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For a while now I have been following the commentary both in the press, and on fan’s message boards around Rubin Colwill and scepticism vis-à-vis his injury. It is not often that I comment unless I have something solid to say or feel I can offer some insight.
I will disclose in advance that I am someone who has coached semi-professional U21 football in the League of Wales and youth football in both Wales and England. I am a community rugby coach, and someone who has been involved in coaching U14-U18 academy rugby for an English professional club. It is how I volunteer my time in the community outside of work. I have also played a fair bit of football and so these injuries and physio guidance are common ground for me. That does not make me an expert of course. But I have observed young player injuries many times as you can imagine, and probably have a bit of insight to offer over the average fan. In that time, I have been around qualified physios and have learned from former professional coaches far better than me. That gives me a bit of knowledge to pass on re: Rubin Colwill which I hope will help to give a bit of content to the mystery of his injury.
Let’s start with the two key myths that I am reading and my thoughts on that:
Myth List
1. “He is a grown man – how much growing is left to do?”
This one seems to be a central argument of scepticism. One often assumes that an 18 year old is fully formed for adult sport. Not so. To answer that, a few months I ago I visited a chiropractor who works on the professional sports players, who came out with the line that: “Final physical development in muscles and growth plates doesn’t reach its final settlement and peak until 25. Did you ever wonder why peak sporting age then happens around 27-29, just a few years after?” The damage done by young rugby players at 18 years old when colliding with 30 year old props can be ever-lasting, even the 18 year olds are built like brick outhouses. You may hit final height at 18-20, but your plates and bones do not settle until 25. Until then you may still grow, and they are susceptible to minor injuries until the growth plates settle. “Finishing growth for certain” at 18 is a myth. Keep an open mind. Sports science has moved on. The average fan probably is unaware of very little of the above.
2. “Same excuses again”
Oddly, the occurrence of a prior injury is a good predictor of a re-occurrence, especially when a player has injured a muscle group which key to his sport. This is perfectly natural and logical. Many sprinters and footballers injuries are 85% soft tissue and in the lower section. Hamstrings, lower backs, thighs typically. All for a reason – this is the core area of explosive pace that makes them quick. Injury re-occurrence can happen due to several reasons: excessive and repetitive strain on young muscles, sufficient sprinting load but insufficient muscle strength due to lack of weight training & conditioning, weak core strength as explained above, or poor functional conditioning exercises. Do not assume that because Rubin was at a professional club that his physios over the years have prepared his body well. Physios get fired all the time and I have met physio who range from overcharging crooks to absolutely brilliant. Colwill’s problems could be the poor coaching, poor physios, his body, or several of those factors. But whatever the reason – it appears that his body is breaking down, which suggests his body in the current state cannot take the demands of the game / style / system expected by coaches. There are plenty of reasons to believe this is 100% genuine, and very few reasons to believe it is false.
Colwill – Injury Record in last 12 months
So let’s look at his injury record recently:
Pre-season 2022: Hamstring
Start of 2022: Hamstring (re-occurence)
November 2022: Hip flexor
Three injuries in four months. All in the same central/ lower area of the body. This is very much in line with similar injuries experienced by Naby Keita, Michael Owen, Daniel Sturridge, Gareth Bale and Samuel Umtiti: examples of high impact sprinting players where poor prior conditioning and over-training exposed weaknesses in the body and multiple re-occurences of similar injuries. Could it be the same for Colwill?
Colwill: Physical traits & impact on his game
Football is a sprinting sport these days and the physical load the modern day professional footballer puts through his body is nothing like 20-30 years ago. Those comparisons are ridiculous.
So what do we know of Colwill? He is 6 foot 3, give or take a few inches. And he is not slight like Cody Gakpo, but larger framed and more densely boned. The larger the player, the better tuned the biomechanics have to be. That is because at full pace and sprinting, and explosive change of direction for dribbling, the load and stress that gets put through a big, muscular 6 foot 3 frame is not as punishing as 5 foot 8, or a shorter frame like Lionel Messi. Playing out wide the requirement on him to sprint & dribble is more punishing than if he was at centre back or as a central striker. Do you recall that simple equation in your classroom physics lessons?
Speed * weight = Power / Impact.
Being a bigger, heavier guy, for him to sprint 100m in 14 seconds compared to a smaller Isaak Davies requires more power exerted through his muscles, and therefore more stress on the body. Does he run correctly? Does he have a short or long gait? Does he fire his runs off the calves, hamstrings, or as he should – through the hips? All these various running styles put stresses on a different parts of the body. The best running style is land flat on the feet, power through the hips (so the strong hips take the strain). So perhaps his running style is not optimum to bear the big weight load.
