Real Physiotherapy with Brad Beer
Physio for endurance sports, diagnosis, psychology, bone health - Real Coaching Podcast
Welcome back to a new episode of Real Coaching Podcast - What follows is my introduction to the podcast - a bit of background on how I view physio and my history of investments with my squad.
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Today we are transitioning into the Real Physio Podcast, and talking to Brad Beer of the Pogo Physio Clinic on the Gold Coast in Australia, and the excellent Physical Performance Show Podcast.
I first came across Brad when he was supporting the Super League Triathlon Series, now Super Tri, which brought him in to treat the athletes during the intensive races, especially in the early days of the series where the athletes raced over two races or even three days with the first event in Hamilton Island, if I recall correctly.
Before going into the interview, I wanted to explain a little on how I see physiotherapy. For many years with my squad we employed a physio directly. With the model we had at the time, we didn’t have a residential base, but travelled around the world to various camps, from Florida, to New Zealand, to Australia, and finally a number of years in the Canary Islands and Mallorca. I found this model to be highly effective as having a physio embedded meant we had the time and space to build relationships with the athletes, to really get to understand them as people, what their normal patterns where, when they might be different due to fatigue, stress or niggles that might turn into injuries. Being on the road in different places meant also we didn’t necessarily have access to therapy if something went wrong, which of course it often does in endurance sport, so we brought a therapist with us. it was a significant investment, increasing the overhead expenses and also the athletes sharing some of the costs, but still most stayed with me as the leader of the program.
I didn’t come up with this model, but saw another international coach employing someone to help with therapy and strength training, and though it was a good idea to try - provided you can find the right person of course, which is the hard part, as of course it can’t pay as much as therapists can make working in a clinic or privately, or with federations or sports teams. But like coaching it has a unique pay off in directly partnering with people chasing their dreams.
I recall a conversation with this coach about the overheads and feeling stressed about that, in particular in the early season where we make the big winter push, without yet the prize winnings to support the structure of the squad, and the coach made the comment that like a lot of investments, you don’t get to know in advance whether that investment would really pay off in a particular year. Some years and for some athletes, maybe it’s a wash and you won’t be any better or worse off than if we hadn’t invested the resources into this model of having a therapist, other years it might be the factor, or one of the factors that could save an athlete’s healthy status and lead to tens or hundreds of thousands of additional prize money, and indeed that was the case for us.
When I was Performance Director of the Italian federation, investing in athlete health through physiotherapy was one of the biggest changes I made, not only bringing therapists to events, which wasn’t done before, but investing in partnerships with therapists supporting our squads across the country, by making funding available.
So when I arrived in Australia finally after the Tokyo 2021 OG, I moved back into a coaching role, no longer the director or able to allocate resources directly, but with a clear idea of how I wanted to work, based on these experiences dating back over a decade, in terms of investment, integration with my squads, and support to make it work.
What I found when I arrived was that nothing was ready for me to start coaching - no plan for athletes who might want to join, nobody understood what my role was meant to be, no facilities, and no support staff. This was meant to be the ‘senior’ training environment in Australia, but there was no plan in place, no budget and no clarity on how anything was meant to work.
Eventually a few months into the role, I was able to get some discussion going around therapy provision - the therapist employed by TA / QAS was full, and not able to support athletes who might come into my group - one of my first stops when arriving in Australia was Brad as I knew him and he was always offering and open to supporting my athletes, so we started that discussion on how it could work.
I explained my experience to the manager in charge of the area of what I was looking for, how integration with my squad was important and how I didn’t just want to be using various physios on a short term basis, who wouldn’t be able to watch the athletes train or otherwise be really integrated into the program and the response I got is still as clear as day: “Joel, I really thought you were smarter than this” - that’s a little window into my Australian experience, where despite the evidence, many people I encountered acted as though they had it all figured out, and certainly didn’t need to and were not open to my experiences and structures that underpinned all the success I had had in coaching, and as a performance director. This also despite by their own admission, and organisation that had identified their injury prevalence as a major issue affecting their athletes, that was preventing athletes from achieving their potential, and indeed the success of their program as a whole.
Eventually I was able to get some piecemeal funding to support Brad to work with my squad on a day to day basis, across some training camps, and use his clinic for strength training and the alterG treadmill if needed. It wasn’t the model I was aiming for in terms of best in class support through integration, but I am grateful for Brad’s willingness to help in whatever form he could. Even when TA later pulled the funding, Brad still continued, and still does support many athletes around the Gold Coast, often subsidising them himself.
I’ve worked with a lot of therapists in my roles around thew world, and much like coaching, the good ones are rare. I often reflect on my time in Canada into Beijing 2008 as one of the best models I experienced, driven by good people who wanted to be involved, and were passionate about triathlon, not just doing a job for an institute on whatever sport they have been assigned, and then will move on to another one. It’s a big problem with the institute funding models that drive Olympic sport around the world - no skin in the game, and it’s all transient ‘system’ people moving from one job to the next.
Today I’m still working with Brad via remote consulting, ‘tele health’ on specific cases where his experience can make a difference and I’m grateful for his ongoing support and happy he was able to join me here for a discussion on “Real Physiotherapy”
SHOW NOTES
The Physical Performance Show Episode 193 - Joel Filliol, Elite Triathlon Coach, Olympic Performance Director Italian Triathlon Federation https://physicalperformanceshow.com/episode/joel-filliol/
About Brad Beer: https://www.pogophysio.com.au/team/brad-beer/
Articles by Brad: https://www.pogophysio.com.au/blog/author/brad-beer/
TriStrong.com/au (coming soon)
Twitter: Brad_Beer LinkedIN bbeer Instagram brad_beer
Coaching and more by Joel
Coaching - while I’ve made my focus elite coaching, particularly short course over the last 20 years, I also coach athletes focused on long course, T100, the Ironman Pro Series and Xterra, as well as select age group athletes who are highly motivated and looking to take the next step in their racing and training.
Consulting - another opportunity for those not ready or looking for full 1-1 coaching, is to have a consultation about programming, periodisation or other topics that will help you solve problems and perform better
coaching@joelfilliol.com or my website at joelfilliol.com
Join me for a training camp in the Loire Valley in north west France 7-13th May 2025 or 7-13th June - my second year doing these camps, a great opportunity to spend time together, get in some solid training, good food and company, and opportunity for learning and discussions about all things high performance and triathlon:
https://joelfilliol.com/blog/camps to sign up and get 10% off for a limited time with the code JF2025