Physio Gets Brownlee Back on Track

by Emma Deakin, EIS Physiotherapist
This blog first appeared on the BBC World Olympic Dreams website 29/07/10 

The majority of my time working for the English Institute of Sport (EIS) is spent with the British Triathlon podium squad, which includes World Champion Alistair Brownlee and I've seen a lot of him this year as he's had to get back to full fitness following an injury.

As well as the weekly support, I'll often travel with the team to deliver support at events and I've just come back from the European Championships in Athlone, Ireland.

Usually the day before a race I'm involved in activation work with both the boys and the girls so that's any soft tissue work, joint manipulation or release and any last minute preparations for the race. I'm there at the start of the race for any last-minute treatment and at the end for any urgent support and then after that we'll work on the recovery.

Alistair Brownlee winning the 2009 Triathlon World Championships
The highlights of my time working with the sport so far have been the 2009 Triathlon World Championships held on the Gold Coast, Australia, which was fantastic for the team as they won five medals overall.

But I think my biggest highlight was a few weeks ago in Madrid when Alistair won the first World Cup he competed in after returning from injury. It was really rewarding, as he had to do a lot of intensive work in getting back to fitness.

Alistair suffered a stress fracture in his femur so he had to completely stop training all together for a few weeks, which for an elite athlete is really tough. He's not like most athletes so when it came to the "typical recovery" we had to tear up the rule book and work out something which would work for him individually.

As a physiotherapist you're usually involved in the planning stages of recovery until athletes get back into full training. But for Alistair we took more of a full team approach with input from the rest of his EIS and British Triathlon support team - strength & conditioning, nutrition and medical.

We did a lot of work with his coach and Ali also had a great deal of input into it which was really important as with a long-term injury it's often easier to be a bit passive and just let the medical team do their work but he really got involved.

This really pushed me as a practitioner too and seeing him win in Madrid and again at the European Championship has been really rewarding.