The shackles are off for Tom Stewart with the Cats defender and dual All-Australian declaring himself ‘raring to go’ for the season ahead.
Stewart had a delayed start to the preseason after finishing the year with a minor groin complaint but has since hit his stride as he ramps up his Round One preparation.
The newly married Cat spent some of his offseason honeymooning in Europe, where the injury worsened while completing his conditioning program.
“Tom developed a little bit of groin pain towards the end of last season. It didn’t affect him playing the games and it settled down pretty well but then in the offseason once he started to get back into the program it flared up,” Cats physio Hamish Macauley says.
“Everybody gets an offseason plan, we did modify that a bit for Tom once it had flared up, it consisted of running and certain strength work.
“The nature of the injury was that he had some groin pain with one of the tendons in his groin, so they are often quite slow to respond.”
Macauley says the dependable Cat has been ticking all the right boxes in his rehabilitation.
“He’s had a really nice ramp over the last ten weeks and he’s back in full training again but you’ve really got to take your time with these, you can’t rush them.”
"All of his strength markers are great, all of the other things we look at in terms of his GPS metrics and the stuff that he’s doing in the gym is all looking like it’s hitting the spot so the shackles are off, we’ve just got to make sure that he still respects himself.”
After pulling up well from full participation in the Cats’ combined training session with the Magpies, Stewart is eager to get back out on the park.
“I’m basically no shackles, I’ve just got to build my load now and just continue to get my fitness back and give myself a real red-hot crack over the next couple of weeks at building match fitness and then into round one,” Stewart says.
“I’m back in full training now and going from strength to strength so it’s awesome to be back around the boys.
“It’s been good to spend some time with some of the boys in the rehab group but happy to see the back of them.
“It feels really good, I’m not one that’s very patient but the physio staff have been fantastic with my program and built me really strongly now so I’m looking forward to getting into some games in the next few weeks and really cracking in ready for round one.
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