Bill Knowles explains how he transformed Mitchell and Trbojevic
Renowned American rehab and conditioning expert Bill Knowles has explained his unique approach in working with injured athletes to get them back to their peak.
Knowles, who has worked with the likes of Andy Murray, Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning, has recently gained fame in the world of rugby league after working with latrell Mitchell, Tom Trbojevic and Ryan Papenhuyzen following their injuries.
Knowles said that whilst repairing the body is an aspect to his program, his main focus is on changing the mindset of athletes towards their injuries.
“Coming back from these injuries, it’s not just about the science of what we see,” Knowles said on SEN 1170 Breakfast.
“Athletes are often defined in the world that they live in by their injury.
“I don’t see it that way. I look it at the other way.
“We need to pull them out of their injury and look back at it. The injury doesn’t control you and your destiny.
“You have to approach it differently and change their focus and then they realise there is more to them and their preparation other than the medical issue.
“It’s also not about how much weights that you can lift but how much strength you can use.
“I often ask athletes whether they are a runner or if they run for their sport.
“A rugby league player doesn’t dedicate their life to running so they might be very good at running but not world class runners.
“Knee and hamstring injuries are based on change of direction issues, not just linear running speed.”
In the case of Mitchell and Trbojevic, the pair had to change the way they ran as it would cause a recurrence of soft tissue injuries.
Knowles also rejects the idea of giving an athlete a time frame in their recovery as it is not a good assessment on whether a player has fully healed.
“There are too many cases where it’s a four to six week injury and only for an athlete to come back and re-injure themselves within a week or two,” he said.
“I’m just not going down that rabbit hole of what the exact time frames are.
“What I look at is restoring ‘athletic normal’.
“When are you able to accelerate, decelerate, change directions, cut, pivot, hop on one leg and lift the same weights that you were before the injury.
“When you start doing all those things with the absence of apprehension or pain, once you get to that place, you have arrived (at athletic normal).
“You then need a pre-season to own ‘athletic normal’ in order to show sustainability when you get back to competition.
“We have to be sensitive that we have to give athletes more time (with their injuries) because the reinjury rates are too high.”
I wonder what Bill will say if and when (going on history) Tommy does the hammy again? Will he be so talkative? Let tom play a full season with no hamstring issues before he can claim he has "transformed" him.
