Congratulations to Taiwanese weightlifter Kuo Hsing-chun (郭婞淳), who clinched Taiwan’s first gold at the Tokyo Olympics and set an Olympic record in the women’s under-59kg weight class.
It was a brilliant personal achievement and a supreme honor for the many Taiwanese who were cheering for Kuo.
Unfortunately, the amazing feat was marred by the broadcast footage that showed Kuo’s physical safety being put in jeopardy, leaving many of her fans feeling angry.
When Kuo failed to break the 140kg clean and jerk world record she set in 2019 by attempting to lift a 141kg weight, dropping to the ground in exhaustion, Kuo’s coach, without thinking of how vastly they differ in body size — and perhaps because Kuo had already won the gold medal, rushed over and gave her a forceful hug.
Kuo’s expression clearly showed discomfort. Many of her fans, including myself, were also taken aback by the coach’s behavior.
Even more unorthodox, as Kuo was walking over to the rest area to wait for the award ceremony, the coach grabbed her shoulders with both hands and shook her several times, then embraced Kuo from behind with a bear hug.
Palpation experts, physiotherapists and athletic trainers and therapists who saw the footage, like myself, likely felt extremely perturbed, even angry.
Professional athletes must maintain extremely sensitive, finely tuned neurological circuits. Additionally, muscle groups throughout the entire body must remain highly efficient at contracting and relaxing.
If muscle fibers become torn as a result of an external shock, even if there is a stable recovery with no further inflammation, the affected muscle could become more rigid and unable to contract as efficiently as before.
Blood flow through the muscle could also be impaired, causing the muscle to lose strength. It could even trigger mechanical pain in the future, causing chronic soreness and pain to the upper body.
This could obviously severely affect the athlete’s future performance and tragically cut short a career.
Aside from cautious use of hand-administered light muscle treatment or other light therapy, taking medicine, or using specialist treatment machines to provide short-term relief to such types of sequela, there is no way to restore full blood flow to the affected muscle.
Coaches and support staff should be aware of these basic protocols to ensure that they do not inadvertently harm the athletes under their care.
Hsieh Hsin-chou is a physical therapist and honorary chairman of the Taiwan Chiropractic Association, ROC.
Translated by Edward Jones
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