Dr. Nikhil Latey: Sports Science Interview
Interviewed by Aashi Sethiya
Visual Media by Navnit Ade
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Aashi Sethiya: What thinking process and decision-making go behind selecting sports physiotherapy for post-graduation?
As there are many branches within itself such as sports medicine, sports rehabilitation, kinesiology which arena a student must select if he aspires to work with sportsmen.
Dr. Nikhil Latey: I personally am against the idea of doing Post graduation immediately after bachelor’s. It is not a continuation of your graduation course. Post-graduation is intended to gain mastery in your area of interest.
I recommend that after you finish your bachelor’s course get at least two years of work experience. Work in different fields. So that you know what syncs with you and excites you.
Then you won’t be doing your master’s just because hospitals require it in your CV but because you want to do it. The results are always better when you are excited about something.
With regards to choosing which aspect of sports – whether it is sports nutrition, science, kinesiology, biomechanics or medicine it all comes down again to what excites you.
For me, the limits of human performance always excited me.
That is I believe the natural progression for a physiotherapist is where we are used to getting MMT level 5 in patients, but in athletes, we get MMT level 10 or 15, so how to get there.
Then again the question remains what excites you.?
Aashi Sethiya: What goes behind training Olympic Athletes? What are the things that go on in a trainer’s mind and what can the Physiotherapists training non-athletes take away from your learnings and apply to our patients?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: What works for one does not necessarily work for the other. Athletes have checklists, visualisation, self talk, dairy writing whichever works for them. Same applies for the trainer as well.
There are 2 things to keep in mind while working with high performance athletes
1. They are not your friends. You have to maintain a professional distance otherwise it would impair your judgement. Their health and fitness is dependent on you. Respect that responsibility. It is your job to push your athletes when they don’t feel like it
2. You need to be in sync with what the coach and athlete has decided. What competition you are training for. The planning that goes into it. Days and time required for the body to adjust to weather and temperature, timezone before the game. Be aware 360 degrees.
With regard to the mindset that I learned from the athletes that percolate into treating the non-athletes is –
Let’s take the example of Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom both are high performing athletes and achievers. Though they are aged, what keeps them going is perseverance.
They have an unbelievable fire that just doesn’t allow them to quit. They are aware that you are only as good as your last result. This is what you must carry into your daily practice.
Hippocrates says a 70% success rate is a characteristic of a good physician. But you don’t get to 70% unless you are aiming for 100%.
Every single day every single patient, every single time, you have to give your best.
If you have been tired, it doesn’t matter how good a physio you are or what your past work has been. If you are unable to deliver, then that’s how good you are.
Always keep fighting.
Aashi Sethiya: As budding physios, we tend to think we know everything, but that isn’t the case. As you said, we are only as good as our last result.
Dr. Nikhil Latey: You may know everything, but can you apply it?
When you are graduating, all you have seen is one work environment, and you have a specific category of patients. You learn what has been passed on through generations of seniors. When you step out of your institution, the equations change, facilities, patient load, socio-economic strata, joint injuries, and different nutritional backgrounds, affecting the way their muscles work.
The number of permutations and combinations expand, and therefore, when you come out of the institute, you may know everything to work in that institute, but once you step out, you will find yourself wanting.
For example, if a patient comes into college OPD with knee pain at an advanced age, you can close your eyes and say it is an osteoarthritis case and treat it as one. But in a private clinic, if an issue comes by of a 65 yr old marathoner with knee pain, then it won’t necessarily be an OA case; there may be degeneration. Still, it can be a meniscal injury, runner’s knee syndrome, It band syndrome. Although you know everything you need to know to work in your institute, your knowledge may still be insufficient. As time changes, you may find yourself wanting more.
Aashi Sethiya : What do you want to tell someone who wishes to enter this massive sports rehab field? What skills, work, and perspective should they have before entering?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: You have to be ready for hard work. Hard work that is multifaceted.
For example, It is everyone’s fantasy to run on the field with the physio kit. Firstly, if your athlete is injured competing, you are already screwed.
Your job is to make sure you are there for the training, over months and years to make sure that they are at their 100% when they enter the competition. After that, your job is done. As soon as they got onto the field, your job is done. Make sure that when you hand off the athlete is at 100%.
Wherever the athletes are training.
For example, I was with the men’s boxing team in Patiala a decade ago and had to bear extreme temperatures.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, you have to keep pushing until you reach the day of competition.
So unless you have that “Dumm” to work hard and do it passionately, I mean, there is a passion in getting into it, but on a day-to-day basis, you have to be a little calmer and collected.
Speak with the coaches, understand the game, understand your athlete, understand the training routines, understand competition routines. When are the trial matches? When is the weight checking done? You need to understand as much as you can about the sport.
If you need bullet points:
- You need to have that ‘dum’ to work hard on the field.
- You need to understand the sport well.
- You need to understand the athlete and the coach, their plan of action well.
When you know these three things you sort of have, it’s incredible to work around them to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
Remember, the athlete is your client, and you must not post photos with your client on social media because then you would be alienating everyone else who plays that sport.
Aashi Sethiya: When someone enters the sports rehabilitation arena, he needs strong networking skills, adequate funds. To create a successful sports setup, what type of financial planning could An aspiring sports physiotherapist do while still in their initial journey.
