Recover. Perform. Excel.

About Recover. Perform. Excel.

Welcome to the Performance and Rehabilitation Podcast from Kikko Health. This is where clinical expertise meets cutting-edge innovation.

Publisher

Kikko Health

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Feb 2026

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

6 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Caroline White: From Elite Sport Physio to Academic Leadership - On Objective Data, Diagnostic Ultrasound & the Case for Curiosity | Recover, Perform, Excel, Season Two, Episode Three

   Welcome to Recover, Perform, Excel, the performance and rehabilitation podcast from Kikko Health! This season, we follow recovery through its key stages with the help of our clinically esteemed guests: what diagnostic ultrasound can reveal, how treatment, training load and recovery strategies keep players on the pitch, and how theory links to practice when academia and sport combine. In this episode, host John Hartley is joined by Caroline White, a physiotherapist with almost 20 years' experience across the NHS and elite professional sport, spanning football, rugby union, rugby sevens and international cricket, including spells with Northampton Saints, Gloucester Rugby, the English Institute of Sport, the FA and the ECB, before moving into academia at the University of Birmingham and, most recently, a new director-level role at Keele University. Caroline's route into sport began with a part-time academy role at Reading FC alongside NHS rotational posts, before a period in private practice working with GB Handball led to her first full-time role in elite sport with Northampton Saints in 2010 - a spell that ended, fittingly, on the day the club won the Premiership. From there, Caroline moved through Gloucester Rugby, intensive multi-sport rehab work with the English Institute of Sport, a full-time post with the FA's women's pathway teams, venue medical management for England Cricket's bio-secure Test summer against New Zealand, and Great Britain Rugby Sevens at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, before stepping into academia full-time in 2022. The conversation moves from that career-spanning story into how physiotherapy testing has shifted from subjective manual muscle testing toward objective data - force plates and handheld dynamometry - and into what diagnostic ultrasound can now offer both practitioners and athletes. Caroline and John also dig into the tension between evidence-based and experience-based practice, why published research isn't automatically good research, and what it's like walking into an established academic programme as the outsider with fresh eyes. The episode closes on Caroline's advice for practitioners at any stage of their career: stay curious, keep your options open, and don't be afraid to fail. 00:00 - Introduction to Caroline and her nearly 20 years across the NHS, football, cricket and rugby 02:00 - Starting out in NHS MSK outpatients, and a part-time academy role at Reading FC 03:30 - Private practice with GB Handball, and sleeping in a school's photocopier room on tour 04:30 - Joining Northampton Saints in 2010, a Premiership-winning send-off, and three seasons at Gloucester Rugby 05:30 - Intensive, multi-sport rehab work with the English Institute of Sport 06:00 - A full-time role with the FA's women's pathway teams 08:00 - Becoming the "COVID police": venue medical manager for England Cricket's bio-secure Test summer 08:50 - Why Caroline left the FA for a role with more oversight and less pitch-side delivery 11:00 - Great Britain and England Rugby Sevens, and the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games 13:55 - The identity shift of stepping away from full-time sport, and the pull back towards academia 19:00 - Taking on a new director-level role at Keele University, and being "the outsider" with fresh eyes 27:00 - Physio and S&C collaboration, and the trap of accidentally overloading an athlete 30:00 - From subjective manual muscle testing to force plates, handheld dynamometry and diagnostic ultrasound 36:00 - Evidence-based vs experience-based practice, and why published research isn't automatically good research 43:30 - A guest question from Dave Carolan, and Caroline's closing advice: stay curious, don't be afraid to fail Connect with your host, John Hartley on LinkedIn. Find your guest, Caroline White, on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening to Recover, Perform, Excel brought to you by Kikko Health. This is a Loaded Hype production.

2. 

