The LTAD Network Podcast

Amanda Johnson has worked as a physiotherapist in several sports at a high level including Great Britain Aquatic teams particularly swimming, synchro swimming and 10 years with the GB diving team. She has also travelled with the England Athletics Team to international camps and competitions. Mandy served for 5 years as the England Women’s Football team physio and as a senior lecturer for the Football Association. She spent 10 years as the senior physiotherapist at the Academy of Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson before becoming the lead physiotherapist at Aspire Academy for 8 years. Amanda's PhD and research interests a  are related to issues and injuries suffered by developing youth athletes in all sports. She has lectured at many international conferences on youth development, maturity and injury. 

In this episode Amanda discusses: 

• Being specifically hired by Sir Alex Ferguson to discover why young athletes were getting injured. 

• The forward thinking approach of the Manchester United Academy using biological assessment 20 years ago. 

• The wide span of biological ages she found within each age group team at the Academy. 

• Why some injuries are specific to young athletes. 

• What exactly is happening during Sever's, Osgood-Schlatter's and Sinding-Larsen-Johansson disease. 

• What sort of ages these injuries present and how they are often treated. 

You can follow Amanda's work more closely via her Research Gate Profile here. 

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