Dr. Nikhil Latey: If you start something, you must have what it takes to keep it running.
If you are confident enough, it can be cheap or expensive depending on the facilities offered; the question is can you keep it running? Do you have what it takes?
That is how your network builds. Competency and ability to give results is the only thing that will take you forward.
You may be a good communicator, but not everyone can handle a clinic.
A high-performance clinic is going to require extensive equipment. When you can give results and deliver, the network will build, and raising funds won’t be an issue.
Aashi Sethiya: As you have done your post graduation in the UK and then came back to India, you never chose to go back, even though your life could have been easier over there. Many graduates in India are going to other countries. What are your views about it?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: I don’t think you should stop people from trying to achieve a better life. If an easier life could be achieved in this country, they wouldn’t go out. If graduates feel that they will get to learn more and have a better quality of life by going out, they will have better financial security. They must go ahead. Nothing should hold them back.
However, I never look to go back again, as I think I can do pretty well here by going out I can get the same quality of life in India, have my setup. While I was staying abroad, I earned just enough to pay the rent and food, just the living expenses. Meanwhile, my brother was living off the same salary in India and leading a more comfortable life. Abroad the costs are high.
However, if you feel you can get a better life abroad, you must go ahead.
But those who do come back and decide to stay back, know that we are one of the most populous countries, soon to overtake China. That is a vast market. If you can deliver results, there is no stoppage to how far you can go. Even those who want to research in India, instead of having 8-10-15 clients as you see in international studies, get 500-600-800 clients just because of the strength of the population.
I am optimistic about our nation, and I feel the next 10-15 years will be phenomenal for us.
Aashi Sethiya: From the outside, we believe that the highest rung for a sports physiotherapist is getting into Olympics. As you have been in the Olympics and trained athletes for it, what do you believe? Is it the last stage? What is beyond it?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: I don’t think so. It may be a pinnacle for the athlete. It is the highest accolade. But for a physio, not really. You don’t win the medal, so how can that be your crowning achievement?
For an Olympic athlete, they can retire by 30-35. They are financially stable, but at that age, can you afford to retire?
If you can, then yes, it is the highest level of achievement. If it’s not, then it’s not the highest rung of achievement for the physio. As I said, you are only as good as your last result today. You have gone to the Olympics; tomorrow, if you screw up with a district-level athlete, then that’s how good you are. It never ends.
Aashi Sethiya: Being a pioneer leader, what is the one thing which you would like to suggest to physiotherapy students who are aspiring to be a leader?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: Honestly, I never aspired to be a leader. I kept on trying to be better than yesterday. Never did I stop learning. Sometimes I even learn new skills from my juniors which I would probably not know. So my only suggestion is always to keep learning & try to be better than before.
Aashi Sethiya: Nowadays, sports science technology has become an essential pillar of the sports science field and sir, even you are integrating technology in your practice for so many years, so could you please shed some light on sports science technology as many Indian physiotherapy students do not have much access to it and could you please tell us how are you incorporating the same in your practice?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: It’s about “ How you use the equipment and how do you make sense of the data which you assess?.” As a physio, always keep your ear to the ground, keep yourselves abreast with what’s coming up in the world. After doing your critical analysis, if you find the equipment is reasonable and provides the desired benefits, don’t hold yourself and just buy it. With regards to sports science, it’s an entirely different picture altogether.
Over here, we work more on determining the maximum functional capacity of athletes with the help of equipment. I use many types of equipment like motion sensors for video analysis, biomechanical analysis, pressure plates for gait analysis to figure out where the athlete is lacking.
Aashi Sethiya: Many recent graduates do not get any sports physical therapy exposure during their graduation. According to you, what things should a second or third-year student do to gain insight or add to their CV to realize their interest in sports?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: Start working voluntarily at local clubs for two to three hours per week. But at the same time, it should not come in the way of your other commitments. If you start working in the second or third year, you will get three years of work experience when you finish the internship. Ideally, you should start working after the third year as you would know many things and decrease the risk of causing harm to patients. Also, try understanding the game, game requirements, and athlete’s training schedule.
Aashi Sethiya: As you spoke about your Olympics journey before, what was the take-home message you got after treating these Olympians?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: Frankly speaking, I was tired.
But there is one memory of mine which has stayed with me. It’s about the London games in 2012 where Mary and Nicola had a straight fight at the semi-final for gold, and Mary could not give her hundred percent, so she lost the match as she had periods one day before the game. It was a harrowing experience. But at the same time, it makes me happy when I look back at the efforts we had put in as an entire team. So teamwork is the lesson which I always carry with me.
Aashi Sethiya: Many Indian physios have an inferiority complex that their international counterparts are several years ahead of them in skills and equipment. So, according to you, what could be its etiology, and what can be done to bridge this gap?
Dr. Nikhil Latey: I don’t think there is any gap. Abroad the people are paid to do research, so they have to do the research. So before coming to any conclusion check the power of the study and the relevance of that study. But it doesn’t mean that the studies done abroad are irrelevant. Some of their studies are extremely brilliant and inspiring, but we need to go through hundreds of papers to find the real gem.
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AASHI SETHIYA
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NAVNIT ADE
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