But even if his running technique is correct, if your core is weak, the hip flexors, hamstring and lower back can all be taking the brunt of the impact, increasing risk of injury. So a weak core can also be a factor, even if running technique is optimum. Michael Owen did lots of sprinting and weight training as a youth player. But as he hid adulthood and the bones and muscles got heavier all that high powered sprinting overloaded his hamstrings, hip flexors and lower back. It was later identified at Real Madrid that Liverpool had done very little core strength work on him as a youth player.
One more thing. Even if the running technique is good, and core strength is good, growth spurts can caused repeated injuries as the neurotransmitters haven't been re-programmed via good functional movement training. Neurotransmitters can be a nuisance in players still experiencing growth in muscles & tendons, or where the plates are not fully settled. Every time you are going through growth stages (height, or weight training to build muscle) you are altering the ratio of bones to muscle weight, and the neuro-transmission from your brain works of a sort of muscle memory, where your muscles automatically react in an optimum way they have done recently. If you go through a growth spurt, your coaches should be working hard on your altered biomechanics & functional movements in order to “re-program” the neuro-transmitters for your altered bones / muscle programming. Out of date physios won’t know this. I visited Ajax in the early Noughties and watched how they coached. They work hard on this and gave me booklets on how to do this well – but it is vital to do this around certain growth spurts. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich also do this very well. They are masters at it. It is well known that some clubs in the Premiership still don’t do this well, or sufficiently. I wonder if Cardiff City pay attention to this sufficiently? Maybe. Maybe not. Another potential factor.
Mental issues?
Other than what I have mentioned above (bio-mechanics, neurotransmission system, poor functional movement conditioning, weak core strength) there is also the possibility of mental attributes that may affect his in-game ability, or powers of recovery from injury. Any top grade physio knows that a player’s recovery from injury is largely governed by several factors:
1. How quick an injury is addressed on the day.
2. How quick the treatment / surgery / physiotherapy is administered as soon as the injury is diagnosed
3. Quality of surgeon
4. Quality of rehabilitation, post treatment
5. Age of player: the younger they are the quicker they recover, providing above is all good
6. Mental strength (
The last bit is underestimated. You can have 1-5 all done well. But mental strength sees you recover faster and return to peak. Constratingly, kinesiophobia can result I a slow recovery, or none at all. Kinesiophobia is where our body is fine but you no longer believe your physio and are not capable of pushing through a minor pain barrier or push your body where it needs to go to return to peak performance. Daniel Sturridge suffered from this. Gareth Bale in the last two years also suffers from this. Neither will push as hard nor sprint as hard as previously, even though the physios have signed them off. It can manifest itself in several ways. Firstly, not doing what you need to do in a game to get peak peformance. Or you may over-compensating in your running style, or one side of the body to mask putting stress on the side you believe is weak, causing injury elsewhere or new injuries. In Colwill’s case, it is possible he is not willing to soring hard enough, or long enough, because Kinesiophobia perhaps is telling him he cannot sprint when the physio says he is fine.
I know what it feels like. Around ten years ago I had a hip flexor injury for two years. Or so I thought. Physio said I was fine. I was not convinced. Knee cartilage (twice) injures were the same. Physio said I was able to twist and turn on sprints but I wouldn’t for six months when the physio said I was all clear after four weeks. What was a minor pain in my knee was post-operation scar tissue and needed a work out to break it down. In my mind it didn’t feel right so I refused to run. Kinesiophobia plays mind tricks. After both rehabs I ended up being faster than ever before, but I wasted months and months doubting my own body.
Judging by the comments from coaches about Colwill needing to run harder, work harder off the ball, and my observation of his lack of sprinting, I wonder if this has played a part. Very possible. Even if he has recovered from injury, in a game he needs to be able to be confident he can press opponents at full pace, and take players on with a jink and a sprint. If he has Kinesiophobia this can affect his game performance, even if he is training well.
Summary
Martians did not land on Earth. The planet isn’t flat. Equally, there is not Colwill conspiracy in my eyes. I may not have the precise answer, but I am certain of is that some of the the myths on this board are unsound. What is more convincing is the opinion of three consecutive Cardiff City coaches. His physical size may impact the ability of his body or his potential physical conditioning to handle his body. Even if that is all good, it may be temporary potential mental fragility (or hopefully not) a general lack of mental strength in general. Based on my coaching experience, layman's understanding of physiotherapy, a bit of sports science, and observations of watching him play, the problem looks and sounds genuine. I hope the above information casts a little light on alternative possibilities.
