How well do you know Adam Rutter?

One of the most common comments about the club that I hear when interviewing the Titans players is just how good the physio set up is for them. I’ve lost count of the number of times the guys have paid tribute to Adam Rutter and his team. It only seemed right to have a chat with Adam himself and to find out a bit more about the guy everyone speaks so highly of.

Adam has been at Taunton RFC for 5 years now. It was thanks to former Taunton player, Will Siddle, that he heard of the opportunity for a physio therapist to work with the Titans. He met with Tony Yapp at Exeter University and admits, “Yappy took a bit of a punt on me. I was sussing out the lie of the land at first. From the second season I had the chance to start growing my team, bringing people on board who are aligned with my values.”

What, then, are those values? There’s no hesitation from Adam as he answers, “Proper diagnosis, firm diagnosis but as active as we can be with the rehab. We try to make sure that from the outset the lads are training to make their injuries better.”

“If we can get the lads back on the pitch in a good and timely manner, that’s the most important thing.”

Though supporters of the club will see the physiotherapy team on Saturdays, there’s a lot more to their involvement. In fact, as Adam says, “Match day is the smallest bit of the job. By that stage our job is largely done. It is just a case of covering traumas and strapping the lads. Sure, there are different issues when it comes to the games. But Tuesdays and Thursdays are the busiest. With the players reporting to training and coming in to assess for niggles and injuries.”

Sometimes the players can be patched up and sent back out onto the training pitch but on other occasions the assessment means that a period of rehabilitation is prescribed and the player knows he will be out of the team for at least a few weeks. “We keep the coaches informed as well and manage their expectations of how long the guys might be out of action.”

“The aim is to give the injury time to physiologically heal but we need to build up that area so that when he is back playing, that area is stronger than it was before.” Any given Tuesday might see players with niggles who aren’t up to training for that one session and who require a bit of nursing, right up to post-surgical issues like ACL ruptures, cartilage damage and broken bones. Increasingly there is also the serious demand to manage concussion issues and to ensure that players observe the correct protocol before returning to play.

On Saturdays most of the players will have something strapped by the physio team prior to the game. Then, once the match has kicked off, the physios’ role switches into first aid mode and trauma management. “We’re there pitch side to make sure the boys are safe and if we can patch them up so that they are able to continue, then great. If not, from a trauma perspective we are there to step in and prevent anything major happening for them.”

Adam’s team has grown to the extent that he has colleagues out covering both the Titans and the Warriors on match days. He, meanwhile, is shifting his focus because of the success of his own physiotherapy practice. “I set up Injury Armour here at Veritas Park during the pandemic. The business has grown and I have a clinic on Saturdays now. So Molly, Callum and Olly go out with the teams and report back to me post-match so that I can pick up injury management and rehabilitation programmes from Tuesday evening’s training session onwards.”

“Nobody will ever come in and simply rest. Lyndon, our Strength and Conditioning Coach, will make sure that they’re not idle whilst rehabilitating. The rest of their body will be loaded as best as it possibly can be.”

“Lyndon is the best S&C Coach I’ve ever worked with. When I’m there rehabbing the injured part of the body, he can then really quickly take over and make sure they’ve got the right amount of exercise prescribed for the rest of the body. Molly has stepped up and taken over the pitch side cover for Titans and is doing an amazing job making sure the boys get back to fitness as soon as possible.”

The Warriors are also covered by a member of Adam’s team. “Callum is very new. He did a placement with us as a student and did really well so we’ve given more responsibility to him.” Then there is Olly. “He brings a slightly different skill set because he’s an osteopath. His rehab skills are excellent.”

