Getting into professional sports as a physiotherapist

There's a rebellion happening, about physiotherapy careers. 

OR......

More on that at the end. But first.....

Let me ask you the same question I ask the pro-sport coaches I go to work for. 

What is most critical to your success, that you think I can help you with? 
 
I got into professional sport by answering this question without it even being asked. A football team wanted a trainer and I was qualified. What was critical to their success was having someone who knew how to strap their players and attend to their on-field injuries, helping them to return to training. It was a simple transaction – they advertised, I filled the position. From there, getting into higher levels of sport followed a similar path – meeting a need. 

At some point, I keep one more question up my sleeve – “what are you prepared to do to get it?” I rarely have to ask that one, but it’s there in case I meet a very aware client.
 

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The question I asked you, and my clients, has a second part – “that you think I can help you with”. 
 
My Chinese Women’s Volleyball Head Coach, Jenny Lang Ping, had one critical factor for success – score more points than the opposition. But I could not help her with that, so when I added the second part of the question she replied simply, “power, and speed”. 
At that point, I knew the destination I was tasked with getting her team to. And I turned to my colleague, Performance Coach Rett Larson, and told him we now had a mandate. He rubbed his hands with glee because he loves volleyball and can absolutely program for power and speed. My job just got easier – help keep more athletes in training so they could do more of Rett’s great speed and power program. That meant using objective systems of screening, assessing and testing to find out what their power and speed profile was, and what was stopping them from getting more. Then I had to use clinically reasoned, evidence-guided and experience-shaped methodology to change their behaviour, measurable as changes in power and speed. Simple. The result – the team won more points than the opposition and the coach saw many of the athletes become faster and more powerful. 

Working in professional sport isn’t that challenging when you think of it that way but getting into professional sport can definitely be very challenging. ​I'll be coming back to you soon with tips and tricks about getting into professional sport. For now, I've got to fly to north east China to attend to some swimmers and water polo athletes. "Zàijiàn", which is "goodbye" in Chinese.

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