Ep231 ‘Working With Athletes With Disabilities’ with R.Potter, R.Davies, S.May, G.Barnes, D.Metcalfe

You're listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast, putting evidence back into soft tissue therapy. Music. And we are live. Welcome people to episode 231 of the Sports Therapy Association podcast. My name is Matt Phillips, creator of RunChatLive.com. And as always, this episode has been recorded live at eight o'clock on a Tuesday evening on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page.

It's a new month on the Sports Therapy Association podcast. If you listen to this in the future, we're in March 2025. And we're therefore having a new focus this month. That focus is going to be working with athletes with disabilities.

And tonight in part one i will be very shortly bringing up all five of our special guest athletes will be sharing their experiences with us over the next four weeks and also we're going to be joined by two therapists whose names i shall share with you very shortly but first of all thank you to people who are joining us live if you are listening to the podcast and you like the idea of joining us live in futures you can ask our guests directly questions and just hanging out

with like-minded therapists and what i can do is i can bring up a question on the screen for example Tracy Marsh is with us and said, Cecily, I really must try harder. Now, I don't know what you're talking about, Tracy, because I can't see Cecily's comments, which is interesting. But thanks for joining us, Tracy and Cecily and other people who are coming to the door, especially tonight. But as always, please do put your comments into the section.

And I've given all of our guests permission just to jump in while I'm talking and bring up your questions if they're relevant and interesting. I'm a bit worried that people have joined us live. I can't see all your comments. I can only see Tracy Garrett at the moment, so there might be something up there with the software. Who knows? But anyway, thanks very much for joining us. So my guest for tonight, this is going to take a little bit of time to sit back

and enjoy yourselves, because tonight I've already been laughing about it. It's the pinnacle. It's the crest. It's the nirvana of my podcasting experience, 14 years or so. We're going to have seven people on screen. We're going to start off in no particular order. We've got Rich Potter and Rich Dickie Davis, who regularly listens to podcasts and people who came to therapy last year will know.

And they're both armed forces veterans and single below leg amputees who set world records at the end of last year on their limitless expedition, conquering the Himalayas. That's the first ever amputees to achieve the half and full length of the snowman trek in Bhutan, the toughest trek in the world with 11 mountain passes at altitudes of over 5,500 metres.

So they're going to be with us very shortly. Also joining us are Samantha May and Gemma Barnes, both Team UK athletes, recently returned from Invictus Games to 2025 in Vancouver. As I said last week, it's obviously not just about the medals, but Team UK did do very well this year, bringing 38 medals home. Shining particularly in the rowing and swimming in which both Sam and Gemma won medals.

Also joining us will be Dan Wilsdown-Metcalf, who, despite being left paralysed from the waist down after a motorcycle accident in 2014, 2014, has since achieved three scuba diving world records, first disability category. Including fastest one-mile scuba diving, with and without swimming band, and greatest distance scuba diving, all in fresh open water. So an absolutely incredible group of athletes who are privileged to have, we are privileged to have on the show.

And like I say, this is it. I've decided in April, I'm not going to have any more guests. I can't do any better. Sorry. But what we are doing we're starting probably a few months of reflection where we're inviting therapists to come in and just reflect on any of the past episodes, 230, well, it'll be 235 episodes.

I've already got April booked out with guests. So if you are a therapist, a clinician, and you've got the technical know-how, which is basically just a decent Wi-Fi connection and a webcam and might to come on the show, and you'd like to talk with me, just chilled out in front of a few people, just talk about how a particular episode has affected your clinical practice, then send me an email matt at the sta.co.uk or matt at budgetlife.com and i'll interview you

go through a little selection procedure if you're fit and you'll come on the show and it'll be really cool it's we're really going to have a reflection on the last 235 episodes i think it's time to pause and look at what we've got out there so i'm saying i thank all of our guests for making me reach that moment after yeah 231 weeks um so here we go like i say we've also got the wonderful sports therapist Carla Bickerstaff and also massage therapist Jenny Lane.

Both of whom have experience working with athletes with disabilities people listening to the podcast will be aware of them and other shows they've been on Jenny Lane recently returned from her position as soft tissue therapist for Team UK at this year at Victor's Games so we're really looking forward to their insight as well and like I say. Tonight, this is going to make me or break me. It's everyone together on one screen.

And then we're going to delve into having either one guest or two guests together talking about different topics to do with working with athletes with disabilities. Right, Matt Breath. I was purposely talking quite fast then because I just don't want to leave my guest down in the lobby for any longer. People have joined us live. Thank you so much.

Nikki Mansfield says, all you missed was pancake talk matt don't worry matt people still do that's like i mean yeah pancake is lucky is happy shrove is shrove isn't it shrove tuesday gary benson founded the stas in the house as well which is great hey gary how are you doing if you do have any stas questions or anything industry related then now's your chance to nab gary benson i'm in the chat right enough talking let's bring up

these amazing seven people as we start episode 231 of the sports therapy association podcast working with athletes with disabilities part one of four.

I'm going to give you a chance to just speak so people can link up with your voices so people can tell who you are i'm hoping there's a few regional dialects and differences here so people can work it out but thank you first of all for making this happen and i really mean it this sincerely is the pinnacle of 15 years of podcasting so the fact you've all given up your time for free to come together half of you don't even know each other and just to help basically well

i'm not surprised and we'll talk about that too long because obviously you're doing this to raise awareness for not just athletes with disability but anybody with disability and you've all achieved so so much which is what we're going to be talking about and you're an inspiration so thank you so much for that i thought what we'll do is first of all we'll just let people know what your voices alike for the people who are listening on the podcast so in no

particular order i've got a list here i don't know how i organized it but rich potter you somehow at the top of the list i don't know how that is but maybe rich can you say hi and and where you're from hi matt good evening listeners thanks very much for having us on matt i am from the west of ireland originally as you can probably tell by my draw irish accent kind of merged somewhat with posh english accent from Santos.