The boy is technically talented and is a physical unit. So let us hope it is a temporary thing and we get a peak Rubin Colwill going forward.
I will disclose in advance that I am someone who has coached semi-professional U21 football in the League of Wales and youth football in both Wales and England. I am a community rugby coach, and someone who has been involved in coaching U14-U18 academy rugby for an English professional club. It is how I volunteer my time in the community outside of work. I have also played a fair bit of football and so these injuries and physio guidance are common ground for me. That does not make me an expert of course. But I have observed young player injuries many times as you can imagine, and probably have a bit of insight to offer over the average fan. In that time, I have been around qualified physios and have learned from former professional coaches far better than me. That gives me a bit of knowledge to pass on re: Rubin Colwill which I hope will help to give a bit of content to the mystery of his injury.
Let’s start with the two key myths that I am reading and my thoughts on that:
Myth List
1. “He is a grown man – how much growing is left to do?”
This one seems to be a central argument of scepticism. One often assumes that an 18 year old is fully formed for adult sport. Not so. To answer that, a few months I ago I visited a chiropractor who works on the professional sports players, who came out with the line that: “Final physical development in muscles and growth plates doesn’t reach its final settlement and peak until 25. Did you ever wonder why peak sporting age then happens around 27-29, just a few years after?” The damage done by young rugby players at 18 years old when colliding with 30 year old props can be ever-lasting, even the 18 year olds are built like brick outhouses. You may hit final height at 18-20, but your plates and bones do not settle until 25. Until then you may still grow, and they are susceptible to minor injuries until the growth plates settle. “Finishing growth for certain” at 18 is a myth. Keep an open mind. Sports science has moved on. The average fan probably is unaware of very little of the above.
2. “Same excuses again”
Oddly, the occurrence of a prior injury is a good predictor of a re-occurrence, especially when a player has injured a muscle group which key to his sport. This is perfectly natural and logical. Many sprinters and footballers injuries are 85% soft tissue and in the lower section. Hamstrings, lower backs, thighs typically. All for a reason – this is the core area of explosive pace that makes them quick. Injury re-occurrence can happen due to several reasons: excessive and repetitive strain on young muscles, sufficient sprinting load but insufficient muscle strength due to lack of weight training & conditioning, weak core strength as explained above, or poor functional conditioning exercises. Do not assume that because Rubin was at a professional club that his physios over the years have prepared his body well. Physios get fired all the time and I have met physio who range from overcharging crooks to absolutely brilliant. Colwill’s problems could be the poor coaching, poor physios, his body, or several of those factors. But whatever the reason – it appears that his body is breaking down, which suggests his body in the current state cannot take the demands of the game / style / system expected by coaches. There are plenty of reasons to believe this is 100% genuine, and very few reasons to believe it is false.
Colwill – Injury Record in last 12 months
So let’s look at his injury record recently:
Pre-season 2022: Hamstring
Start of 2022: Hamstring (re-occurence)
November 2022: Hip flexor
Three injuries in four months. All in the same central/ lower area of the body. This is very much in line with similar injuries experienced by Naby Keita, Michael Owen, Daniel Sturridge, Gareth Bale and Samuel Umtiti: examples of high impact sprinting players where poor prior conditioning and over-training exposed weaknesses in the body and multiple re-occurences of similar injuries. Could it be the same for Colwill?
Colwill: Physical traits & impact on his game
Football is a sprinting sport these days and the physical load the modern day professional footballer puts through his body is nothing like 20-30 years ago. Those comparisons are ridiculous.
So what do we know of Colwill? He is 6 foot 3, give or take a few inches. And he is not slight like Cody Gakpo, but larger framed and more densely boned. The larger the player, the better tuned the biomechanics have to be. That is because at full pace and sprinting, and explosive change of direction for dribbling, the load and stress that gets put through a big, muscular 6 foot 3 frame is not as punishing as 5 foot 8, or a shorter frame like Lionel Messi. Playing out wide the requirement on him to sprint & dribble is more punishing than if he was at centre back or as a central striker. Do you recall that simple equation in your classroom physics lessons?
Speed * weight = Power / Impact.
Being a bigger, heavier guy, for him to sprint 100m in 14 seconds compared to a smaller Isaak Davies requires more power exerted through his muscles, and therefore more stress on the body. Does he run correctly? Does he have a short or long gait? Does he fire his runs off the calves, hamstrings, or as he should – through the hips? All these various running styles put stresses on a different parts of the body. The best running style is land flat on the feet, power through the hips (so the strong hips take the strain). So perhaps his running style is not optimum to bear the big weight load.
