Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/1089662
t m c » p u l s e | m a r c h 2 0 1 9 21 After a series of conversations and consultations, Thomas began seeing Duncan and his team regularly at the institute's Human Performance Lab starting in October. By that time, he had lost a substantial degree of strength and the muscles in his arm were so stiff that he couldn't straighten his elbow. "Our first goal was to try to get his range of motion back, because after the surgery, his elbow was really bent, so we tried to strengthen and just avoid as much pain as we could," explained Blaine Schmidt, a performance coach at the institute who has worked closely with Thomas. "After that, it was trying to get all of his strength back, because he was out for months with almost no physical activity." Schmidt and Duncan's team studied bareback bronc riding; they combed through videos and took notes of how the body moves on a bucking horse. Then they set to work designing a rehabilitation program tailor-made for Thomas' injuries and his sport. "We took what us physical therapists and strength coaches know about the biomechanics of other sports and then Anthony walked us through the biomechanics and requirements of his sport and where people get into trouble—what positions and things like that. And so that allowed us to better design his strength and conditioning and his rehab," Duncan said. "It's definitely not something we necessar- ily study in school." Riding a bucking bronc bareback takes a huge toll on the entire body. In terms of gravitational force, or G-force, it is comparable to crashing a race car. The team scrutinized what a bareback rider's back, abs and shoulders need to withstand to sit in the right position—the posi- tion that doesn't lend itself to injury. They learned that every time a horse bucks, the rider must let his legs relax, then move his knees up towards his shoulders before snapping his legs down and catching his spurs in the horse to—as Duncan put it—"grip like crazy." "It looks like they're just getting thrown all around but they're relaxing at the right moments and then snapping back into posi- tion," Duncan said. "Anthony would go frame-by-frame with us and explain what he was doing. He'd say, 'I've got to stay on my saddle. I've got to have my elbow tucked in and my shoulder retracted back. I've got to have my wrist here and my chin tucked because if my chin goes back, then my whole body will follow my head and arch back and then the horse will buck. And if I'm not tight through my abs, I'm not ready for the next buck and then I'm out of position and I can't hold on, and then I'm off the horse.'" In bareback riding, there's no muscle in the body a rider doesn't use, Thomas said. But what has impressed him about Duncan and his team is that they've learned precisely how he should use each muscle to be as well conditioned as possible for competition. "They've done a really good job helping me out," Thomas said. "And they've done an even better job of learning my sport and study- ing it every day and learning how my body works for my event and which parts of my body to train in different ways than they would for other athletes." ➟ VISIT TMCNEWS.ORG TO WATCH A VIDEO FEATURING ANTHONY THOMAS.