But yeah, there's still a bit of Irish in there. So I should be quite unique to listen to, hopefully. That's really distinctive. I wasn't lying with the dialect. That's fantastic. Thanks, Peter Potter. Rich Dickey Davis, next. Hello again, everyone. How are we doing? Yeah, well, I'm from Cardiff originally. So yeah, got the Celtic in me. And yeah, good to be back. Thanks for having us again. No, amazing to see you back.

And you graciously came to Therapy Expert last year, which was amazing as well. And you let people feel your stump, which was even more special. And people still talk about it. So thank you for that moment. Yeah, it was a great opportunity. Great.

Samantha May, thank you for joining us. hi everyone i'm sam one of the invictus athletes and unfortunately i don't have a particularly strong regional accent unless you're going to tell me otherwise yeah i'm currently living in birmingham but as you can hear i don't sound like a brummie i hope not what not not yet yeah no no not yet thanks so much for joining us sam sam really cool jemma jemma barnes how are you yeah hi matt again thanks for having me i'm never one of the invictus athletes like

sam we probably sound a little bit similar. I currently live in Oxfordshire, Cornwall originally, so a little bit of a, occasionally I just have finished a bit of a West Country job, but mostly, again, a bit like Rich, I've got that slightly Spanish-esque. Amazing. Thank you, Gemma. Amazing. Dan, wheels down, Metcalfe. How are you? Thanks for joining us. Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me. I'm from Grantham, Lincolnshire. I don't know whether that sticks out at all.

Thanks for having me on here. I've not met any of these guys yet. You're sounding very smooth there, Dan. You had to get to be the smooth, sultry one. People who listen to podcasts, you can't see the setup he's got there. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. So yeah, that's a good one. That's a doubt. And that looks like it's either you're in a, some kind of an asylum or it's a purpose-built studio. I'm not sure which it is. The wife's in an asylum.

Brilliant. So that's Dan Wilsdown-Metcalf. And then sports therapist, Carla Bickerstaff. Welcome back. Thank you very much for joining us. Hi, good evening. Thanks for having me again. I mean, I don't think I really have an accent, but apparently I do have a good one.

I don't think I really have an accent, but. but I'm Sheffield based so yeah no one thinks they've got an addict to do that brilliant thank you Carla really good to see you and again like last year people still talking about it Therapy Expo, you and Dickie were amazing and it was so good people still talk about it really was exceptional and something which so many I just saw jaws drop it was fantastic on so many levels and such good information so thank you and you just

shone and I know it didn't come naturally to you and you were so nervous beforehand so you are you are in such an inspiration I mean we're It has a sea of inspiration here, but for other therapists, female therapists in particular, you're just such an inspiration. So thank you.

And Jenny Lane hello oh hello, yeah I'm Jenny Lane and I'm originally from Birmingham but no accent either not at all not very well, represented at all to a good reason nothing at all there anyway thanks very much Jenny really cool and thank you so much as well for helping bring the eight of us together I really appreciate your time and also just test me the fact these people said yes without even knowing me or each other to many extent But they will just trust you and Carla.

So you must have quite a strong hold of them. Well, a strong hold of them. I see what I did there. That was quite clear. Brilliant. Right. That's got through everybody. So if you listen to the podcast, then you can hopefully understand. We'll repeat names, to make it clear. People have joined us live. Obviously, you can see everyone. I'm hoping that we've got some comments in here. This is the kind of calibre of people have got.

All those windows, it's like story time on PlaySchool. So the average age out there, you can automate.

You can kind of estimate now they're talking about brian kant and and yeah yeah they've got cecily hissop says i'm thinking of the brady budget even older she is and then also i love it because we've gone from that level up to sir glenn murphy mbe i love when that happens and thank you for joining us sir glenn very much sounding great or thank you glenn that's amazing right let's get into the show itself there like i said people if you want to ask questions then please do

because This is all about informing therapists, either who are currently working with athletes with disabilities or therapists who are thinking about it and maybe have got some fears or misconceptions which we can help clear up. Right. So in the next three episodes, obviously, we're going to delve into more details which affect you as individuals.

Rules but tonight like i say is about kind of talking about common traits and themes of what it's like being an athlete with disabilities working with therapists and also what it's like being a therapist and working with an athlete with a disability so i thought i guess to start off if we go back around the table again and just have a little talk i guess we need to identify what the disability is because obviously that's going to affect everything

whether it's making things similar or setting things apart and also what sport you're involved in that would be nice I know that'll probably be quite tricky in a few minutes, but we'll see how it goes. Rich Potter, back to you with your Irish totes. Thanks, Matt. I'll try to be as non-Irish as possible. I am a blow-the-knee amputee on the left side. I lost my leg to sepsis in 2019 after a football injury, required surgery. I had an osteochondral defect.

Conservative management did not work, so I had surgery and unfortunately contracted sepsis. I tried to fight it for about 18 months, but I was essentially carrying around a dead limb. And the easy decision was to take it off, especially considering I was still serving. Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. I am involved in sitting volleyball for Team GB. I am doing a lot of CrossFit at the moment. And just kind of anything that's physically active, I suppose.

Anything that gets me off my bottom and onto my leg, I'm pretty happy doing. Fantastic. And it was football, wasn't it? I mean, people assume, don't they, when you're a veteran, you must have this so many times, they assume it was some kind of trauma caused by an explosion or something. But for you, it was during the football match?

