Recover Hard, Recover Smart

Zara Walsh plays footy for Sturt in the SANFL Women’s competition. She ruptured her ACL in round five going up for an uncontested mark and spent months working through recovery to get back on the field. This conversation is about the mental challenge of flipping the switch from feeling sorry for yourself to actually doing the rehab.

Zara talks about losing motivation in the first couple of months after sur...

David Olney spent years working as a remedial therapist with elite athletes before becoming a university professor and consultant who worked with Special Operations Command, and currently working as a strategist with Talked About Marketing. He’s got a unique perspective on injury recovery because he’s seen how professional athletes, amateur athletes, and elite soldiers all handle setbacks differently.

David talks a...

Dr Travis Brown is a pathologist and co-host of the This Medical Life podcast. He doesn’t specialise in ACL injuries, but he knows plenty about what can go wrong after surgery. This conversation covers the medical stuff that matters during recovery: why they tell you to keep your scars clean, what blood clots actually are, and how to know if something’s wrong.

Travis explains why tendons and ligaments take so long ...

Lucinda Silvestri is an Australian lacrosse player who won MVP at senior national champs after recovering from her first ACL. Five months after returning to play, she did her second ACL in the grand final. This conversation is about what it’s like to go through ACL recovery twice and how your mindset changes when you already know you can get back.

Lucinda talks about the first ACL happening 30 seconds into a grand final,...

Hamish is a strength and conditioning coach at SASI (South Australian Sports Institute) who wrote AJ’s ACL rehab program. This conversation breaks down what actually goes into building a recovery program, from the first phase focused on getting normal range of motion back, through to sports-specific movements and running.

Hamish explains why ACL rehab is so different from regular strength training, how he decides wh...

Erin Inglis was a state hockey player for SA Under 16s when her knee kept dislocating. Three times. In November 2024, she had surgery to repair her patella tendon and move the bone to stop it happening again. Now she’s nine months into rehab, and she talks honestly about what that’s been like.

This conversation covers the physical side of losing 90% of your quad strength and watching your knee shake doing exer...