James Haskell 

 

England and British & Irish Lions Rugby Player

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It’s never easy to describe a journey with someone, but I will try my best to explain how I came to work with Travis Allan. 

 

I was recovering from my first major surgery in 12 years as a professional rugby player and, as always was looking at the best people and, ways to improve myself before I came back to playing.

 

I have throughout my career always looked at finding the best people in their fields that would help me improve, fitness, nutrition, rugby specific and medical. You after all only get one career so you can either maximise it or just go through the motions.

 

I had heard good things about Travis from a friend of mine. Or I should say the friend of mine sold Travis as a miracle worker who I needed to see if I was to improve and recover from my surgery in the best possible way. I am always a little skeptical when people talk of practitioners as miracle workers.

 

You quickly learn that there is no such thing as a miracle worker, just people at the top of the game who for one reason or another work best for you at that time.

 

I dually booked an appointment with Travis to try out his method of MAT or Muscle Activation Therapy and was not disappointed. I was met with a quiet humble kiwi man, who seemed to have a great understanding of how the body worked.

 

His treatment style was very different than most I had, had before. It was all about finding an area of weakness, testing it, then working on the areas of muscle around it, re-testing and immediately seeing improvement.  Obviously, there is more to it than that, but that is my layman’s description of our first session.  

I found the process really useful and felt better after one session, so felt it was important to look at a course of treatments as one is never enough.

 

I never really thought about Travis as someone to help me look at my personal conditioning program let alone my rugby development. However, as we spent more time together, Travis would make suggestions about my preparation for games physically and being a rugby-mad kiwi (these guys have rugby in the blood) advice about my playing style.

 

Now I am very keen on my conditioning and as you have seen from my opening paragraph I have searched and worked with some of the best people around the world in the areas of conditioning, i.e., weights and fitness etc. however just because you have been doing something for a long time doesn’t mean it's right and you can't look to improve. 

 

Travis is also a practitioner of RTS, the Resistance Training Specialist programme and a lot of what he said about the way I prepare for games made sense, I would often turn up sore to play. Which seems like madness now but was the norm for me. I would train in a certain way, without knowing exactly why, and what I was doing to my body.

I started to get MAT treatment sessions from him as well as RTS sessions.

 

Needless to say, I started to feel amazing and changed my training protocols in the lead up to games.

 

It has taken me a long time to change my thoughts towards conditioning and the type of training I do, but to be honest, the results I have shown on the field in the last two years, do the talking for me. It works for me and even though I might relapse at times, Travis has helped me beyond measure in this area. I still cherry-pick the best from others, but the straight-talking and the informed method he employs is second to none.

 

I mentioned Travis giving me advice on rugby, which to some might seem strange, however, I can say hand on heart that I would not have turned my game around if it wasn’t for him. Travis has become a best friend of mine and has spent ages helping me recapture what made me a good rugby player when I first started.

I had moved away from the things that I was good at and made me stand out. This wasn’t a conscious thing, but something that can happen over time.  

 

With Travis know-how and desire to help me improve I have hit some of the forms of my life.

 

I would recommend his MAT and RTS sessions to anyone looking to achieve results where others have failed.

 

He is a top guy with great knowledge and attention to detail.