Yes it was a football match i'm a defensive midfielder i decided to have a little punt upfield and have a shot and unfortunately i got crunched at 50 50 tackle and actually your comment is quite pertinent because my wife and i have just spent a week in chicago and the entire time i was out there people come up to me and shake my hand and say thank you for your service they just assumed because i was a reasonably young man uh reasonably in inverted commas and i had one leg on show that i

was a combat injury so that was nice to put them straight in that respect i could spend the whole hour I talked to you just about that because it intrigues me but how does that feel for you as an individual do you feel that there's a look in their eyes thinking oh I presume you've got serving for the country or something how do you feel do you see a disappointment or something in their eyes or is that just me eventually no not at all and I think it's a really good opportunity for education it's

something at the beginning of my journey that really it really irked me, and made me quite frustrated and obsessed because I really get my ingredient now I'm so at peace with everything that's happened it's quite it's quite easy to do right and we go from that so let's bring up a picture to show some celebration of where that's got to and yeah talk to us about this picture this is about the end of the limitless expedition so it's the snowman truck those of you who aren't

aware it is the most difficult track in the world or commonly referred to as the most difficult track in the world and we set out on that and 28 days later i somehow managed to stumble across the finish line and that is the crew who ably supported me on that.

Expedition amazing if you if you're listening to the podcast now i would recommend that you kind of just leave spotify wherever you want to go along to youtube there's gonna be a few photos coming up now because a picture obviously paints a thousand words or something but yeah that was you and the crew and i've looked at instagram just to see to remind me what you said at the time and there was just a quote here from instagram that said when this photo was taken i'm not

sure who wrote this but it was obviously not you you just shattered but their journey is a powerful reminder that with belief in yourself you can overcome any obstacle the team has not only traversed breathtaking and challenging landscapes but has also shattered stereotypes and redefined what's possible for amputees everywhere let this

incredible achievement motivate us all to dream big embrace challenges and push beyond our limits who wrote that first of all because it's wonderful but it kind of sums everything up yeah that's me so obviously richard yeah yeah after about 30 different edits and, Brilliant. So that was Diki Anji speaking then. That was amazing words. But obviously, that sums it up, doesn't it? Why you do this?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, to go off and do the track like that, you know, for me to unfortunately have to withdraw due to swelling in my stump and then to see Rich go off and absolutely annihilate it, you know. No disabled person has ever even done it.

So for him to actually go off and achieve that is just out of this world you know and you know i'm just as proud of him as he is for himself if not more because i don't i still think sometimes he's like yeah i did it it's like right come on you said you've done the toughest track in the world no one else has done that yeah i think i think matt there's something really important that actually that i feel is important to say and you

mentioned the the i word which i really hate and you didn't know this it's the inspiration and the reason i don't like it is because i'll explain when people say that i'm inspirational for what i've done they're almost putting me on a pedestal and i'm only being put on a pedestal because i'm disabled now what i want is for people to view me the exact same as everybody else that's how society should look at me i'm not special because i've got one leg so by calling me

inspirational it's almost elevating me before they've even got a chance to figure out who i am so i much prefer the word empowerment so i love to think that i can empower people to achieve their goals and and reach their aims but uh i don't really like the i word and that's okay that's great that's such an interesting i think that's quite a theme as well from is it quite common i was going to ask everybody else and just open that up really oh yeah how you make me feel okay but

that's fine it's not about me this is about therapists realizing take. Out the word inspirational from their little list when when people walk in so yeah i mean sam you had a smile there on your face what is that word again something which I hate it I really hate it I don't feel inspirational I feel like lots of us have been dealt a set of cards and we've just done our best with them.

And people see the good bits but they don't see the bad bits and the days when you couldn't get out of bed and there's lots of stuff that's not inspirational and kind of what Rich said like I just want to be a normal person not just be inspirational for this thing that happened to me that I had no choice in okay Gemma you're nodding yeah absolutely I completely agree sometimes you're just trying to get through the day and like Sam said you

don't feel very inspiring when you trip over in public oh god you're okay you're okay and you're like please don't look at me because I'm so embarrassed right now you know and you just want to be a normal person getting through the day getting on with your life and I think sometimes we push ourselves really hard to do these incredible things just so that we think yeah so I might trip over when I'm walking around the supermarket but you know I can do something really awesome there's this weird

dichotomy you've got the basic everyday stuff that can be hard but you can push yourself to go do these incredible things but sometimes a bit in the middle is a bit murky and it's a bit tricky so you definitely don't always feel the inspiration or.

So interesting and dan similar or yeah a little bit different for me obviously i'm in the chair but yeah people say you're in spray film you're not either you you are who you are and you might be doing something that nobody else in the world's done like we're doing the world records and stuff and that's just because you're doing it it's not because a disabled lad's doing it or a disabled maybe it's doing it because i'm doing it not it'll be seen for me rick put

it really politely really cleanly it's pretty good i wouldn't be so polite and clean with it it's who i am i don't like that inspiration word but people have told and said it in scuba diving you are inspirational well that's because i'm inspirational as a diver not as a disabled diver okay that's brilliant okay Amazing point. Amazing. Right.

Dickie, there's already been a segue to you and the sad, I mean, let's just, before we go on to the sad picture, as I call it, that was so heartbreaking when I saw that. I think how many people choked out, obviously not as much as you, but let's go just to this picture here. I'll just bring it up in the spring. Sorry, Carla, by the way, that I sent you down to the lobby, but yeah, this is a lovely picture.

Like I said earlier on, it's actually, we found one with Potter with his top off, which should be ages, but yeah. Tell me what's going on in that picture. Was that when he just got halfway, wasn't it? I was almost halfway to the halfway point. Yeah, halfway to the halfway point. Ah, I was in the question. Yeah, about day five, and that became our sort of daily wash. It was in the glacial waters, you know, about three degrees.

Incredible. Those of you who can't see the photos, it just gives an example of what the terrain is like out there, which... Yeah, talk me through the terrain of managing to do that. You were wearing blades, weren't you? We had three different legs with us. We had a specialist leg created by Doss Alphapedic with the blade of Cervanto foot, which personally I think is a phenomenal foot.

