This is the final article in a series on Recovery-Centered Training (RCT). This new model of human performance is based on the mechanisms of tissue recovery, adaptation, and development. Not only does it focus on optimizing the sport performance capacity of the athlete, but it also serves as a functional basis for injury prevention-based training. A schematic overview can be found below.

In articles 2 and 3, I discussed the two primary functional elements of RCT – the mechanical and cognitive networks. As I have previously noted, training is only as good as our ability to recover from and adapt to the imposed training stimulus. An important aspect of recovery and adaptation is having  the necessary nutritional building blocks to allow it to happen.

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I will confess - I was always thankful for physics in high school. Strange as that may sound, it was one of my strongest subjects. But beyond that minor digression, physics defines what we experience in the physical world. Newton and Einstein, among many others, have contributed greatly to our understanding of the dynamics of the world around us.

At this point, you must be asking “why ponder physics on New Year’s Eve?”, and this would undoubtedly be a fair question. Physics certainly doesn’t involve resolutions, or the consumption of alcohol, or watching the ball drop on Time’s Square.

But when left to your own thoughts about life, when left facing the challenges of your world, you may sometimes revel in some newfound insight. And insight finds us at the strangest moments, at times when we are open to what the universe has to say to us. Perhaps the problems don’t change, but the way we see them changes. As Einstein himself noted, “the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them”. Smart man, that Einstein guy.

Strangely enough, physics may indeed contribute to not only our understanding of the world around us – but the world within us as well. There are two optical principles that I can think of right now that apply to life as well as they do to our physical realm.

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I just received a news flash from the American Physical Therapy Association. Across the news wire today, this news just in from the journal “Health Services Research”: direct access to physical therapy saves money.

Wow. Holy Redundant Research, Batman. Another study confirms the obvious that was noted back in 1994 – 17 years ago.

Pardon my sarcasm, but it really doesn’t require any great rocket science to figure that physician-gatekeeper-referred physical therapy is going to cost at least one more visit than non-physician-gatekeeper-referred … if not more. Of course, that would be a doctor’s visit – or two or three. If all other things remain equal, of course.

Two studies, 17 years apart, and we have varied levels of “direct access” attained in various states over that time period. Obviously, something just isn’t sinking in. What prevents direct access from becoming the standard of care in this country?

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The NCAA needs a college football playoff. I’ve said it once (or twice) before, and I will say it again. Annually. It’s pretty simple, actually. No matter how many people you talk to, it seems that the overwhelming response is yes, there needs to be a playoff format for the top 4, 8, or 16 teams. But in 2009, we have another year, and another mess.

Sadly, the only people that don’t tend to agree with this are the school presidents and conference commissioners. We’ve heard all sorts of reasons to not have a playoff, most of which are incredibly lame and self-serving. Let’s be realistic here – the number one reason (unspoken, perhaps, after everything is said and done) is “maintaining the status quo”. Now the federal government – yes, the same government that is struggling with health care reform, the banking industry, and two wars – has put college football in the political spectrum. Please welcome H.R. 390, the College Football Playoffs Act. It’s good to see our government working on things that truly effect the population [sarcasm inserted here].

But seriously folks, this is what the law would look like:

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