Tapia and Sanyo's Medical Team: ”The bases of every preparation in sport are the physical part”
Dr. Ferran Abat is a traumatologist who specializes in sports injuries. He is part of Agustín Tapia and Sanyo Gutiérrez's team. In an interview with Padel Alto, he tells us what it's like to work in a professional padel team.
— As the bases of every preparation in sport are the physical part, what we do is help the player be as strong as possible, says Ferran Abat.
In 2015 Ferran Abat founded ReSport Clinic in the cities of Barcelona and Mataró; a clinic dedicated to the treatment, physical preparation, and rehabilitation of sports injuries. There, they receive renowned elite athletes, such as padel players, football players, IronMan runners, and amateur athletes.
In the clinic, he is in charge of the treatment and recovery of padel players such as Agustín Tapia, Sanyo Gutiérrez, Denis Perino, and Anna Cortiles among others.
— This old view of traumatology of waiting three months to recover from an injury does not help. You have to heal as soon as possible and educate the patient so that they don't relapse.
At the WPT Challenger in Cabrera de Mar in 2018, Abat worked as a WPT doctor when he met Agustin Tapia in an unfortunate way. In the tournament, Agustin hurt his left foot, an injury that kept him out of the courts for four months. Ferran Abat was in charge of his operation and treatment.
— I was the club’s doctor, and they asked me to be the Challenger doctor for WPT. In that tournament, Agustin got injured, and I started to treat him and a few days later, I operated him. That's where the relationship started.
According to Abat, he is trying to do with Tapia, Crosetti, Sanyo, and the whole team to bring high performance to padel.
If in a football team, there has to be a medical team, a physio team, a physical preparation team, a nutritionist, psychologists, etc. Why not in padel?
·— In padel, this is not yet the case, because it is a young sport, which has only been professionalized for a few years. If you want to do things right, we propose that the player not only visit the doctor when they are injured but also visit the physiotherapist when they are in pain or have a contracture. As the bases of every preparation in sport are the physical part, what we do is help the player be as strong as possible. And then, we work to minimize the risk of injury. For example, with Agustin Tapia, what I do is a periodic control. With ultrasounds, I control the main tendons involved in padel, joints, and other factors to reduce the risk of injury. As Agus does his physical preparation in my clinic, I make periodic evaluations and check that the parameters are within the desired values.
According to Dr. Abat, there are two concepts that we must have clear in terms of sports injuries, whether you are a professional or an amateur: prevention and diagnosis.
– A player who is not injured should focus his efforts on prevention. This is about doing a series of exercises, medical check-ups, physiotherapy, and functional rehabilitation habits to minimize the risk of injury.
And he continues
– In the case of an injury, the first thing to do is to make a good diagnosis of the injury we have. Not every elbow injury is epicondylitis. The injury must be treated according to the sport you play and the intensity you play it. This is where we find a variation between the professional and the amateur players because the professional will require much faster recovery times as their income depends on playing. In addition, the professional will be able to dedicate morning and afternoon to his recovery. At the same time, the amateur will have to go to work, so we will have to adapt his recovery to his working life. For us, the treatment plan is fundamental to a good recovery.