The blade, just because it's really forgiving under different terrain when your leg is aching, because it's designed for running, it's quite springy, so it does take a lot of shock out. We just had a spare leg just on the chance, you know, something a bit older, might be a bit bigger. So yeah we we had a selection of legs and it was down to personal preference to what we were comfortable in on any given day and on any surface amazing incredible

um image and pictures again if it's the podcast it really is worth heading over youtube or maybe the fca.co.uk if you want to see the video links for it but then unfortunately as rich has already mentioned we had this video which was basically you saying what what happened without putting you all through it Again, I'm feeling guilty already. Yeah, no. So we got to the halfway. We'd done the half snowman. We had a rest day. We did a push on. It was a day off our legs.

Unfortunately for me, my stump severely swelled up to the point that I couldn't fit in any of my prosthetics. This was the final day where it was only a short six kilometers, sort of a bit of a downhill day. And yeah, the swelling, I managed to get to squeeze my leg in. And I managed to get to the resupply point where it was the only other road between the start and the finish where we could get our supply for the rest of the track.

And yeah, Rich was ahead of me. He had a lot stronger pace because of the pain I was in. And he saw me wincing in agony. And at that point, you know, after, I don't know, what were we talking for? About two, three hours, Rich? And I think he told me I had to speak to my wife, phone home, speak to my wife and see what she says and speaking to our guide about planning ahead what was to be next.

I had to make the tough decision to withdraw from the track, which was agonizing to do because it's a mission. You know, it was a target me and Rich strongly believed in doing. You know, what we were doing was to empower, motivate and encourage other people whilst raising money for charity.

And unfortunately for me to go any further was risking further injury to myself risking, rich and support crew and at day 15 they've had fatalities so to push on in agony it could have yeah could have been it could have resulted in a fatality so for safety reasons and my own health I had to withdraw which makes you want to ask the question this kind of I suppose opens up to all of you i mean for any athlete not being able to do what you want to do even just having to reel back the intensity

a little bit if you've been told by a therapist and we'll hear from jenny and carla's in a second but um is it double as hard if you're an athlete with a disability because the impetus and drive to be able to succeed and prove to yourself i can do this does it make it tougher when that kind of is taken away from you or again am i digging myself just deep water here and going down the inspiration. I am the token able-bodied person here in the sense that I know very little.

So tell me if I'm talking rubbish. So I'm kind of in this situation at the moment, having come back from the games, I had planned in a whole load of swimming races and things to look forward to because everyone talks about the post-games lol. And I came back and my physio was like, you can't swim. You can't use your leg. You can't swim. So I had to pull out all of those galas. And I think.

It's not doubly disappointing, but it's just maybe our options are slightly more limited than they would be before we were injured or fully able-bodied. So instead of the full spectrum of things that, you know, you could just go for a run or I can't just go for a run. And so there's slightly fewer options. And losing one of those things that I now have come to love is a bit sad. And it's just kind of adjusting to, OK, well, what should I focus on now instead?

That's kind of my take on it, I think. have you found because this is something we talk about on many episodes of how important communication is between the therapist whether a physio or sports therapist and and the athlete being able to communicate that behavior change as in pull back or stop doing something has anybody managed to talk to you or such a way that you've been able to take the advice and go with it or is it always just a massive disappointment you just kind of like don't

even to talk to me be honest but jemma's laughing because she knows she's been my roommate and she's listened to me rant so many times yeah it's i think it's really important that you trust your soft tissue therapist or physio and if you trust them then i will listen to what they're saying and if you've built a relationship and if they if you know that they know how important it is to you and yet they're still saying don't do it then fine i'll go with it you know i want to

be in the best shape I can be for as long as possible but

I've equally had physios who have only met me once and or doctors and just be like no you can't do any of these things and I'm like well that's very closed-minded so I think it depends on the relationship you have with that therapist it's interesting because we don't say the modern so yeah the modern therapist has to realize and take on board what it is to tell an athlete 8.

That they can't do their sport anymore it's being compared in studies to almost like a bereavement or something sometimes you really are taking away that person's identity especially if they spend their time mixing in that circle or putting their results on straw or something so it really is something that therapists need to be aware of and they need to find alternatives i mean i work with runners so for me it's it's like telling a runner not to run is just crazy but i'm sure it's the

same with many sports you've got to try and keep them as running as much as possible if they can that might be tweaking their running form or just behavior change of some form but often there are opportunities where you don't have to tell them to stop it and there is something else you can do or talk in a certain way where they can maybe do another sport but in the same kind of way like do i don't know tempo cycles instead

of tempo runs so they kind of feel like they're still getting that same buzz but yeah it's a really tricky one so yeah i appreciate your honesty jemmy you're laughing though sam a bit of a handful then if she's told yeah i i'm a physio as well so i'm very much used to being on the other side of the treatment table i'm not used to being the person that receives the help so for jenny you know thank goodness for jenny because.

It's very tricky i think to go from being the therapist to being the patient but like sam said i think when we train as therapists sports therapists therapists physio anything we very much learn about the body and the tissues and the muscles and the tendons and the bones and we learn about that and we know you know the healing process and recovery times and things like that But we're not really taught so much about the psychological effects

of injury on the athlete or on the person. You don't have to be an athlete. You can be, you know, a person who just likes to be able to go for a walk every day or wants to walk your dog. You know, and that can be your sport. But I think having been in practice and having now been on the opposite side, I really appreciate the words that we use a bit more, the language that we use and how we think, you know, from a clinical perspective, you need to stop running.

