Why Rehab Teams Need Shared Targets, Not Arbitrary Roles

In elite sport, we often talk about multidisciplinary rehab as if it naturally comes together through good communication and clearly defined roles. The physio leads early management. The S&C coach takes over when the athlete can load. The sport scientist monitors the return to running volume. The coach reintroduces technical demands when the time is right.

On paper, it looks clean.
But anyone who has lived inside a performance department knows it rarely flows that neatly.

Rehab isn’t a sequence of handovers that map neatly onto job titles.
It’s a shared process of shaping adaptations that cut across disciplines — tissue capacity, force development, movement quality, conditioning thresholds, symptom response, behavioural readiness, and so on.

No single role owns these adaptations.
Every discipline influences them.

And this is where integration often breaks down.

Where Integration Really Falters

The problem isn’t that people aren’t aligned.
Most environments are filled with highly skilled practitioners who want to do the right thing and support each other.

Integration falters because each discipline naturally works from its own lens, its own methods, and its own assumptions about what the athlete needs next. Not because anyone is wrong — but because the structure that connects those lenses isn’t shared.

When that structure is missing, decisions become based on habit, local priorities, or personal models of rehab. Progress starts to mean different things to different people. And handover moments become points of friction rather than continuity.

This isn’t a reflection of poor expertise.
It’s what happens when expertise isn’t anchored to the same targets.

Shared Targets Align Expertise

Teams stay integrated when they work from the same definition of “what needs to change next.”
Once the adaptation and criteria are clear, each discipline can apply its skill set with precision to the same goal — rather than advancing the athlete based on role-specific assumptions.

Shared targets don’t merge roles. They align them.

Structure Makes Shared Targets Usable

Agreement alone isn’t enough.
Without a shared system, plans live in different tools, criteria get interpreted differently, and phase changes rely on conversation rather than clarity.

Structure is what makes alignment operational.
It gives every discipline the same view of the plan, the same criteria, and the same expectations around readiness.

Where Gameplan Fits

Gameplan provides that structure.
It brings phases, coactives, objectives, criteria, and handovers into one place, so the whole team works from the same targets — not arbitrary role boundaries.

This allows expertise to converge rather than run in parallel.

In Summary

Rehab works best when roles don’t dictate decisions —
targets do.

Shared targets unify expertise.
Shared structure sustains it.
And together, they turn multidisciplinary work into a coordinated process rather than a sequence of individual contributions.