Analysing England rugby player Anthony Watson’s ACL rehab and how he got faster than ever with Alan Murdoch and Anthony Watson

Pacey Performance Podcast

In this episode of the Pacey Performance Podcast, Rob is chatting to two guests, England rugby player, Anthony Watson and Head Coach at Speedworks Bath, Alan Murdoch.

In October 2021, Anthony reptured his ACL. In the first half of this episode we discuss his reason for taking the main portion of his rehab and putting it into the hands of a private coach, Alan Murdoch. Anthony details how doing this helped him progress much quicker due to time and resource demands on other staff at the rugby club. But importantly, he emphasises how this process should be done correctly, ensuring that all parties are fully aware of their responsibilities

In the second half of the episode, Alan does into detail about what Anthony's rehab actually looked like from week to week. He explains what testing and benchmarking was done throughout, what exist criteria was used at key points during the process and what monitoring data was collected to ensure they stayed on track.

This is an incredible insight into an athlete's mind when they have a catastrophic injury like an ACL rupture and how they turn things around to get back faster than ever.

Key talking points -

• Why go private with an ACL rehab?
• What ist like rehabbing an athlete who belongs to a club when you don't work there
• Biggest obstacles during Anthony's rehab
• Using a "speed-based approach" to rehab
• Key philosophies of ACL rehab
• What each week of the rehab looked like
• What testing was used throughout the rehab