Research Lead at Simply Sports Foundation | Ms. Manasi Satalkar

This week’s spotlight features Ms. Manasi Satalkar who works as a Research Lead at Simply Sports Foundation. In this spotlight, Manasi shares her journey as a sports physiotherapist and transitioning into her current role. Her current role involves working with female athletes, an important niche that is often less talked about. Give this spotlight a read to understand how she uses her knowledge as a sports physiotherapist in this unconventional and unique role.

What is your name and title, workplace? (Do you prefer the suffix dr.) 

My name is Ms. Manasi Satalkar. 

I am currently working as the Research lead – at Simply Sports Foundation for Simply Periods Initiative.

What is your educational background? (Include the year of graduation)

I have done my Bachelor of Physiotherapy from Physiotherapy School and Centre Government Medical College Nagpur, 2013 batch – graduating in 2018.

I did my Master’ from Manipal College of Health Professions (Previously known as SOAHS/ Manipal University), in MPT Sports Rehab – 2020.

How was your experience in the two states going from a state-funded university to a private university, and in the end selecting the sports rehab as your elective? 

It was indeed a great experience in both the colleges and the patient populations which I dealt with were very diverse. Nagpur has a great culture of exploration and learning with patient-guided interaction and from peers. 

Many cases are very endemic to Central India like sickle cell anemia and its complications concerning bone health which were very interesting to see and treat. Also, the college has a very good patient load concerning orthopedic cases and the last two years of my college did push to my edge to explore my strengths and weaknesses the best.

Manipal is altogether a great experience – concerning the people you meet, the interdisciplinary research you witness, and the overall best facilities the campus offers not restricted to academics but also co-curricular activities. 

What did you do soon after your graduation? How long?

After and during my internship of under-graduation studies in Nagpur, I did a few observer ships in Nagpur. I interned at a neuro clinic for a month then worked at an orthopedic rehab center at Wardha Road. Along with that, I used to go and observe sports rehab cases at Ishwar Deshmukh College of Physical Education, just nearby GMC. 

All these internships and shadowing helped me to understand what I love about the work and what I can do best. I returned home to Mumbai in 2018 and started to work as a physio on a consultation basis for Thane Badminton Academy, which was a great learning experience because I was working on my own and it did expose me to some of the best athletes in Maharashtra and also in India. It also gave me confidence, that I can manage sports injuries well, and hence post which I could make up my mind to do post-graduation in sports rehab, from Manipal

What did you do after your MPT and what was the difference in your practice post your master in sports rehab?

I post-graduated in 2020, in mid of the pandemic year. I came back home and started working in a local orthopedic hospital and consulting again at the badminton academy. 

This time post my master’s I was more confident to diagnose and manage complex operative and non-operative cases like rotator cuff tears, shoulder replacement, and knee ligament injuries. I did my master’s interventional study on overhead athletes’ shoulder range of motion restrictions; it did give me good training in screening athletes and building a great injury management program. 

After working as a consultant for 8 – 9 months I went to Bengaluru to work in sports rehab and strength and conditioning start-up. I was working in Bengaluru for a year and it indeed exposed me to the best of footballers and swimmers in the country. I worked in the sports science realm which helped me to understand data monitoring for player development better.

During my work at the Center for sports science, I was part of a PT Teacher education program across Karnataka, we impacted 1600 PT teachers from rural and metropolitan Karnataka, with basic sports science knowledge through a 15-day spanned education program. This was a great learning experience in terms of understanding how empowering educational intervention can be in the Indian sports ecosystem.

What are you doing currently?

Currently, I am working with Simply Sports Foundation, as a research lead on the Simply Periods Initiative. Along with it, I am also working as a visiting faculty at the International Institute of Sport Management for a Bachelor of sports management and Bachelor of sports science program 

How did you find your current job at the Simply Sports Foundation? Application or connections?

I got the current job through the Women in Sport in India(WISI) community portal, Ms.Vaidehi Vaidya has been doing a tremendous great job in building a strong community, to shape the sporting ecosystem in India. The platform developed by her WISI team provides mentoring, upskilling, and networking opportunities to women who want to work in sports. 

I had the privilege of working in badminton and specifically working with female athletes in elite swimming and a few of the best footballers in India. Along with this since my postgraduate days, I had been following the recent female physiology research very keenly and could sense the gap in the Indian ecosystem in the development and the scientific evidence gap on female athletic performance. Even working briefly and overseeing pelvic physio rehab at Manipal made me very curious about exercising female health. This led me to first work as a consultant with the Simply sports foundation and then as a full-time employee at the foundation for Simply Periods Initiative.

How has LinkedIn helped you in terms of landing jobs and contracts?

LinkedIn has been very important to get connections and it was the medium I got a job in Bengaluru, but I feel one needs to do a good background check with all the jobs posted on LinkedIn to take any major decision. As were cruising through the peak of the pandemic most of the opportunities whether those of blog writing were through linked in.

Editor’s note: To learn more about LinkedIn, read this article: How to make the most out of LinkedIn as a physiotherapist.

