Tom Brady has credited his best friend and 'body coach' Alex Guerrero for keeping Birmingham City's treatment room quieter in recent seasons. Knighthead's first season at the helm was littered with injuries that contributed to the team's relegation from the Championship, but Blues haven't suffered such bad luck in the last two seasons.
Investment in Durable Athletes and New Methods
Some will say they have invested heavily in more durable athletes, with the likes of Christoph Klarer, Phil Neumann and Carlos Vicente boasting exceptional injury records prior to joining Blues, but Brady insists Guerrero's work has made a difference. Guerrero overhauled the club's medical department in the summer of 2024 and implemented new methods for treating first team players.
Daily Recovery Routines
Players have massages before and after training to ensure they recover correctly and the first team tend to work six days per week now, whereas Blues teams of the past would have had an extra day off. Championing Guerrero's work on The Overlap, Brady said: 'One of the biggest moments in my career was when I met a guy who is my best friend. He's running the health and wellness departments for Las Vegas Raiders and we have the lowest injury rates. At Birmingham City in the Championship, in the last two years we've had the lowest injury rates of any team.'
Brady's Personal Experience
Giving an example of how Guerrero helped him, Brady said: 'I was a quarterback and had significant elbow pain. It was tendinitis basically. The tendon in my elbow would get inflamed every time I would throw. I'd go in the weight room and lift weights because everyone says you've got to lift weights if you want to get better. I'd do bicep curls, I'd do pulls, I'd do bench press. In the weight room muscles are getting stronger but they are also getting tighter and thicker. Now I go on the football field and I've got to create this elastic movement, all these muscles need to be really long and elastic, but in the weight room I've changed them to be tight. Now I had this elbow tendon saying hold on, do you want me to be dense and tight or long and elastic?'
Manual Therapy Solution
'I was at the point where I had to take days off. After practice I would have an anti-inflammatory and rest. It wasn't working anymore. It was hurting more and becoming more irritating. Then I met Alex. Alex said, 'What's the problem?' 'My elbow hurts.' 'OK, here's what we're going to do. Through manual therapy we're going to lengthen and soften all the muscles in your forearm, all the muscles in your bicep and tricep, to relieve the tension on your tendon. Your tendon doesn't hurt because they're too weak, it hurts because they're too tight.' After three or four days, after making these muscles longer, the inflammation in the tendon came down. Then there was no elbow pain. That was the first time in my life since I was a boy playing baseball that my elbow pain went away.'
