The 2018 Roundtable features four of the emerging leaders in Australasian strength & conditioning: Dr. Michael Speranza, Matthew Green, Paul Downes & David Watts. In the third part of the roundtable, we examine prehabilitation and rehabilitation.

ABOUT THE ROUNDTABLE

Paul Downes | Paul is the current Head Strength and Conditioning Coach with the Auckland Rugby Union in New Zealand. Prior to this he spent 4 years with the Hurricanes Super Rugby Franchise as well as leading the Wellington Rugby Academy between 2008 and 2010. More recently he was the Head of Strength and Conditioning with the Cardiff Blues in Wales between 2014 and 2016. He holds a Masters in Applied Sport and Exercise Science and is accredited with both the UKSCA and ASCA (Professional Coach Scheme – Elite Level 2).

Matthew Green | Matt is the current High Performance Manager of the Brisbane Lions Women Team. Prior to this he spent 7 years as the High Performance Manager with AFL Queensland's Talent Pathway programs. He also has extensive experience as an Exercise Physiologist in post operative orthopaedic rehabilitation and return to sport. Matt holds a special interest in load management of Women's AFL.

Dr. Michael Speranza | Michael is a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) where he has worked over numerous sports including football, rowing, basketball, athletics and winter sports. Prior to his tenure at the AIS he worked at a semi-professional level in rugby league and netball. As well as a strength and conditioning coach, Michael is passionate about research in the field, which led him to complete a Phd through the Australian Catholic University, examining tackling ability in rugby league players from a strength and conditioning perspective.

David Watts | David began his strength and conditioning career at the Queensland Academy of Sport and worked across a broad range of Olympic sports from 2010 to 2016. Following the Rio Olympics, he moved into a rehabilitation and assistant strength and conditioning role at the Geelong Cats Football Club where he works presently. David holds a masters in strength and conditioning from ECU and is accredited as an Elite Level 3 coach with the ASCA. He maintains an active involvement with the ASCA, regularly presenting courses and actively mentoring younger coaches.

Quotes

“You can’t have an ego about things - you need to be able to have good robust discussions (about rehab)”

“They have to have run like they stole something before returning to play”

“You want to return an athlete and not return an injury - how do we make the person a better athlete during this rehabilitation”

“In return to play, we want to them be able to tolerate a training week harder than the game week”

“A healthy athlete will always have healthy hips”

“There is a lot of stuff in pain research about not asking how painful an injury is so why do we ask athletes how an injury is 1-2x a day and use daily wellness forms?”

Shownotes

1) Return to play standards for common injuries including ACL, hamstrings

2) Go to methods for prehab/rehab including blood flow restriction and isometrics/eccentrics

3) What each coach is going to implement for rehab/rehab in the next 12-24 months

People Mentioned

Chris Gaviglio

Des Ryan

Josh Secomb

Tony Shield

Dave Opar