Today’s show brings on elite physiotherapist David O’Sullivan. Dave has worked as sports physio with England Rugby Union in the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan and with England Rugby League in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup in Australia. Dave is the founder of the ProSport Academy and now teaches his step by step pro sport approach that he uses with his own sporting and non-sporting patients in private practice to therapists all over the world. Dave’s mission is to empower people to restore control through their body and minds so they can truly live. He has been a mentor to some well-known coaches/therapists such as previous podcast guest, David Grey.
Knee pain and lower limb injury prevention are important topics. Nearly every coach (and clearly therapist) will deal with either preventing or treating these issues with their athletes. I enjoy learning about how to prevent knee or Achilles tendon pain, but I truly enjoy these conversations when we can take these principles of performance and scale them up to modes that can be used in late rehab or full-scale performance training.
In today’s talk with Dave O’Sullivan, we’ll go into the basic muscle firing patterns that set up the baseline for performance in any bridging activity. Dave will get into the importance of the Soleus muscle as a lower-body lynchpin, and how to optimally coordinate this muscle, along with the hamstrings in a spectrum of bridging exercises with specific cues for the feet. We’ll take this all the way to how Dave utilizes jump training methods and drivers, along with foot cueing, to help athletes achieve a seamless and confident return to play. Whether you are a therapist, strength coach or track coach, this is an information packed and truly relevant episode.
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Timestamps and Main Points
6:00 Discussing the systems that have influenced Dave the most in his career as a physiotherapist, and how he has synthesized them into his current system
12:20 Dave’s thoughts on the spectrum between basic rehab, and high performance return to play methods in the actions of the foot
22:40 How Dave wants the foot, and mid-foot to engage through various squatting actions, including the “split slouch” exercise
33:10 Mid-foot supine bridging drills as a regression for athletes who cannot tolerate proper load standing on the hamstring and soleus muscles
43:30 A discussion on cueing the mid-foot and how to cue the foot in rehab exercises, versus dynamic movements such as running or sprinting
50:30 Comparing low-hip position hip bridges with standard weighted hip thrust exercises, as well as the role of heel vs. mid-foot pushing in glute bridge work
1:01:30 How to know when to move athletes past supine bridges and slouches pushing through the mid-foot, and into more advanced work
1:08:45 Using “drivers” to help athletes with various jump landings in a return to play situation
1:17:00 When you actually do want to have athletes push through the big toe, versus when to leave it alone
“When they go into the real world; the stress and movement, there is so much stimulus going into the nervous system, it’s so much different than being in the physio room doing 3 sets of 10 or a breathing exercise”
“I just want to put load on these tissues, and let the system self-organize”
“When that foot hits the floor, the soleus (muscle) is the king…. if you had to have one muscle for knee pain, that’s it…. the soleus takes between 6 and 8 times the bodyweight”
“That’s an awareness to me that a lot of athletes have skipped, the mid-foot… athletes who stay on their heels or on their toes miss that mid-foot”
“The interesting thing with the mid-foot and the soleus is that the soleus has to work with every other muscle in the ...
