I have been working with Replay Sports Clinic for a few years now and they usually are fixing me after various rugby injuries. After a major ankle injury in 2015 I went to them to try and get my ankle working again. I had been discharged from the hospital after 7 months on crutches having had 2 surgeries without any forms of physio and while I had managed to get my ankle back to relatively normal, I wasn’t really able to run around and everything that I was used to doing. My Mum recommended Replay to me and I have never looked back.
Replay provide a specialist sports therapy care service for a range of different athletes. After my ankle injury I went to Replay for a number of different injuries where they would always be able to patch me up enough to play the next game but this time I was looking for a holistic view and recovery programme.
At Replay I have worked with Becky and she has been amazing. Right from the start we had a mini meeting to talk about what I needed and the research that I had done. We discussed the medications that I was on and the side effects that I was having. Becky had already done a load of research into Ulcerative Colitis and it was helpful to be able to talk through the experiences that I was having rather than a more general “one size fits all” programme. We talked about the fitness goals that I had as well. Now this was very important me as I want to be back to better than the fitness I was before diagnosis! I want to make sure I can get myself back on the rugby pitch playing at the level I want to play at, I need to be fit enough to join the police and there are other plans in my head that I want to be able to do. I needed someone involved with my fitness that was going to listen to what I wanted to do and not limit me. I didn’t want someone that was going to be constantly telling me I wasn’t able to do different things because of my diagnosis. Replay always have had a “can do” attitude and this is exactly what I need, someone to work with me and not against me!
Becky created me a two week exercise plan with some very basic exercises as well as a lot of walking. As you all know I have a dog and so walking was incorporated so that I was able to walk him at the same time.
I absolutely loved it. The first two weeks were absolutely great, they really tested me and my fitness but I stuck to the plan rigidly. Even by the end of the second week I was able to see improvements in the exercises and I was feeling great. Being able to exercise again was also incredible for my mental health as I felt like I was no longer being passive in my recovery but I was being proactive. The plan that Becky gave me felt manageable and we organised an assessment for after the first two weeks to assess where I had got to and how I had managed. This was all going to be about keeping open lines of communication and Becky was always on the end of the phone/email/facebook for me to ask questions. Another thing that Becky did for me was to record videos of her doing the exercises which was really helpful. It meant that when I was at home and having to do the exercises on my own, I could rewatch the technique and make sure that I was doing them right.
As I have moved on, Becky at Replay has developed my plan to include more exercises with increased reps and sets. This has been in line with what I have been able to do as well as incorporating the use of the cross trainer that I was lucky enough to have bought for me by my parents. Becky carefully considered the type of exercises that I should and shouldn’t be doing in terms of my core while managing to keep it interesting with different exercises. As I progressed further we started to bring in exercises that would help me with rugby as well as bringing in outdoor running to boost my cardio fitness.
It was at week 3 and 4 that we also introduced mobility exercises. As I have said, I am someone that was regularly injured and one of the things that I now have time to work on is the mobility element that goes with these exercises. Becky did a full body assessment at the end of week 2 and we established where my body wasn’t moving quite as it should do. Some of this could have been from previous injuries but some of it may have been to do with the 17 days I spent in hospital or the Ulcerative Colitis. From this assessment I was given a set of mobility exercises to work on the areas that were worst for me, turns out rugby isnt too kind on the body!
I am now onto week 5 and 6 of the programme and feeling great! I am so much stronger than I was at the start and I am still enjoying the exercises. With returning to work it has sometimes been a little difficult to try and keep up but I talked to Becky about this before I started work and we agreed that missing a couple of days wasn’t a problem. I have missed a couple of days this time, mainly because I had a mini flare up which I thought was related to being “overworked” but turned out was because my body doesn’t like cabbage any more!
I have to seriously recommend Replay Sports Clinic for all of your sports therapy needs. I have recommended them to a number of people and I know all of them have been seriously impressed and it has changed their lives in many ways.
For me, Replay have worked with me and used what they already know about my mentality to give me the best programme that we would be able to manage. They are willing to learn alongside me and listen to what I am telling them when creating my plan which is so important as Ulcerative Colitis is such an individual condition. They are experts in their field and they have honestly been so helpful in helping me to feel confident enough to exercise again as I was very worried about stressing my body too much and causing a flare up.
It is because of Replay that I have managed to keep the steroid weight gain under some form of control and because of Replay that I was confident enough in the capabilities of my body to return to rugby in the first week of training!
I will link their social media accounts as well so you can all have a little look at them and I will keep you all updated as I work into the next stages of the plan. I am hoping to keep seeing the improvements in my strength, mobility and confidence as well as hopefully (now I am off the steroids) some weight loss.
So this was one of the elements of my Roadmap to Recovery… there are a few more strings on the bow so more to come!
See below for Replay’s social media accounts!
https://instagram.com/replaysportsclinic?igshid=11ri6er7ba5fm
https://instagram.com/becky_sportstherapy?igshid=fptb77w84tak