The Longer I Practice, the More I Question What I Know
Early in my career, I thought becoming a better practitioner meant accumulating more knowledge.
More anatomy. More assessment techniques. More treatment options. More strength and conditioning knowledge. More experience managing injuries and returning athletes to competition.
And all of those things mattered.
But after more than 20 years working in professional sport, I've come to appreciate that knowing more doesn't necessarily mean understanding the individual in front of you any better.
In fact, some of the biggest changes in how I approach injury and recovery came from becoming less certain that I had the answer.
The injury was rarely the whole story
When you're working in professional sport, there is a natural urgency around injuries.
What happened? What is the diagnosis? How long will the athlete be out? What needs to happen to get them back?
Those are legitimate questions. Athletes want answers. Coaches want answers. Organizations need to make decisions.
And as practitioners, we want to help.
But over time, I became increasingly interested in the questions that weren't always part of those initial conversations.
What was happening before the injury?
Was the athlete already managing something elsewhere?
Had their movement changed?
Were they carrying a previous injury that had never quite resolved?
What had their training and competition demands looked like in the weeks and months leading up to this?
And perhaps most importantly, what was different about this particular athlete?
Two athletes could arrive with the same diagnosis, yet the story behind that diagnosis could be completely different.
I began to realize that if I treated those athletes the same way simply because their medical diagnoses matched, I was probably missing something important.
Return to play and recovery aren't necessarily the same thing
Professional sport teaches you a great deal about performance under pressure.
It also teaches you that being available to compete doesn't necessarily mean an athlete has restored everything they lost.
An athlete can return to competition while still managing limitations, altered movement strategies or reduced physical capacity.
Sometimes those limitations are obvious.
Other times, the athlete is performing well enough that nobody thinks to look more closely.
And to be clear, I don't believe every compensation is pathological or that every athlete needs to move according to some ideal model.
The human body is adaptable. That adaptability is one of the reasons athletes can perform at such extraordinary levels.
But adaptation has a cost when an athlete is repeatedly relying on a strategy that they can no longer tolerate.
Over time, I became less interested in whether an athlete could simply perform a task and more interested in how they were accomplishing it.
What options did they have available?
What were they avoiding?
What had they stopped being able to access?
And what would happen when the demands increased?
Those questions changed the way I looked at return to play.
A protocol is a starting point, not the answer
I was recently asked to present how I would approach two different reconditioning projects.
What struck me was that the questions, and the answers they seemed to be looking for, appeared to be built around predetermined rehabilitation protocols.
I understand why.
Protocols give us structure. They help organize care, establish appropriate progressions and make sure important steps aren't missed.
I use structure in my work, too.
But I don't believe a protocol should replace our thinking.
The athlete in front of us should influence the plan, not simply be placed into it.
Their injury history, movement strategies, physical capacity, recovery, confidence and sporting demands all matter.
And the plan needs to change as we learn more.
Sometimes that means changing direction over several weeks.
Sometimes it means adjusting what we're doing minute by minute because of something we see, feel or learn while working with the athlete.
To me, that isn't a failure to follow the plan.
That's the process.
I became more interested in the person than the diagnosis
One of the most important changes in my career was moving away from asking only:
What is wrong with this body part?
And becoming more interested in:
How did this individual get here?
That question takes you beyond the site of pain or injury.
It invites you to consider the athlete's history, the demands placed on them, the way they move, the way they recover and the ways they have adapted.
It also requires a willingness to be wrong.
You might begin with one working hypothesis and discover, through assessment and treatment, that something else deserves your attention.
I think that's an important part of being a practitioner.
Not defending your first explanation, but remaining curious enough to change it.
What reconditioning means to me today
My approach to reconditioning grew out of those experiences.
I still value the medical diagnosis. I still care about tissue healing, objective testing, strength, conditioning and appropriate return-to-sport progressions.
Those things are essential.
But I want to understand what this particular individual needs to rebuild.
Not just what was injured.
Not just what a standard timeline suggests should have healed.
And not just whether they can pass a collection of tests.
I want to understand the person, the circumstances that brought them here and the capacity they need for what comes next.
That applies to a professional athlete returning to competition.
It also applies to someone who has spent years living with persistent pain and simply wants to get back to the activities that matter to them.
The goals may look very different, but the questions are remarkably similar.
What happened?
What changed?
What has been lost?
And what does this person need to rebuild?
After more than 20 years in this field, I still don't believe I have all the answers.
But I've become much more interested in asking better questions.
And that has changed the way I work.