But even if his running technique is correct, if your core is weak, the hip flexors, hamstring and lower back can all be taking the brunt of the impact, increasing risk of injury. So a weak core can also be a factor, even if running technique is optimum. Michael Owen did lots of sprinting and weight training as a youth player. But as he hid adulthood and the bones and muscles got heavier all that high powered sprinting overloaded his hamstrings, hip flexors and lower back. It was later identified at Real Madrid that Liverpool had done very little core strength work on him as a youth player.
One more thing. Even if the running technique is good, and core strength is good, growth spurts can caused repeated injuries as the neurotransmitters haven't been re-programmed via good functional movement training. Neurotransmitters can be a nuisance in players still experiencing growth in muscles & tendons, or where the plates are not fully settled. Every time you are going through growth stages (height, or weight training to build muscle) you are altering the ratio of bones to muscle weight, and the neuro-transmission from your brain works of a sort of muscle memory, where your muscles automatically react in an optimum way they have done recently. If you go through a growth spurt, your coaches should be working hard on your altered biomechanics & functional movements in order to “re-program” the neuro-transmitters for your altered bones / muscle programming. Out of date physios won’t know this. I visited Ajax in the early Noughties and watched how they coached. They work hard on this and gave me booklets on how to do this well – but it is vital to do this around certain growth spurts. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich also do this very well. They are masters at it. It is well known that some clubs in the Premiership still don’t do this well, or sufficiently. I wonder if Cardiff City pay attention to this sufficiently? Maybe. Maybe not. Another potential factor.
Mental issues?
Other than what I have mentioned above (bio-mechanics, neurotransmission system, poor functional movement conditioning, weak core strength) there is also the possibility of mental attributes that may affect his in-game ability, or powers of recovery from injury. Any top grade physio knows that a player’s recovery from injury is largely governed by several factors:
1. How quick an injury is addressed on the day.
2. How quick the treatment / surgery / physiotherapy is administered as soon as the injury is diagnosed
3. Quality of surgeon
4. Quality of rehabilitation, post treatment
5. Age of player: the younger they are the quicker they recover, providing above is all good
6. Mental strength (
The last bit is underestimated. You can have 1-5 all done well. But mental strength sees you recover faster and return to peak. Constratingly, kinesiophobia can result I a slow recovery, or none at all. Kinesiophobia is where our body is fine but you no longer believe your physio and are not capable of pushing through a minor pain barrier or push your body where it needs to go to return to peak performance. Daniel Sturridge suffered from this. Gareth Bale in the last two years also suffers from this. Neither will push as hard nor sprint as hard as previously, even though the physios have signed them off. It can manifest itself in several ways. Firstly, not doing what you need to do in a game to get peak peformance. Or you may over-compensating in your running style, or one side of the body to mask putting stress on the side you believe is weak, causing injury elsewhere or new injuries. In Colwill’s case, it is possible he is not willing to soring hard enough, or long enough, because Kinesiophobia perhaps is telling him he cannot sprint when the physio says he is fine.
I know what it feels like. Around ten years ago I had a hip flexor injury for two years. Or so I thought. Physio said I was fine. I was not convinced. Knee cartilage (twice) injures were the same. Physio said I was able to twist and turn on sprints but I wouldn’t for six months when the physio said I was all clear after four weeks. What was a minor pain in my knee was post-operation scar tissue and needed a work out to break it down. In my mind it didn’t feel right so I refused to run. Kinesiophobia plays mind tricks. After both rehabs I ended up being faster than ever before, but I wasted months and months doubting my own body.
Judging by the comments from coaches about Colwill needing to run harder, work harder off the ball, and my observation of his lack of sprinting, I wonder if this has played a part. Very possible. Even if he has recovered from injury, in a game he needs to be able to be confident he can press opponents at full pace, and take players on with a jink and a sprint. If he has Kinesiophobia this can affect his game performance, even if he is training well.
Summary
Martians did not land on Earth. The planet isn’t flat. Equally, there is not Colwill conspiracy in my eyes. I may not have the precise answer, but I am certain of is that some of the the myths on this board are unsound. What is more convincing is the opinion of three consecutive Cardiff City coaches. His physical size may impact the ability of his body or his potential physical conditioning to handle his body. Even if that is all good, it may be temporary potential mental fragility (or hopefully not) a general lack of mental strength in general. Based on my coaching experience, layman's understanding of physiotherapy, a bit of sports science, and observations of watching him play, the problem looks and sounds genuine. I hope the above information casts a little light on alternative possibilities.
The boy is technically talented and is a physical unit. So let us hope it is a temporary thing and we get a peak Rubin Colwill going forward.
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