   22 Sept 2026

   Dr Marwan Al-Dawoud: Point-of-Care Ultrasound, AI in Scanning & the Future of Dynamic Imaging | Recover, Perform, Excel, Season Two, Episode Two

   Welcome to Recover, Perform, Excel, the performance and rehabilitation podcast from Kiko Health! This season, we follow recovery through its key stages with the help of our clinically esteemed guests: what diagnostic ultrasound can reveal, how treatment, training load and recovery strategies keep players on the pitch, and how theory links to practice when academia and sport combine. In this episode, host John Hartley is joined by Dr Marwan Al-Dawoud, a Sport and Exercise Medicine doctor and musculoskeletal (MSK) ultrasound specialist who has worked with the FA, the RFL, Leeds Rhinos, Huddersfield Giants and Burnley Football Club, and who splits his working week between NHS community MSK ultrasound services and private practice. Marwan's route in began as a multi-sport schoolboy - a goalkeeper and rugby player who also ran 100m hurdles and 200m sprint to county level and trialled for Scotland's U18 rugby union squad, before a broken collarbone ended his playing ambitions. He studied medicine at Manchester University, completed his foundation and GP training, and spent the following 15 years moving progressively deeper into sports and MSK medicine - his first taste of pitch side cover being, fittingly, American football's Brit Bowl. Years across rugby league, athletics, dance, rugby and football followed, before he stepped back from full-time club medicine to specialise in MSK ultrasound and ultrasound-guided intervention. The conversation moves from the governance gap opening up as point-of-care ultrasound spreads faster than formal training can keep pace, through the promise and risk of AI-assisted scanning tools like handheld Clarius probes, and into Marwan's own pioneering research building a new classification system for dynamic hamstring ultrasound with a hands-free wearable probe harness. A “myth or method” segment covers Marwan's scepticism toward tissue-modulation devices, shockwave and vibration platforms, and the crowded field of injectables, before the episode turns to managing a player who wants to play through an injury against clinical advice, and closes on Marwan's advice to anyone starting out in ultrasound: use the free resources available, get hands-on with a scanner, find a mentor, and never let anything come before your professional licence. 00:00 - Introduction to Marwan and his roles across the FA, the RFL, Leeds Rhinos, Huddersfield Giants and Burnley FC, and how he and John first met 02:33 - Marwan's route in: a multi-sport schoolboy career, a Scotland U18s rugby trial cut short by a broken collarbone, and studying medicine at Manchester 04:03 - Foundation and GP training, then 15 years moving deeper into sports and MSK medicine - starting with covering American football's Brit Bowl 05:14 - Stepping back from full-time club medicine to specialise in MSK ultrasound, and why most of Marwan's week is still spent in NHS community services 06:52 - Speed of access to care: what sport gets right that the NHS often can't, and why that gap matters to patients 08:04 - The flip side of fast diagnostics: over-diagnosis, over-treatment, and the navicular stress fracture dilemma 10:12 - Managing timelines with coaches and executives after surgery vs conservative treatment, and the ethics of PRP 11:32 - The governance gap in point-of-care ultrasound as more practitioners pick up the probe 13:26 - Where training has improved and where it hasn't: the ongoing struggle to find mentorship for new sonographers 14:37 - AI-assisted scanning: Clarius handheld probes, tissue labelling and haptic feedback 16:52 - The risk of over-reliance on AI tools for less experienced scanners 18:13 - Ultrasound CT: an early-stage, full-body water-immersion ultrasound scanner 20:07 - Bringing it back to daily practice: the steep anatomy learning curve of scanning 22:04 - Using ultrasound wisely: why clinical acumen has to come before the scan, not after 23:42 - Neovascularisation and the double-edged sword of showing patients their

3. 

   24 Aug 2026

   Dave Carolan: 30 Years in Elite Sport - On Staying Curious, Building an Industry from Scratch & Life Beyond the Club

