Why Spreadsheets Still Sit at the Centre of Rehab — And Why They Quietly Hold Teams Back

Most high-performance teams did not choose spreadsheets because they were ideal for rehab. They chose them because they were available.

Excel became the default layer that sat between people, plans, and pressure. Someone needed to track progress. Someone needed a way to share updates. Someone needed something that worked today. A spreadsheet was opened, a few columns were added, and rehab moved on.

That decision is familiar to every team. It is not a failure of thinking or professionalism. It is a response to a system gap that has existed for years.

The problem is what happens next.

Spreadsheets Were Never Built to Coordinate Rehab

Rehabilitation is not a static record-keeping exercise. It is a live, multi-disciplinary process that changes daily.

Physios, strength coaches, medical staff, and performance leads all contribute information that shapes decisions. That information needs to move quickly, stay visible, and retain context. Spreadsheets do none of those things particularly well.

They separate information into files rather than shared processes. They rely on manual updates that lag behind reality. They assume one owner, not multiple contributors working in parallel. Over time, versions multiply, trust erodes, and no one is fully confident they are looking at the most current picture.

The spreadsheet still exists, but it no longer reflects how the rehab is actually unfolding.

AMS Platforms Record Injury. They Do Not Run Rehab.

Most teams already have an Athlete Management System. Those platforms are valuable for compliance, dashboards, and electronic medical records. They are good at telling you what has happened.

They can show injury incidence. They can summarise time lost. They can aggregate trends across seasons. Most performance departments already have a strong handle on that information.

What they do not provide is a way to plan and coordinate rehab as a living process.

They do not define milestones clearly across disciplines. They do not manage handovers. They do not help a team decide what happens next, today, based on what just happened this morning.

That gap is where spreadsheets step in. Not because they are good, but because nothing else exists to hold the process together.

Data Goes In. It Rarely Comes Back Out.

One of the quiet frustrations of spreadsheet-based rehab is that the data is technically “there”, but functionally unusable.

Daily decisions get logged. Sessions are completed. Notes are added. Load numbers are entered. Weeks later, the file is closed and archived.

Teams often tell themselves they will review rehab cases in the off-season. They will audit timelines. They will look for patterns. They will learn from what worked and what stalled.

In reality, those reviews almost never happen.

The data is fragmented across files, staff, and seasons. Context is missing. Links between decisions and outcomes are unclear. Opening a folder of old spreadsheets feels like work, not insight. So the opportunity passes, and the same questions resurface the following year.

Fast Decisions Need Structure. Slow Learning Needs Aggregation.

Rehab decisions happen on two time horizons.

In-season, teams need to think fast. They need clarity today. Is the athlete on track? What has been completed? What still needs to happen? Where are the risks right now?

That is fast, intuitive decision-making. It depends on clear signals and shared understanding.

Out of season, teams need to think slowly. They need to step back, aggregate cases, and examine patterns across time. Where do timelines drift? Where do handovers break down? Which phases consistently stall?

That kind of learning only works when daily decisions are captured in a structured, connected way.

Spreadsheets support neither mode particularly well. They slow down day-to-day clarity and fail to produce usable insight later.

This Is Not a Capability Problem. It Is a Systems Problem.

The continued reliance on spreadsheets does not reflect a lack of expertise. Performance teams already understand their injury profiles. They already know their risk areas. They already have capable clinicians and coaches.

What they lack is a system designed to coordinate rehab as it actually happens.

A system that treats rehab as a shared process, not a static document. A system that allows information to move between people without friction. A system where daily decisions create usable data, not dead records.

Until that gap is addressed, spreadsheets will continue to fill the space. Not because teams believe in them, but because they are trying to hold complex work together with the tools they have.

The challenge now is not to collect more data. It is to give rehab the structure it has always needed to move with clarity, pace, and intent.

Still running rehab from spreadsheets? It’s worth asking what that’s quietly costing you.