CALLING NASA
TECHNOLOGY developed by NASA scientists could be key in the return of Northern Pride co-captain David Murphy.
The Pride forward snapped his posterior cruciate ligament in a trial win against Townsville Blackhawks a month ago.
While he won’t feature in the first North Queensland derby of the Intrust Super Cup season when the Blackhawks come to Barlow Park on Saturday, he will today strap on the boots for his field session.
His rapid recovery is traced to his time on the AlterG, an anti-gravity treadmill which uses NASA technology, at Cairns Total Physio.
The space-age equipment allows injured athletes and patients to run without jeopardising the healing of their injury.
The AlterG does this by having the lower half of patient’s body encased in an inflatable bag that, when filled with pressurised air, reduces the effect of the patient’s body weight.
“It’s a pretty cool machine,” Murphy said.
“When I first started running, they put me on about 70 per cent of my body weight and I felt like I was running on the moon,” he said.
“When you get to 80 per cent, you definitely feel lighter; 90 per cent feels pretty close to running on your normal body weight, but then when you take it off you feel like you’re 200kg.”
Murphy completed his third AlterG session on Wednesday afternoon and was scheduled for a fourth session this afternoon but, having impressed the club physio in his recovery so far, will lace up the boots instead.
“I’ll finally be able to do some running on the grass – just straight line stuff – then into change of direction next week, which will be the real test,” said Murphy.
“It’s getting close to 100 per cent. All my lifting components and my strength is all fine.
“I’ve been doing a lot of jumping and it’s holding up really well, but the real test will be when I start doing change of direction on the paddock.”
Murphy is hoping to be back in Round 5 against the Sunshine Coast – a game that would see the co-captain line up against former Pride prop Darryn Schonig.
“Going up against big Daz – I don’t really want to miss that,” he said.
“I’ve been looking forward to playing him, so hopefully I’ll be back for that game and we can get the win against him.
“They’ve got a good side this year, so both teams should be up for it.
“I’m going to try get in the physio’s ear as much as I can for Ipswich (in Round 4), but him and Ty don’t seem too keen on that idea, so most likely it’ll be Sunshine Coast.”