So last weekend I enrolled myself onto the popular course run by Tom Goom (Running physio you can check out his webpage on www.running-physio.com I would highly recommend you do that if you love running) called the ‘running repairs’. Tom is very popular on social media and has thousands of followers and is probably one the most active physio I know on the internet. I don’t know how he makes the time to do all the things he does, from treating runners in the gym, working in private clinic, carrying out research (has published some research papers), speaking at conferences and also travelling around UK to deliver this course on running repairs. It is truly remarkable and very inspirational to other physiotherapists.
In the pic above Tom Goom giving us a demonstration of the variations in the step to target different muscle groups.
When meeting Tom over the two days, what I liked about him other than the theory and practical knowledge he delivered (which was brilliant) was his genuine character. I could see the passion inside of Tom, he loves what he does and it showed in the delivery of the course. The content he delivered to us, I could tell he put so much effort into it with all the past and current research behind it. If there was one quality that I had to pick from Tom which stood out to me was his laser sharp focus to listen to the questions that were being asked to him throughout the day and the simplicity in how he goes about his work. These qualities can take someone a long way and for me are the key ingredients for a clinician to do good work. There are so many videos on social media outlets that have people demonstrating all these wonderful looking exercises bending and twisting their bodies in all directions and showing people what they are capable of and what people should do to get better and recover from their injuries. They have thousands of hits why? because people in 2018 struggle to do latch onto simple things or keeping it simple, it dazzles the eye a bit like magic but behind the message is nothing, empty. Tom for me is remarkable because he keeps things simple and yet effective to someone to overcome their injury and get them back on track and people get surprised that something simple works.
I will give you an example and then I will finish. I was reading about Arnold Schwarzenegger who is regarded as probably the best bodybuilder that has ever lived. If you look at Arnie in his day, the body was perfect, there was muscle mass (without too overdone like the modern bodybuilders) and you could see the separation of each individual muscle, it was a work of art. If Michelangelo was around in the 70’s and 80’s he would sculpt a statue of Arnie no doubt. When reading about the life or Arnie, there was no dazzle, you would think that he had this high tech equipment and gym where he was training to build his physique but no, his training program was very simple with basic movements for each body part, he had the knowledge of how each muscle works and he worked it. He trained mostly in an ordinary gym no special effects, dumbbells and barbells which looked rusty, a water tap which hardly worked, carrying out simple compound exercises with high volume just tearing up the muscle fibres with basic simple movements. That is what he did and that is what made him champion.
If you look into the lives of most past and present sporting legends, and how they trained to improve and what they did to overcome their injuries, you will realise they just did simple things but did them really well consistently. Just recently I was treating someone with elbow pain originating from the tendon, this has been going on for months and he’s been listening to different advice from different people, mostly those who are not qualified and his pain has gotten worse. I gave him some information about his injury so he understood where the pain is coming from and the likely factors causing it, some advice on how not to aggravate it too much during exercise and in work and then some simple isometric exercises to begin with. If you have ever seen isometric exercises for elbow pain (just holding against resistance without movement in the joint), they look boring, nothing fancy, no dazzle, no flashing lights or glitter just simple holds but very effective for pain relief, he was not convinced but he said he would try them. After 10 days he reported to me that his pain has significantly reduced and at one point he felt his pain had altogether gone. He is on the road to recovery, but the message from me is to keep it simple and most of the time it will be effective.
