#008- Giving your rehab programs more structure

Last week's resource?was popular! It seems that a?lot of podiatrists resonated with the idea of bringing more structure and organisation to their rehab programs.

I'm?going to expand more on this to hopefully answer some of the questions that came in about?how to structure a?rehab?training?session

What exercises to program, and in what order?

Here is a real example of a training session I wrote for one of my shin splints athletes.

On the surface this may?look like a long session with too many exercises, but?it actually?only takes 45 minutes for the athlete to complete. Let's break it down...

Firstly, a warm up is a no brainer. I?like to make sure my athletes arrive 10 minutes prior to their scheduled session to complete this.

Secondly, I like to program a plyometric or technical running series as the first coached?thing that?we do. The reason for this is so that the athlete is fresh to execute the complex skill that this involves.

Third and fourth, we start with the main?compound lifts of squat and/or deadlift. I like to couple one of them with?a jump/land exercise. The reason we do these big lifts first before any specific?rehab exercises is that they are the most demanding on the nervous system so you don't want to be tired.

Fifth, we have a step up as our split leg movement. It's important that single leg work is apart of your program, as runners and people who play sport rarely do so on two legs.

Sixth, we have our rehab block. This is where I like to program isolated exercises specific to that athlete's injury history. We don't need to be as neurally fresh to complete these, so they are performed towards the end.

Lastly, we have our core circuit to finish up.

This is just ONE session of ONE training period for ONE athlete. There are many many ways to do this, but so far this is a basic system that works for me (and is constantly evolving).

Just having a simple structure that you follow when programming sessions, whatever that looks like for you and your context is helpful. It makes your life easier, and it also looks and feels?a?lot cleaner for your athletes than just giving them a list of exercises.

You've got this ????