There’s a collegiality amongst the team and Adam says that they all learn from one another. There’s some crossover now too between the Taunton RFC work and Injury Armour. Adam is the owner and the lead physio but Lyndon is his S&C coach whilst Molly has taken on a contract the business has with Exeter Chiefs Under 16s Academy sessions. Lyndon works with all the injured jockeys who come to Injury Armour via the Injured Jockeys Fund. Horseracing, so Adam tells me, has only relatively recently embraced the idea of it's jockeys being athletes and getting the right sort of training for their sport and not putting on too much weight with their strength training.

It’s not only for the sporting elite though. “Any member of the general public can come in and get coached, whether that’s personal training or programmes to move their fitness or their health forwards.” Having his own physiotherapy set-up is a landmark moment in 31 year-old Adam’s career. Originally from Ottery St Mary in Devon, as a youngster he was very sporty and particularly got into racing downhill mountain biking. Over the years he experienced injuries himself. “Nothing major,” he explains, “Big old cuts and ruptured quads which gave me some exposure to physio.”

It was when he went to see a consultant about a quadricep rupture and was told that it was too late to be re attached that the notion of becoming a physiotherapist dawned on him. “He told me he couldn’t reattach the quad but that I should do physio and that would get me to a place where it wouldn’t give me any issues. I thought it was really cool that physio could give me an alternative for surgery.”

“I always knew from then that physiotherapy was what I wanted to do.”

He studied physiotherapy in Cardiff and landed his first job at Exeter City FC, going in as an intern and almost immediately landed the role of Academy Head Physio. When there was a pre-season game against Manchester United he tapped the physios there for knowledge and they told him they never employed anyone unless they work in the NHS.

“At the time all I wanted to be was a Premier League physio,” he recalls. “So I handed my notice in the next day and got an NHS physio job back in Cardiff.” Life takes unexpected turns however and he met Sophie – who he married last year – in Exeter, prompting a move back to the West Country. He also came to the realisation that he wanted to be available to treat everyone, not only athletes.

“Tony Yapp was a massive advocate for me to set up a clinic here. During lockdown I spent 2 months renovating the space with the help of family and friends.”

“I knew from that moment that I wanted to have my own clinic so I could treat people the same way as athletes get treated.” He gathered experience in different sports – rugby, cricket (Western Storm in the Kia Super League) – and in private clinics. All of which has fed his professional outlook setting up his own clinic, Injury Armour. “It’s the culmination of me treating everyone the same way that athletes are treated – with specific testing and really concise exercise programmes.” Appointing Lyndon as Strength and Conditioning Coach was crucial, “Our clients get absolute precision of care. Once you’re out of that acute pain phase, we put you on to the S&C coach to train you to the best of your ability.”

Adam pays tribute to his wife, Sophie, who encouraged him to set up Injury Armour. Sophie works for the Sue Ryder Charity and is able to work from their Exeter home a lot of the time which means it often falls to her to walk their labradoodle, Ralph. Two weeks before their September 2021 wedding, Adam participated in a gruelling nine-day charity cycle ride from John O’Groats to Land’s End. “It was my first foray on road bikes,” he says, having spent many years competing on mountain bikes. “It was good fun. There were nine of us and we were all connected but didn’t know everyone else before we began.”

I ask why they rode from Scotland to Cornwall, thinking that most people do the ride in the opposite direction, perhaps due to the prevailing winds. “It could be that,” he concedes, “But we met people going the other way who said we were doing it all wrong because the most horrible hills are in the West Country so they get them out of the way early.”

“We just thought it would be nice to finish in Cornwall nearer our family and friends. We ended up raising over £40,000 and had the most fun ever doing it.”

I finish by asking Adam what are three things that would surprise people to learn about him. He has Grade 6 in the clarinet (and also used to play saxophone). He admits that when he started working in cricket with Western Storm (featuring England captain and vice-captain Heather Knight and Anya Shrubsole) he didn’t even know how many balls there were in an over. And, finally, he danced in lingerie on stage to Queen’s ‘I Want To Break Free’ at a King’s School, Ottery 6^th Form Variety Show.

And with that bombshell I feel we know AdamRutter a lot better.