09/09/2026
When Jordan Hendrikse was sent to me with a tibial stress fracture that hadn't resolved in six months - still jumping off the wrong leg, frustrated that nothing had changed, and limping without even knowing it - the problem wasn't only in his tibia. It was in his brain too. 🧠
From the moment pain appeared, his CNS did exactly what it's designed to do - it protected him. It redistributed load away from the symptomatic limb, shifted his movement patterns, and changed which leg he pushed off from. Smart and adaptive. That's the CNS doing its job.
The problem is that it kept doing it. Six months later, the protection programme was so deeply ingrained that he had no idea he was limping - it took several people around him independently pointing it out before he realised something had changed.
The musculoskeletal injury still needed to be respected, and a significant period of offloading was required. But while that was happening, we started treating the brain - graded motor imagery, limb laterality recognition, and simple non-weight-bearing exercises - so that when we could load the leg again, we weren't starting from scratch neurologically.
As we progressed, we added 👇
🥽 Stroboscopic glasses - to break his visual dependence and force the nervous system back onto proprioceptive and vestibular input
🧩 Dual tasking - because movement that looks competent in a quiet setting is often consciously managed, not automatic
🎯 External focus of attention - directing every cue at an effect or the environment, never at the body itself
🔀 Differential learning - varied, unpredictable exercises with no corrective feedback, because the brain rewrites compensation patterns through variability, not perfect repetition
🗣️ Verbal reframing - helping him understand that his compensation was a brain pattern, not a structural failure. "The road is open. We just need to update the map."
He is now back with his team in a full return-to-sport protocol, playing his first game of the season this weekend and hoping to be fit and ready for Springbok selection ahead of next year's World Cup! 🏉