You know, if I said that to Sam, she'd give me a death stare and I'd be terrified, quite frankly. You know, you can't be so black and white, I think, when you're, you know, you've got to stop running because it will protect your tendon and you'll heal faster. I think we need to adapt more to, OK, running at your current rate will damage your tendon more. But what can we do to keep you mentally strong in that time and also help you rehab your tendon through other sports?

Or, you know, can you swim, can you cycle, can you do low impact stuff? And I think more and more now, we need to work together more in an MGT to get around that. What can we do to keep you going, not stop for six weeks? Because that's really negative psychologically, you know, and probably physically. So I think we need to just look more at adapting what we can do so that people keep going, keep mentally strong, keep mentally remilliant, and they can get

back to doing everything they want to do, whether that's walking their dolls or climbing up. That's so interesting hearing it coming from you because that message doesn't seem... How come you've got... All that happening and saying that where so many therapists aren't aware of that.

I think it's because I've been on the other side of it I mean I reflected a lot after I got injured and I got really mad with a lot of videos who would just say to me well yeah you can't do this what are your hobbies oh no you can't do any of them anymore do you like swimming no I hate swimming I think swimming is not my thing they're like well that's all you can do sorry and then it'd be like right anyway stretch them off and you were just left feeling really shocked and

a real sense of loss and lots of identity and that kind of thing so I think I was always a bit more I always tried been understanding because I was sporty beforehand so I understood what sport meant to people so I always tried to be a bit more compassionate as a therapist but having actually lived in the shoes you know been on the opposite side and had discussions with people like Jenny you know and Carla and seen

it and experienced it from the other side you do develop a much better understanding of what it means to be able to continue doing stuff.

Amazing that's such a useful insight and it's almost like i often say the best thing can happen to a therapist is they get injured themselves and then they realize what it's like to actually catastrophize and you think that i've got a stress stress fracture metatarsal really it's just a corn or something or just a bit of dry skin because you know what it's like for a patient and you know how difficult it is to do the exercises you're

supposed to because as therapists we typically go oh they didn't do their exercises what do they expect of course they're not going to get better then you don't actually think maybe the exercises you gave them were never going to be done because instead of coaching them and actually finding a suitable plan you just told them what to do not take into account yeah and that so yeah and it's really dull but it's an incredibly boring

thing to do if someone you know someone gave me a cheap exercise and i think i used them as a bookmark for a while i didn't actually do them because they were boring and that felt irrelevant and that's me as a professional i probably should say that as a professional but also it does highlight the point unless they're interesting and stimulating and relevant you just don't see them i'm really excited i'm not i'm not I'm going to rush and go ahead because of a plan here.

I really want to get to Dan and have an example of what happens when you don't listen to your people. But we'll save that. I'm going to save that as a hook there. I'm not your dad going, yeah, not your mind. Yeah, it's very sensitive. We'll save that as a little hook. Because I want to just, as this introduction, I want to continue going around and let our listeners know about the circumstances and who we've got here today. So thank you both, Rich Potter and Dickie Davis, for that.

Let's go to Sam, if we can. so Sam could you tell us a little bit about your disability and what sport you involved in and I'll bring up some photos while you do it Jenny I think it's your turn to leave the screen sorry. So I was competing in the military in pole vault and had an accident and dislocated my knee and tore lots of ligaments cartilage and nerves in my knee and have been left with well initially quite reduced range of motion.

It's improved with subsequent surgeries, but basically ongoing chronic pain and kind of nerve pain. So, Yeah, that's my thing. And now from Invictus, I started doing wheelchair basketball, which I kind of fell in love with and got back into swimming. And my son, Small Miracle, Disability Snow Sport UK, got me back skiing again, which is super exciting because I love skiing, unlike Gemma, who is her nemesis. So those are kind of the sports that I've been doing and we'll see what happens next.

You mentioned Invictus Games, which we're going to talk about in in great detail next week next week we're going to have carla and jenny and sam and jemma talking all about victor's games and how their experiences from both sides um i've just put on the screen this is a collage i think produced by victor games but it's again just talking about the numbers and like this this was this year and with 35 veterans 27 serving personnel one proposal what was the time

difference between getting involved in victor games and not being able to do your normal sport? So for me, I got injured in July 2023, and then I came to the Invictus process quite late. So I joined basically just before the team announcement in July 2024. I think lots of the other competitors had actually started kind of at the beginning of 2024, but for various reasons, I hadn't been involved until a bit later. So, I mean, my timeline is actually comparatively quite short compared to lots

of the other competitors on the team who've you know been struggling possibly for.

Years decades as opposed to just a couple of years for me amazing and still and you still managed to I know it's not about the medals in fact I want to talk about the medals in a sec how that feels, in terms of people just going oh well that's inspirational but you did manage to walk away with what bronze two bronzes was it yeah I got a bronze in the skiing and a bronze in the swimming and then silver for the wheelchair rugby i didn't do wheelchair rugby so i

did the basketball when we became 13th strong 30th so was that a surprise for you or was it something i want to know about the medals is it how does it work because it's something you're working for you're already an athlete and obviously competitive but when you get to something like the invictus games just the medals take second place or how does it work for you yeah i think so everyone's recovery journey is different and we

like to talk a lot about kind of gold medal moments on the team so you know what for you is gonna feel like a success or feel positive and that isn't necessarily for everyone a medal you know for skiing for me actually I just wanted to be able to be on the slopes with my friends in the mountains and enjoy it and not be scared and not be in lots of pain, and actually the medal was a bonus but I had a conversation with our swimming

coach you're right I am competitive I have been an athlete everyone's recovery journey is different and for me I wanted a medal to be part of that journey and to feel like I could compete again and feel like myself again. So for swimming, I was targeting a medal. And I was very relieved to have got one in the end. It was hard work. And I was working towards it, but knew that there was always a chance that you don't get a medal. You can't control who else turns up.

