Episode Details
Back to EpisodesAndy McDonald on Performance Frameworks, Integrated Rehab Cultures, and Return to Play
Description
Andy McDonald is a strength and conditioning coach turned rehab innovator. He’s the founder of Gameplan Performance, and host for the Informed Performance Podcast.
In this episode, Andy and I attempt to unravel the complexities of athlete recovery.
He challenges the traditional “three-phase rehab model” of return to play, and advocates for a more nuance and collaborative approach.
We talk about how important terminology and language are in the rehab process, versus throwing around buzzwords like “strength” or “power.”
And most importantly, we talk about the synergy that needs to occur between PT’s and strength coaches if we want to get athletes back to 100% – and beyond.
This is an awesome episode and one I know you’re going to love – let’s do this!
Quotable Quotes:
Nobody owns rehab. At the end stage of rehab, if we’re talking about the athlete getting back to a sustainable level of performance at the highest level we can get them back at, the people that know the most about what that looks and feels like is the athlete and the coach
Three-phase systems don’t work. We’ve got this gravitation that years ago we would refer to things in rehab as early stage, mid stage, and late stage. But if we can more clearly deconstruct a rehab into its constituent parts, then what we’re left with is a system
The common currency that all of us share is exercise. The strength conditioning coach, especially in more advanced exercise stages, they’ve just got a better eye, feel, and understanding, knowledge base, how to coach it, how to program it
This Week on the Physical Prep Podcast:
- Andy’s background and how he got into strength and conditioning and physical therapy
- How collaboration between coaches, clinicians and rehab specialists leads to faster athlete recovery
- Why one of your first steps in the return to play (RTP) process should be to deconstruct or reverse engineer sporting demands
- The power of adapting and evolving strategies based on real-time feedback to improve buy-in and results
- Why getting clear on terminology and language is such a key piece of the rehab/RTP puzzle
- How transparency and humility go hand-in-hand in the athlete recovery process
- The “relay” approach that defines most high-quality, well-executed rehabs
- How to take the guesswork out of the process, and what to do when things DON’T go according to plan!