Oakland Raiders: Can Strength and Conditioning Help Minimize Injuries?

Sometimes things just happen and there is nothing you can do about it. Already during preseason, the headlines highlight the injuries and fatigue issues with some of the Oakland Raiders. Could the frequency of fatigue and injuries be minimized, possibly, by better strength and conditioning training?

Looking at the data for 2009, it is evident that the first part of the season had a higher incidence of injuries than the latter part.

Here is a chart for 2009. It seems that no injuries were reported during week nine and week 12.

Observations

1. In 2009 the peak level of injuries occurred near weeks seven and eight.

2. Using regression analysis or least squares fit, a negative slope is evident. This means that the number of injuries tended to decline overall during the 2009 season.

One thing that would give us more understanding of the injury report would be to calculate this same curve on the other teams and to compare the data.

That analysis may be presented in a future article.

For now, it seems that attention needs to be placed on strength and conditioning training, and other factors to help minimize the occurrence of some injuries.

Already, players like Chaz Schilens are having a few problems. It seems the concern is rising and for more information, read articles by Raider Card Addict and others.

Meanwhile, some of us are beginning to do more research on the issue of the injuries of the Oakland Raiders, hoping that this too shall pass away. The injuries must stay at a minimum.

Go Raiders!