But it's very different for each competitor, what they want to get out of the games. I'm interested. Thank you for that. I'm interested in because other people here who have been in Invictus Games, what is the medal situation like? Is it similar where you're not really going for the medals? You just want to prove something to yourself and get that satisfaction? Or what's it like for other people? Gemma, what's it like for you with regards to medals?

Yeah same as Sam really I think I had a lot of self-doubt before I went knowing that a lot of countries would bring actual athletes to them and I didn't necessarily feel like I was an athlete I felt like I was somebody who was venturing back into sport but it was adaptive sport so.

For me I think getting onto the team and being able to find new sports I could actually do that was the biggest thing for me I think obviously inside you do hope that you can get a medal because you want to be good and I think in terms of being ex-military as well there's something inside us that makes us really competitive we want to be the best at everything and you know we can send AV into a competition it's a real military feel you know we get really competitive about all sorts

of different things so I think if you put us in a competitive environment you do we did you do want to medal but also I think if you don't medal it's not as hard in that situation because you still achieve so much just getting to that point having said that when I did medal it made me feel incredible and I felt so whole and so seen and I felt like all the hard work that the teachers had been to us and that I'd put into the rowing

then paid off and never had something that I could actually show something that's tangible and I think with a lot of people back home that's the first thing they ask is oh did you get a medal you know not did you have an amazing time did you get any personal best did you make friends for life you know did you discover sports you never thought you'd do again they don't ask that they ask you to get a medal so I think it was great to get a medal to say to other people I did but I also

did blah blah blah so yeah I think the medal is a tricky situation I was very pleased I got one because it.

It did make me feel well rewarded for the effort that everyone had put in but also if I hadn't got a medal I think I still would have been really proud of all the achievements I had and I think the rest of the team were proud of their achievements that they've got and we do have gold medal moments you know just individually because they don't necessarily result in a physical medal but that's okay.

This is really I'm hoping such an interesting insight for exactly what I was hoping this episode was going to achieve it's obviously common traits and just the way that not just therapists but the general public kind of see you and talk about you and refer to you and yes it's brilliant people i'm i'm losing

track of the questions here we'll have a second i've just invested dickie and rich what's it because you've been involved in victor games as well obviously what was it like for you are you nodding your heads the whole medal thing or.

So we dickie and i kind of went through the process together and that we roomed pretty much every camp together we were like 15 minutes away from each other in terms of where we lived our families got very close and when we got to the games we had this amazing moment at the opening ceremony where our children were passed down to us at the end we passed our kids back up to our wives we gave each other a massive hug and we said right it's game time because we had trained so hard not just

at the camps but also in our own time as well and we knew exactly why we were there now this is very double-edged because dickie and i we took on seven medals between us we had a great haul i was told for a very long time i would never run again i got a gold in the 100 meters amazing everyone's happy but the problem with that is Matt you spend so long focusing on the medals and the success that you kind of forget to enjoy the journey and it

was only when I got back from Dusseldorf I was like man it's over I don't really have that many memories apart from the shiny you know medal in a box to show people I don't have that many memories because I was so focused on winning so it is a double-edged sword I think it's important to be competitive it's important to have goals but at the same time for something like this you just have to enjoy the journey,

Amazing. Yeah, really interesting. And did Keith, for yourself, I mean, I guess which is spoken? Yeah, he pretty much summed it up. Yeah, like I said, as he said, we live just around the corner from each other. We've built a great relationship from it, and we've got the same sort of drive. For me, going out there, it wasn't about the medals. Medals are always a nice thing to take home, obviously. You're training to try and get them as well.

But if I went out and gave it my all, and actually set my all-time personal best in the pool, 20 years after retirement one leg and a dad bod that is better than any gold medal i could have taken so just going out there and giving him my best to pb on everything i did was better than yeah any medal i could have taken amazing really interesting god time is just going crazy um i just wanted to check about jemmy yeah if you could just summarize

what is the disability that you or the circumstance of disability and the sports are you involved in yeah that's what i'll say So like Sam said, skiing is my nemesis. I had a big skiing incident, which caused a lot of damage to my leg. I went through a lot of reconstructive surgery and sort of urgent surgery out in our street after I reconstruct it. I did ACL, MCL, medial lateral fractals, cartilage, all sorts.

And then 18 months after that, I had a chibiopathic fracture on the same side, which was really bad luck. And it undid most of the reconstructive surgery and left me with a lot of nerve damage and slip drop.

So foot jogging is probably the main disability that I have now so I wear a split for that I used to have a lot of nerve damage I've got a few corners removed, from that leg so I walk a bit like a penguin really, I have a bit of an odd gait, yeah and then I have a few bumps with my hips as well so I have a label tear on my hip as a result of the way I walk.

Yes, so I'm limited in a lot of what I can do, I used to run and play netball, so I used to play sprints and do a lot of netball and I can't do either but I used to do things anymore. So, yeah, for me, trying to find the adaptive support has been incredible. I have a bit of weakness in my left shoulder as well, so the same side, just where I tore my shoulder quite significantly during the accident. So, yeah, I struggled to find a sport that would suit me.

And also I was quite fearful of getting back on snow. So I've seen a lot of people get injured through skiing. And so I've treated a lot of people who got a big skiing accident. And then I went out with the RAF to learn to ski and I had on myself. So, yeah, I was quite fearful. I think I'd had a walks perspective in skiing. I'd seen a lot of bad, nasty injuries. And then some of the things I have on

myself. So for me, going to the Winter Games and the prospect of returning to some form of skiing was pretty terrifying. But I did, because I could use a 60. So it was, yeah, it was an adaptive thing. So physically, it helped me. And mentally, it helped me as well get over that fear.