Tell us more about the Simply Sports Foundation

Simply Sports Foundation is the brainchild of Mr. Ankit Nagori, a successful entrepreneur, ex-Flipkart, and one of the founders of Cult Fit. Presently he heads the Eat Fit and Simply Sports Foundation. We have a main office based out in Bengaluru and we specifically work on community and grassroots sport development.

Apart from Simply Periods which is centered around women’s health in sports, starting with menstrual health first, it has other initiatives such as Simply Roots and Simply Smiles which are targeted towards grassroots development and mental health awareness in sports.

Can you tell us more about Simply Periods initiative you are working with?

Simply Periods initiative was born out of the Breaking Barriers report which was a survey with almost 250 athletes in India, on understanding what are the barriers for women in sports. And menstrual health is one of the topics which was found to be not discussed and understood well in the sports ecosystem. Hence the simply periods initiative was started as a targeted intervention to address this gap.

Hence we developed an educational intervention, in the form of a workshop for coaches and athletes which discusses the topic of menstruation through the sports science lens.

We have included recent evidence-based topics for understanding female physiology, sex differences, premenstrual symptoms and their effect on performance, period tracking, period management hormonal contraceptives, and many more. We have almost impacted 3000 athletes and coaches included with our workshops and other educational intervention.

What is the typical day of work for you? What are your job duties?

My days at work are very dynamic, for now in Odisha we are partnered with Reliance Foundation and we together are conducting menstruation and its effect on sports performance workshops with different High-Performance Centers (HPCs).

Along with the workshop, we are conducting a menstrual health awareness drive in major athletic, weightlifting, and other major sports events happening here. Hence my day is typically taken by teaching and delivering workshops.

When back home in Mumbai, I would focus more on content development and refining along with teaching in the college. 

What are your work hours? Do you work remotely or onsite?

My work hours are 7 – 8 hours when remote, but they stretch when I am on the field or traveling for the workshop delivery.

What do you love about what you do?

The positive impact the content of the workshop is generating. The recent best example is of an Egyptian coach of a high-performance center in Odisha, he came up to me after a month of the workshop and said the workshop helped him to understand his Indian as well as the problems faced by his Egyptian female athletes back at home and made him more confident to deliver the program.

The other one was in Assam, reaching the interiors of the state and interacting with the curious coaches there, having dinner with kids and coaches in the forest was indeed a great experience. It also gives me the privilege of creating awareness of what a physio can do in places where they don’t know what a physiotherapist is.

If we go to the interiors of India, women don’t know much about bodies, and to make them understand more about it and how it impacts injuries and performance is a great journey.

What are the challenges you face?

The traveling is exciting and also heavy at times. Also, the major learning experience is how to teach the same content and derive learning outcomes for different age groups. There is a skill at teaching the menstrual cycle to a 15-year-old state-level athlete and how it affects performance versus a 35-year-old male coach.

What is the pay like?

Compared to what PTs are paid in clinics, I do have two sources of income and one of them varies. When I start consulting or freelancing my income changes slightly but overall, with work from home it’s almost moderate.

What do you think can be improved in our field?

Lots of things. We need to focus more on exercise rehab and integrate the recent technology. Very few physiotherapy colleges are giving good sport exposure in India. We need to add free-to-take courses or add on honors like Pilates, Yoga, and strength and conditioning.

As physios, we need both good diagnosis and management, and we need to balance both and not get just on pain management with modalities ranging from electrotherapy to dry needling.

Can you name books, courses, and workshops that helped you in your career?

Donald Neumann – Kinesiology

Peter Brukner and Karim Khan – Clinical Kinesiology

Wilmore – Exercise Physiology

The Exercising Female

Science and Its Application

Edited by Jacky Forsyth and Claire-Marie

Roberts

 A few authors and their work I keenly follow on women’s health and exercise– Dr. Katheryn Ackerman, Dr. Kristy Elliot Sale, Dr. Stuart Phillips, Dr. Nicky Keay, Dr. Stacy Sims, Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Nitu Bajekal

What is the typical career path for someone in your role?

To tell you honestly, I don’t know in terms of a developing country like India, I feel we have just got started. There are very few academic and clinical options here in India, but I feel they need to be created more.

Abroad there is a lot of research going on currently on this topic. There is Wu Tsai Alliance where several great institutions in America are working in multidisciplinary teams to bridge the sex-gender data gap in exercise science. Also, I admire what Well HQ in the UK and She research group in Ireland are doing to make their female sports ecosystem better.

Hence I feel India also needs people like me who can bridge the gap and in the future, there would be better opportunities to implement things post its awareness stage.

What kind of person can do this job? What kind of person cannot do this job?

People who love stability surely cannot do this job. And one who wants to explore things out of strictly physio clinical role would love it. Also, one who has a liking towards the social sector would love this job.

What is next for you?

This might be a role where I can integrate both clinical and educational intervention to bring about a positive change. It can be both an academic or a clinical role.

Is simply sports foundation planning to hire more PTs in the future?

Anyone with the right skills, passion for the job, and ability to remain curious and learn would be hired.

What is your advice for someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

Be fearless and confident to make mistakes and learn from them.

Where can people reach you?

Instagram, LinkedIn, and email

Instagram: manasi_satalkar

Email id: manasi.s@simplysport.in