   Welcome to Recover, Perform, Excel, the performance and rehabilitation podcast from Kiko Health! This season, we follow recovery through its key stages with the help of our clinically esteemed guests: what diagnostic ultrasound can reveal, how treatment, training load and recovery strategies keep players on the pitch, and how theory links to practice when academia and sport combine. In this episode, host John Hartley is joined by Dave Carolan, a practitioner with over 30 years' experience in elite professional sport, spanning Norwich, Colchester, Birmingham, Derby, Millwall and Stoke, as well as spells with Edge10, UEFA, FIFA and the FA. Dave's route into the game began, by his own admission, almost by chance: an afternoon at the beach in 1982 that led him to watch the iconic Brazil vs Italy World Cup match, and a subsequent switch from rugby into football in 1998. From there, Dave built a career at the coalface of English football just as sports science itself was being invented - describing the early years as "slash and burn through a jungle," with no established discipline, no shared language for testing (foot-pounds or newton metres, depending who you asked), and plenty of resistance to convince coaches and players that strength work and nutrition could help rather than hinder performance. The conversation moves from that grassroots-up story of an entire industry forming, through Dave's decision to step outside full-time club football to see the game "from a different angle" with Edge10, and into his current portfolio career across FIFA's technical leadership and talent development work, UEFA's fitness advisory group, coach education with the FA, and his own venture, Sport Detection. Dave and John also dig into the technology that's shaped his career, from counting squares on graph paper to calculate isokinetic force output, through to force plates, GPS and heart rate monitoring, and why good data can only ever inform decisions, not dictate them. A "myth or method" segment covers some of the fads Dave has seen come and go, and the episode closes on the advice he credits with sustaining his career: never stop being curious. 00:00 - Introduction to Dave and his 30+ years across Norwich, Colchester, Birmingham, Derby, Millwall and Stoke 02:00 - How Dave got into sport: the 1982 World Cup, playing multiple sports, and the pivot from rugby into football in 1998 06:30 - Stepping outside full-time football: working with Edge10 on athlete management systems across major leagues 09:30 - Why Dave returned to football, and what led him to want to give back to the next generation of practitioners 12:30 - Current work across FIFA (technical leadership and talent development), UEFA's fitness advisory group, and coach education with the FA 17:30 - The importance of mentorship and "reaching a hand below" to bring others up in the industry 19:30 - Building sports science from nothing: the early days of "slash and burn through a jungle" at Blackburn, Norwich and London Irish 24:30 - The trade-off between the routine of club life and the challenges of working independently across multiple organisations 28:00 - From counting squares on graph paper to isokinetic dynamometry, force plates, GPS and heart rate monitoring 32:00 - Why data should inform practice, not dictate it - and the risks of over-relying on scans and diagnostics 36:00 - Myth or method: stretch mats, glute activation bands, and the pull towards reductionist quick fixes 39:30 - The reality of budgets and procurement for new technology inside professional clubs 43:00 - Strategy vs delivery: what Dave misses, and how he measures success in his career 46:00 - Dave's closing advice: stay curious Connect with your host, John Hartley on LinkedIn. Find your guest, Dave Carolan, on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening to Recover, Perform, Excel brought to you by Kikko Health. This is a Loaded Hype production.

4. 

   3 Feb 2026

   Paul Kelly on Youth Development, Clinical Reasoning & Individualised Player Care | Season One, Episode Three

   In this episode, our host John Hartley is joined by Paul Kelly, Head of Academy Physiotherapy at Liverpool FC. With a career spanning more than 30 years in elite sport, from his early playing days to roles at Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City, and now leading the medical team at one of the world’s most renowned academies, Paul offers a rare inside look at the evolving demands of youth football.

5. 

   3 Feb 2026

   Kevin Mulholland on Data, Team Culture & Individualised Player Care | Season One, Episode Two

   In this episode, our host John Hartley is joined by Kevin Mulholland, Head of Medical at Wrexham AFC. With experience spanning Premier League, international football, and now leading Wrexham’s rapid rise, Kevin shares his unique journey - and the lessons learned rebuilding and redefining elite care at one of the UK’s most talked-about clubs.

6. 

   3 Feb 2026

   Dave Fevre on Isokinetics, Testing, and the Human Side of Performance | Season One, Episode One

   In this debut episode, our host John Hartley is joined by Dave Fevre, Chartered Physiotherapist and founder of Fevrepitch. With decades of experience in elite sport - including roles at Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers, and national rugby squads - Dave brings unmatched clarity and first-hand knowledge to the evolving world of sports medicine.

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.