Incredible. I guess that's, I mean, we'll talk about this in greater detail next week with the Invictus Games, but it comes up, there's so many different choices, isn't there, of adaptive sports, which you can experiment with and see what you can do and overcome fears and things like that. Yeah. And you went headfirst downhill sledging, which to me, first of all, kind of sounds a little bit fearsome, but I guess it's not as

scary as it sounds. They even call it skeleton, don't they, or something? They call it skeleton, yeah. We'll be through that now, the fear turned into.

Yeah, skeleton was amazing. So, yeah, we reached 97 kilometres an hour, which was phenomenal, really. And to be able to feel that speed again and feel the interrelin and do that kind of sport, which, you know, I'd always wanted to try Bosley when I, you know, back in the day and I got injured just before I went to Tiles. So it was an itch that I never got to stack really. So the thought of doing Skeleton at Invictus, yeah, I absolutely jumped at it. And it was incredible.

It was such a rush and such an incredible experience. You know, when would I normally get to try Skeleton, adaptive or able-bodied? So, yeah, what an incredible experience that was. Amazing. And you got the bronze in the indoor rowing. I did, yes, the insurance varies which is amazing because.

It's time it's so hard it's uh yeah rowing the military and it's horrendous and then you come out and think oh it's probably different you know when you just row first for fun but it's not it's always hard but it's kind of wonderful there's something okay it's quite deep fun it's awful at the time but actually it's quite 60 million so yes rowing is definitely a sport i think i'll carry on with thanks yeah incredible well i'd like to say we'll talk about that in more

detail with carla and uh jenny next week dan sorry man left you all by yourself there no problem but i can see you nodding and and and and kind of gesticulate gesticulating that as a word isn't it gesticulating away as people were talking slightly different circumstances for you obviously yeah talk us through if you would and i'll bring up some photos as well of your disability and how that came about and and what sports you have found yourself

in and exceeding That's quite a bit of a list, isn't they? Yeah. Yeah. So, paralyzed in 2014 to T8 paraplegic, complete, nothing from, just got the belly button down. Then went on to hand cycling and came up to the fifth in the UK, training for GB, hand cycle to go to Rio. Before selection of the team, a 600-mile challenge, went in a 600-mile charity bike ride, 14 miles left. And a car hit me. So I got smacked on top of the head by a car. Thanks very much.

Compression of C4, which knocked out, rear delt on the left shoulder, which then told slow down, pack it in, stop doing stuff. So I went and did a London marathon and tore my shoulder apart. Just a little pause there for a second. We can just mention that point a little bit. I can see Carla laughing. I'm not going to let you. I'm a therapist. I'm going to let you get away with that. So you did all that to your shoulder.

Uh, and you were told not to do too much. Yes. I had to do the London marathon. Yeah. So i was yeah four years in a row i deferred myself from the marathon but i've got ptsd from my first and second crash because they were very similar to each other. And i didn't always feel like you're failing feeling like you're just not good enough and all that sort of stuff so it's not a good place to be and.

All the therapists i went to see which is just like jenna was saying earlier well just no you can't do that no you need to stop doing that well when you're paralyzed you pick yourself up a bed and transfer into a chair i mean the guy don't know what you all know when you know you can't use your leg you know you've got to transfer in and out of a chair and stuff like that so it's you've got to use your shoulders so the less training that you do the less

physical you are the weaker you get and then the simple thing of just transferring from a bed to a wheelchair is actually the hardest strongest lift you've done in a week it's ridiculous so i've just said you know i've sold it if i break i break and i was training to do the three guinness world records at scuba diving i was training to do the london marathon because they said if you don't do it this year you're gonna have to you know

forfeit it you're gonna have to give it up give your place up so i said i've sold it three months ago i'll do it so i didn't uh but yeah i 25 mil tail on my sucus spinatus it's all

my bi-step tendon had both those operated on and re-anchored into the humus so fantastic and i'm now doing the far too little exercises the rotator cuff work to deal to deal with that problem which yeah like you said earlier generally nobody wants to go do i've done gym instructing level 3 pt disability and yeah, I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Which is going to be something which we're going to delve into in part three with yourself and with Carla and Jenny about how working with the team, the successes, the failures, the reasons why things didn't work and yeah, exactly what you're talking about. So that's going to be so interesting about hearing about that. And then you come back and get three world records of scuba diving and you're going for more, aren't you? You've got other things lined up.

Yeah, yeah, we've got another two Guinness World Records that I want to smash. You know, we don't stop. That's the thing. I think we're all the same. Once we've gone through one goal, once we've completed one thing, like kind of like heading for the medals sort of thing, it's what's next. You can't just stop. If we just stop, we just fall apart. So the brain, for me, isn't built that way. It's like, what's my next goal? What's my next thing to attack? What's my next thing to beat?

And yeah so the the next one that i want to go for is the fastest 10k in the sea for not in freshwater for this time but i want to bring it to the uk so disabled lad owns it which is just between six and eight meters down and swim for well stupid life for 10 kilometers i've got to beat five hours 20 which is pretty fast and then they're worth of that these are all for charity i've got all my challenges for charity and the way after that will be the deepest i like diver so i oh,

I want to take myself to 150 meters, which a lot of people are just going, yeah. Which is not going to stop me, obviously. And the motivation for this? I mean, other people have said the medals are not what people expect. It's not all about the medals and how many medals did you get is not what they want to hear. But for you, what's the main motivation? The main motivation for me really is to say I can. I can do it.

I've proven the fact. When I was talking about doing the three Guinness World Records and we did them all in one day and people were saying, yeah okay yeah whatever you know i'm asking people to support me and help me and all that so somebody's going oh yeah he's just some crazy lad that hasn't got a clue what he's doing he's not a chance he's going to manage to do that and now we couldn't do it and all of a sudden people now actually sort

of paying attention and they're saying oh oh fair enough yeah.

