Sometimes our personal experiences really shape our professional direction. The injuries I suffered in the 1980s gave me a massive kick-start towards solving injuries in athletes, not the least rupturing my ACL when tackled by a motor vehicle at about 20 years of age, before even the advent of arthroscopic surgery for knees in my country.

It was my early rehab of athlete with surgery, specifically shoulder and knee, that gave me more reasons to help athlete avoid surgery.

Then working cases such as a skier that was airlifted off the slopes with a 50% chance of living and working with another who nearly lost the ability to walk (and did lose the ability to be a racer), in part because I remained silent, were further motivators for my strong zero injury policy.

My ‘crusade’ began before anyone in our profession was interested in injury prevention, let alone rehab. The concepts and exercises I published on this subject have since become the domain of many in a way that I question whether it has advanced the profession or retarded it. Like the presenter at a recent convention who flew internationally to share an incredible secret to avoiding shoulder pain from benching – the flutter, an exercise I named and released back in the late 1990s.

The explosion of injury prevention and rehab experts has significantly diluted the original teachings, which means much of the meaning has been lost.

The reality is that the world has gone backwards. Injury and surgery rates have become epidemic. The very country I initially released much of my injury prevention and rehab content in has the highest incidence per capita of ACL surgery in the world. Perhaps in part because Australian’s apparently are ‘all equal’ and only the American’s know what they are talking about. So when my concepts, such as my Lines of Movement, are published unreferenced and slightly ‘tweaked’ to appear original works, the power of the message is lost.

Injury rehab has become a much larger component of my work than it was 20 years ago when I began published decades tested strategies I was convinced would reduce injuries in training and competition globally. For example, in the last 7 days alone, I have worked with:

• A knee replacement
• A case of chronic back pain
• The most extreme case of kyphosis I have worked with (I have seen one worse but he quit before we got started)
• A brain haemorrhage that has been a long term impact on nerve supply to the rest of the body’s musculoskeletal system
• A traumatic lower back injury

Lets go past prevention and rehab. After all, if you surveyed the industry, most would rate themselves fairly highly on these skill sets – which is bullshit and the stats reinforce my cynicism.

Let’s take a look at an area of injuries that no one has in the physical preparation industry has popularized yet and made a ‘new trend’ out of it. I am talking about management of acute injury. And I am not even talking about this work in the heat of battle, during a sporting event. I am talking about a far more garden-variety form that every physical coach (or so called ‘strength & conditioning coach) will face often in their career – managing the acute phase of injuries that occur during training and travel.

Let me give a few examples.

I was supervising the strength training of a North American national ski team doing another coaches program. The program was devoid of pre-training stretching (and this was before the commencement of the stretching inquisition) and warm up sets. Straight into heavy sets of front squats, exacerbated by very questionable technique. No surprise, one of the athletes suffered an acute injury during a work set. As they lay writhing on the floor with a specific condition occurring in the vicinity of their thoracic spine, the team management considered transportation to hospital. I took a different approach, and after many hours of work in situ, the athlete skied the next day, something that would not have happened I suggest had the more conventional approach taken place.

In another case I was moving around the cabin our jumbo jet en route from Australia to South Africa to play the then Southern Hemisphere championship rugby game. This was only the second year South Africa had been allowed back into competition following the apartheid ban and the size and strength of their forward pack was legendary. At the team hotel in Singapore I asked where one of our props was. I was told his neck has gone into spasm and he had been placed in bed rest, immobilized with a brace and sedated. I had just been speaking with him on the plane a few hours ago, and I had a different thought as to how to deal with this. Because the team medics had already been involved, I called a meeting with my suggestions put forward. They were shot down, as expected. I consulted the athlete and acted on their approval. In my opinion, the athlete was at risk of suffering spinal damage and even death had they gone from being immobilized for a few days to then face a forward pack famous for their size, strength and scrimmaging prowess. As it turned out they played the whole game, including winning two scrums against the head (feed) on our 5m line.

I could go on. The bottom line is that as physical coaches we are often the first responders and despite the attempts of division of labour (specialization of profession) we may be the athletes best solution, or at least a strong advocate.

I do have a zero tolerance for injury, but injuries still occur on my watch. So they are going to occur on yours. One difference is my injuries are less often, less severe, and fixed faster. But they occur.

So who is teaching you how to deal with the acute injury?

I would prefer to ask who is teaching you how to prevent the injury, but have accepted that you are all apparently pretty competent, despite the stats suggesting otherwise.

Something to think about. Assuming you really care about the athlete, that is.