A biomechanics expert, who has worked with athletes across sports on modifications to their running style, has now shed light on the difficult challenge that Tottenham Hotspur face regarding Micky van de Ven.
Van de Ven is a freak of an athlete as not many with such a large and strong frame can turn on the afterburners and reach the sort of speeds that the Dutchman does.
That is perhaps the reason why the centre-back has suffered more than his fair share of hamstring injuries in the early stages of his career.
The 23-year-old has not kicked a ball for Spurs in November. Curiously, Ange Postecoglou admitted last week that the club are looking into the “mechanics” of the centre-back’s body to work out how they can maximise his speed without the risk of frequent injuries.
Biomechanics expert explains why Tottenham face a difficult challenge with Micky Van de Ven
The Athletic have now spoken to Dr Ben Rosenblatt, who is the founder of 292 Performance, which gives individualised performance support programmes to Premier League players, cricketers, and boxers.
Rosenblatt, who has a PhD in the biomechanics of sprinting, reportedly spent four years working as a senior rehabilitation scientist for the British Olympic Association (BOA), and was also the lead men’s physical performance coach for the Football Association between 2016 and 2023.
He has now explained that while an athlete’s running style can be changed, it could take a while to make it permanent and suggested that there are risks associated with it.
Rosenblatt told the outlet: “Every athlete has a unique way that they move and that is across jumping, kicking a ball, sprinting and landing. Some tasks leave an athlete more vulnerable to injury.
“As a performance coach, your responsibility is to identify if the way they’re moving is safe and effective or if it is putting their body under stress. Then you have to do a detailed diagnostic approach to understand why they move that way and what’s going to be helpful for them.
“I worked with one athlete who could run fast but it was giving them stress fractures in their back. They needed a stronger core, calves and hamstrings to make sure their back could handle their running style.
“The biggest risk is that you’re trying to change something which doesn’t need to be changed. I worked with a group of athletes in another sport who became faster but it did not affect their game speed. We invested a huge amount of energy and effort so you have to consider the cost benefit. Moving more efficiently is always going to be good but the amount of time, effort and energy it takes is always demanding.”
One can understand why Tottenham are keen to study Van de Ven’s mechanics and tweak his running style as the club would not want to further damage what could potentially be a £100m asset.
Given the advance of sports science, one would hope that a solution can be reached which would allow the Dutchman to minimise the impact that his sprints have on his main muscle groups.