Maybe you're not blowing smoke sort of thing and yeah so now now they pay attention a bit more hopefully we get a bit more support with the charitable side of stuff because that's what we're doing it for who knows to raise awareness of the disability that i am the disability of other people coming into diving it's it's for all dfa we call it's diving for all and so nothing can stop you really in a medical reason for not being the author of death so yeah that's that's

really why i do it is to prove the next thing that yes we can do it we've got able-bodied divers going down at you know 330 meters which is that is yeah crazy death but there's no in paralyzed diving there hasn't been a record set nobody's done so why not let's just go do it and then let somebody else come and say well how have i done that because that just inspires no it's apparently yeah yeah it just it just make somebody else want to beat you that's the point

it's not inspiring somebody it's giving them another target to attack another target to beat incredible there's so much here i think for not just therapists but everybody to unpack and pick up on and talk about but what we're going to do in the next three episodes is is see how all this information. Can help therapists help people like yourselves, by not suddenly going, oh, wow, you really inspired me. Did you get any medals

in the first consultation? Which somehow I don't think would go down very well. But it's probably the icebreaker which most therapists would use. Apart from Carla, whose icebreaker was, what was it you said to Dickie when he came into your studio? Did you get it? But I've done it with... Just say the words. What did you say to him? Hop on the couch. Yeah, that was an icebreaker, wasn't it? Fortunately, Dickie, you saw the Friday side of it. Absolutely.

I always say, if you can come up with something new and interesting, I haven't heard before about the leg, crack on. I'll fight you on the back for it. Amazing. And there's little things like this which we'll be talking about because it can be such a rollercoaster ride as it can be with any athlete. But I think it is intensified certain things when you're telling them that they need to dial down or something or maybe can't even do or have to change their challenge.

It really is something we'll talk about. and it works both ways of the relationship for the athlete with the therapist with the athlete so we will go down those in the next three episodes but yeah thank you so much everybody for joining us what we will put in the show links for people who are listening, is obviously links for the next three episodes we will put um social media handles if you've listened to people tonight you want to follow i think most of you

maybe bar one on instagram we'll put that all on there and also youtube channels where relevant so you can have a little do a bit of research listeners of the wonderful guests who are with us tonight and also carla and jenny you can follow them so we'll put them in the show now so i won't go through all the now because we'll take another five minutes what i want to do really is just let you know what's going to come up next week oh people in the live lounge i'm sorry i have

been looking at questions but i just didn't want to interrupt the flow here it's been such a monumentous introduction and to let people know, I guess. So there were some great questions in here. There's a question about phantom limb pain, which we will address. I've made a note to that and we'll address next. No, we're not next week. We'll address that in the last week, I think, isn't it? The last week of the Rich Potter and Dickie Davis.

That's something we're going to be talking a lot about. Obviously, everything amputee related, we will be talking about. So that will come up in there. And I think there was a couple of other things which we'll address in the next three weeks.

Gary Benson, founder of the STA, has just mentioned here in the comments, for STA members who are currently planning an education, we are currently planning an education seminar with UK Sepsis Trust in the next few weeks via the SDH podcast platform in the members area of the websites. There you go. Just say that out loud so we're good to hear that. Download us. I've been joining us live. But yeah, for everybody who's joined me tonight, thank you so much for giving up your time.

When we sign off, if you can hang around for a couple of minutes, just want to check that I haven't dropped any words apart from inspirational, which you don't want to use in the next three weeks. So if you can turn me off air this time, or I can just come and get me through a bag on the screen.

But yeah, so hang around. But yeah, thanks everyone for joining us live. what i really like is the 2 000 or so people who download this episode if you can if you are free i know a lot of you work okay because like eight o'clock on a on a tuesday is probably you're in clinic but if you could dare i say rearrange patients a little bit it's going to be for your patients benefit so i've kind of you are kind of making their lives better by cancelling

them and coming for another time but yeah try and make some time and come in because you're going to pick up so much in the next three weeks. It'll be the same time. Yeah, next week is Tuesday. And then the week after, I think it's going to be Wednesday with Dan. But follow the UK on UK... Underscore STA on social media. You'll get the exact times. But yeah, so let me just say thanks again to Rich Potter. Thank you very much. And Rich Dickie Davis. Thank you.

Sam May, Gemma Barnes, Dan Willsdown Metcalf. I'm sorry Carla Bickerstaff and Jenny Lane. I mean all I've done tonight really is just take you off the screen and pick you up there again without saying anything. But we will change that in the next few episodes when you're going to be joining us. But thank you, Carla. You're welcome. Great. You did say something tonight. Just keep saying. Thank you, Jenny. No problem. There you go. You've got your paid kind of. You're not an extra.

I'm just an extra. I didn't have a line. But yeah, but thank you. Because like I said at the beginning, none of these people would be here if it wasn't for you two. So thank you. Just want to make that clear, even though we didn't have any talking time tonight. Right. Join us next week, people. Episode 232. We're going to have Sam May.

Gemma Barnes, Carla Bickerstaff and Jenny Lane will be back with us to talk all about the Invictus Games, everything it represents, the highs, the lows, the everythings, working with athletes.

It's going to be a fantastic insight so do join us for that if you can if you listen to the podcast and do please leave a rating and a review just hit the five star make it simple and just leave a few great emotive words like excellent amazing couldn't live without that sort of stuff but it just helps the great words of our guests just reach google higher someone types in invictus then the wonderful words shared with our guest

tonight will be there higher in google so that's what happens when you leave a rating and a review it's as simple as that and that's why we're doing it just to put great information out there so please do that 2 000 downloads about 100 reviews so something's wrong with the math so please do that now now i'll wait here while you do, all right thanks everyone again for joining us i really appreciate it i'll see some of you again next week and then the others in the weeks that come we'll

see some of you in the next episode take care people look after each other. Music.