Seven Reasons Why Sports Physiotherapists Love Working With Athletes (Part 2)

Thanks for staying tuned, as I discuss the final 3 reasons why I feel sports physiotherapists love working with athletes.

5. Increased Levels of Patient Rapport

In my experience in the ‘sports physiotherapy’ arena I have developed high levels of rapport with athletes. Whilst I’m sure we would all agree that as physiotherapists (or physical therapists) we have the high level communication skills necessary to develop rapport with patients from all walks of life. However, I’ve often found developing rapport with athletes a complete no-brainer. There are a few easy explanations to why this is.

The majority of athletes I treat are from a very similar age group to myself, and this will lend itself to some obvious commonalities. Another major reason is that it is easy to develop rapport when you both have a love of the sport that you are involved with. For myself, working mostly with rugby players, the conversations rarely leave this topic.

Working with athletes and developing high levels of rapport has the potential to build long-lasting and meaningful relationships, both professional and personal. If you don’t believe me, check out the story of Sports Physiotherapist David Bick who was personal physiotherapist to Harry Kewell here.

6. Work With What You Love

This sentiment is echoed in the previous, but it is important to drive this point home. Ask a room of physiotherapists why they originally joined our profession and the majority will tell you – “I loved sport and wanted my job to involve sport”. Well, as a sports physiotherapist your life revolves around your chosen sport. I think its great, I get to watch the games, talk about the athlete’s game, and the other games of the weekend, the plays, the stars, the ups, the downs, the poor calls, the big hits …. until I’m blue in the face!

This leads me to another point for us “could have been” elite athletes. As a sports physiotherapist you have the ability to live vicariously through the athletes. Whether professionally appropriate or not, you develop significant vested interests in the success of the team. You become very passionate about the team’s victories. Ask anyone on staff for a sports team – their successes are your successes!

7. Opportunity for Success and Lifestyle

This is a big draw card. However, I am consistently reminded of the enthusiasm, hard work and commitment it takes to get there. Regardless, working with high level elite athletes gives you a greater opportunity for successes. Just look at the example of David Bick above, who travelled the world with sporting teams before moving to Turkey with Harry Kewell, that is a great success story. There are plenty out there, try googling Tommy Simsek or better yet Andrew Leipus. These guys have found fame, yes fame, through working with national level sports teams. The career pathways of these sports physiotherapists make for very interesting reading, and therefore I am sure it made interesting living.

In Conclusion

As I’ve said previously, if you are reading this then you need no convincing on the benefits of working with athletes. However, I hope you enjoyed reading the seven reasons why sports physiotherapists love working with athletes. I am sure that this list is not exhaustive, so if you have any thoughts or any other reasons why sports physiotherapists love working with athletes comment here, tweet me  or catch me on Facebook.

What Are Your Thoughts?

What are your thoughts on working with athletes?Let me know in the comments or catch me on Facebook or Twitter. Are you a physiotherapist or physical therapist looking to promote your own clinic, check this out.