Army recruits visit EIS to share rehabilitation knowledge and best practice

On Tuesday 11th September, 15 members from the Army Training Regiment (ATR) in Winchester, including a group of rehabilitating Army recruits visited the EIS High Performance Centre at Bisham Abbey.
Prior to the visit, the Army highlighted the desire to share knowledge and best practice with the EIS around motivating injured recruits back to full fitness, recognising the crossover between the recruits and the elite athletes the EIS works with.

The day involved EIS Physiotherapists, S&C coaches, Sports Medicine and Performance Lifestyle practitioners coming together to demonstrate the breadth of support the EIS provides as part of a multi-disciplinary team to elite athletes in a rehab environment.

EIS Technical Lead Physiotherapist Julie Pearce said: “We are delighted to welcome recruits from the Army Training Regiment here today. As collaboration is one of the key EIS values, today was a perfect opportunity to put into practice this value and to great effect.

“As well as learning about the multidisciplinary approach we take when an athlete is injured, we have also arranged a talk with England Women’s rugby player Danielle Waterman, an athlete who has experienced the benefit of multiple rehab programmes within the organisation.”

In addition to specialist physical support, the EIS also ensures an athletes’ emotional wellbeing is cared for during injury.

An athlete can experience periods of sadness and isolation when dealing with the disappointment of not being able to train or compete as Melanie Chowns, a Senior Performance Lifestyle advisor with the EIS and British Rowing explains.

“It’s very tough for athletes being injured, particularly if they occur at crucial times of the year. If the injury is longer-term, you can have athletes feeling useless and frustrated and like they’ve let people down. This can lead to struggles with their mental health, so this is something we need to be aware of.

“At the EIS, we try and understand that an injury can bring about certain negative responses and we try and manage it in the right way. We provide an empathetic voice, letting the athlete know they are supported and listen to them in a safe environment.

“We also think about how we can use the time whilst they’re not training effectively, for instance engaging with continued professional development which often consists of career planning, work experience and learning a new skill. This takes the focus off being injured the whole time, so when they come out of the injured period they are in a better place career wise than before.”
Lieutenant Colonel Nick Mackenzie, Commanding Officer of the ATR in Winchester said, “We specialise in training young recruits from 17-32 years of age who have decided to join the army and over a 14-week programme we train them to be soldiers.

“We are looking to take away three things from today; the first is to see what we’re currently doing well, to see what we can do better in terms of the processes to go through when rehabilitating an athlete and the third is to share best practice by learning about the tried and tested approach the EIS takes to get an athlete back to full fitness and discovering what the EIS can learn from us.
“We live by the philosophy of solider-athlete, so there’s a lot of overlap with the elite athlete with which the EIS works.”