are the days when the players would go away for four to six weeks and do nothing. We always advise they have a period of relaxation. Last season, we played 56 games, we traveled a lot, so we want to make sure they've had a period of physical and mental recovery as well. They'll have ten to 14 days where we advise them to relax, and then we start to build them back in so that on day one, they're ready to hit the ground running.”
They are also sitting down at a computer and taking a Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) test, too?
“We want to make sure that if there is to be a head injury, pretty much what we're looking for is that they can perform to their benchmark level or higher when those injuries happen. It's taken really seriously nowadays, and we want to make sure that we're finding the right protocols to follow.”
The other screening tests you are doing are physio and gym screening, so can you explain those in more detail?
“I'll be looking at range of motion, so we look at key joints – particularly the hips, knees, and ankles in professional footballers – and we want to make sure that they are moving appropriately. If players have had previous injuries then we might find a restriction on range of motion and that could then lead to further problems such as a soft tissue injury. So we will look at range of motion of the affected joints and look at flexibility in muscles as well. Off the back of that, they'll then go into the gym and with our sport science team and they'll look at also the strength and power test as well. So we gather some really nice data today that benchmarks for the rest of the season.”
And just lastly, they are going do a bit of bit of running to finish off?
“Yeah, nice and easy! It's a 1km time trial today and we want to make sure when we're up in Scotland that we know who's fit and who might need to be doing a little bit extra and just get a real good idea of where they're returning at in terms of their fitness levels.”
Generally speaking, there was a lot to be really proud of last season for you and your staff and now you are preparing for what could be another very busy season?
“I think a 56-game season was the most games I’ve covered in a season, plus we had the travel with it as well and some COVID restrictions, so there's a lot that was thrown into the mountain pot, there were some huge learning points and some great reflections we've had to do over the summer to improve us again ready for the season ahead and the Europa Conference League and hopefully success in the Premier League again.”
Lastly, we should just make it clear that those players involved in June internationals are enjoying their summer break now and will be back with the squad soon?
“This is probably the smallest group I've had in 20 years of football returning on a day like today for screening here at Rush Green, but I think that's testament to how far the Club has come in terms of international players. So we've had players representing their nations in the Nations League and that's great in terms of the kind of the kudos of the Club. Those players are having their breather now, they will return next week and they'll go through the same process that we're doing here today.”
