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Tim Gabbett is one of the prominent leaders having spent over 3 decades in high performance sport where both his research and expertise has impacted many around the globe in the area of load management and injury prevention. What some may not know is that he started his career struggling to find any job in sport and eventually went on to work with the Tasmanian Institute of Sport, Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) and the Brisbane Broncos (NRL). This is a story of someone who now spends his time consulting, training and presenting to some of the biggest names in world sport and through a lot of setbacks, uncertainty, perseverance and an unrivalled work ethic has gone on to be named in the top 25 most impactful sport scientist of all time.

Highlights from the episode…

• What inspired Tim to pursue a career in sport science during a time where there were no sports scientist jobs in the industry.
• Tim shares the number one thing early practitioners are missing when it comes to working in high performance sport.
• Even though he was degree qualified, Tim shares some of the struggles early in his career trying to get any job in sport and even having to be a labourer for a period just to support his wife and 3 kids.
• How Tim has dealt with pressure, setbacks, occasional doubt and uncertainty during his 30-year career.
• Having transitioned from QAS to the Brisbane Broncos Tim discusses the differences between “public sports” (institutes, academies of sport) and “Private sports” (professional sporting organisations).
• Tim shares why he chose to have a side hustle of consulting while working full time in sport and how it developed into full time consulting for various clubs around the world.
• With many looking to utilise their expertise and start up their own business, Tim shares some advice and cautionary tales around his transition into consultancy.
• We discuss the Acute:Chronic load research and chat about whether we actually know specifically why an athlete becomes more robust to injury? Is it the physical adaptations or mental adaptations?
• What moderators Tim has found that can help athletes cope with acute spikes in loads and if addressed could actually effect the outcome of injury.
• An effective way to avoid spikes in load is to avoid the preceding trough in training. Off-season and are we inevitably creating a trough leading into a spike a load?
• Do we put too much emphasis on reducing injuries in sport?
• “Do you want your athlete back quickly or do you want them back permanently?” What you might need to consider when returning a player back to play post injuries.
• Tim shares a special and funny story of his Dad’s response to years of work that went into finally publishing his research and what Tim learnt from that moment.
• As a sports scientist what percentage do you lean currently on data/statistics/measures versus intuition/gut feel/instinct when it comes to decision making in sport? His answer will surprise you!

People mentioned:

• Peter Blanch: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3FHpOBIanMmbQRkx9YjkUx

Tim Gabbett contact details:

• Website: https://gabbettperformance.com.au/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-gabbett-82466899/

Host: Luis Resa

Contact me on:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-resa-a975196b/
• Email: luis.resa@outlook.com

Thanks for listening and please leave a review. If you would like more information on anything mentioned in this episode simply send me an email.