Meet Drew O’Donnel

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Drew O’Donnel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Drew, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

During my sophomore year of high school I sustained a significant right ankle sprain playing soccer, which required physical therapy in order to return to playing. Over the next 3 years, I returned to physical therapy for multiple injuries: recurrent bilateral ankle sprains, fractured 5th metatarsal, strained right hip flexor, chipped left iliac crest, and low back pain. I believe much of this was a result of compensations since my first injury. As an adult and changing my activity from soccer, rugby, and rock climbing to triathlons, I experienced another injury, IT band syndrome on my left side. I still have imbalances due to that first ankle sprain that contributed to this injury, but also learned the hard way about the importance of safe training progressions. As a physical therapist, I was used to treating injuries as they arose but did not fully understand or emphasize injury prevention. I have always been active and enjoyed sports and weight training but there is specific work that must go into training in order to reduce the risk of initial or subsequent injuries and prevent their recurrence. Ever since that first injury, I have been determined to learn as much as I can about how the human body moves and how to keep it moving well for as long as possible. My faith calls me to be a servant to others and to use the gifts that God gave me in my service to others. So it was very natural for me to find my purpose in teaching proper movement as well as safe and effective training progressions, focusing on endurance sports such as running, biking, swimming, and triathlons. There is so much joy in helping someone achieve their goal of moving pain free, completing their first marathon or triathlon, or improving their fitness and setting a PR they never thought possible.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My focus is on providing physical therapy and endurance coaching to my community. So, I provide rehabilitation for injuries as well as education and training on injury prevention, running gait analyses, and one-on-one coaching for endurance sports such as running, biking, swimming, and triathlons. I have a Doctorate of Physical Therapy, I am an IRONMAN U Certified Coach, and I am a Certified Running Gait Analyst. I have completed numerous running, mountain biking, and cross country ski events at various distances, as well as IRONMAN 70.3 and IRONMAN 140.6 races. My passion lies with eliminating pain, restoring proper movement, and optimizing performance. My goal is to improve the health and longevity of anyone I work with. There is a part of life for almost everyone that deals with recovering from an injury or surgery and I love helping in that situation. But there is an even larger part of life that we should be focused on injury prevention and longevity to give us not just more years, but better years.

As a health professional specializing in exercise and corrective movement, I understand from personal and clinical experience how important exercise is for not just our physical health, but mental health as well. Exercise is the world’s best medicine; no drug has such a wide range of benefits without the nasty side effects. I have heard too often, “I stopped running because I was told it was bad for me” or “it hurts when I run, so I just stopped.” Our bodies have an incredible ability to be trained and our success in a particular activity depends entirely on our musculoskeletal system being able to tolerate the movements. Plain and simple, if we don’t train our muscles, they become untrained and I believe there is a disconnect between what we think we can handle and what we can truly tolerate without injury. This is where proper training comes in. Combining my passion for endurance sports and knowledge of rehabilitation has given me the opportunity to focus on training athletes that are pursuing a physical challenge, and helping them to achieve their goal without sustaining an injury, and to continue their activity for many years.

The physical therapy and running gait analyses I offer are mostly done in person but can be performed as online visits. My approach to physical therapy is based heavily on a combination of manual therapy to restore movement and corrective exercise to provide your body with the support and strength it needs to keep you moving well. I take a functional, 3-dimensional approach to my corrective exercise.

A running analysis can be 2 different ways and for some in person clients, I do a combination. One way is through a slow motion video to analyze your biomechanics and determine what inefficiencies may be contributing to slower speeds or more injuries. The second way is with a motion sensor belt, called Runeasi, that tracks your vertical and horizontal movement and gives you details about your run such as stability, impact force, and shock absorption.

My endurance coaching services are provided virtually and this is a good time of year to sign up for a subscription. Once the new year hits most people are setting goals and signing up for races and my schedule fills up with athletes.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1.) Having a baseline knowledge of your area of interest – for me, that meant learning the basic sciences early so I could start applying what I learned.
2.) Having personal experience – you learn an incredible amount from personal experiences and with something like exercise and injury rehabilitation, you will never fully understand it if your only knowledge is coming from a book or lecture.
3.) Specializing in an area that interests you – being a physical therapist is very general and could cover a wide range of functional abilities. I have chosen to combine my rehabilitation experience with my passion for endurance sports to create a blend of physical therapy and endurance coaching that can target a specific group of people that I relate to.

I would encourage any early in their journey to start learning more about wherever their interests are. We have so many resources available now that allow you to learn about any topic you choose. You will realize there is so much more to whatever your interest is. I had no idea how many different things physical therapists were able to do until I got into PT school. And now as an endurance coach I am going back to some things I learned in my exercise physiology undergraduate.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

My parents, from a young age, encouraged me to be active. They taught me the value of practicing something if you want to see improvements. This is the foundation of all exercise. We often expect or hope that our pain will disappear or that we’ll be able to run as fast or lift as much weight as 10 years ago but haven’t done anything about it. Eliminating pain, exercising for general health benefits, or training for a particular event is hard work and takes a lot of time. We lose muscle 3-5 times faster than we gain it. But, the benefit is unrivaled. If that’s what it takes to be pain free, to complete an event that seemed out of this world difficult for me, or to be functional enough to be unrestricted in my hobbies or play with my grandkids or even great grandkids, then it is 100% worth it and I thank my parents for instilling in me that if you work as something, you will improve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://enduretc.com
• Instagram: Endure_TC