EFL Return to Performance (R2P) Protocol — v1.0

EFL Facility Constraints — Always Apply

• Space: 30×40ft shop, 13yd × 7yd turf. No external field work assumed.
• Speed = mechanics only. ≤13 yards. No true sprint work.
• Barbells: Chairman authorization required each time.
• Cable: Lat Pulldown, Low Cable Row, Cable Tricep Pushdown only (Tital).
• Single-coach. No output assumes additional staff.

Input Schema

When this skill is triggered, gather the following before running the Gate Check. Items marked ✅ can be inferred or looked up. Items marked ⚠ require Austin.

Hard rule: Never run a Gate Check without weeks post-op confirmed. If medical clearance is unconfirmed, halt and ask before proceeding.

How to Run — 3 Steps

Step 1 — Load surgical reference Read the appropriate file from references/:

Step 2 — Run Gate Check Using the athlete's weeks post-op, identify their current phase from the reference. Output the Gate Check using the format in the Output Schema below.

Step 3 — Generate R2P Session Template Using the Gate Check output, assemble the modified session template. Apply EFL block structure with R2P modifications (see Output Schema). Do NOT invoke efl-program-builder for R2P athletes. Use this skill's session template format exclusively.

Output Schema

Output 1 — Gate Check

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R2P GATE CHECK
Athlete: [Name] | Surgery: [Type] | Phase: [N] | Week [N] post-op
Medical Clearance: CONFIRMED / UNCONFIRMED ⚠ HALT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✅ PERMITTED THIS PHASE
[Bulleted list — specific to surgical type and phase]

🔒 LOCKED — DEFAULT DENY
[Bulleted list — what cannot appear in any session output]

🔑 CHAIRMAN AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED
[Bulleted list — what requires Austin's explicit confirmation before proceeding]

📋 PHASE ADVANCEMENT CRITERIA
Current phase gate criteria — check each:
  [ ] [Criterion 1]: [Status or "Not yet tested"]
  [ ] [Criterion 2]: [Status or "Not yet tested"]
  [ ] [Criterion 3]: [Status or "Not yet tested"]

ADVANCEMENT DECISION: ✅ READY / ❌ NOT READY / ⚠ INSUFFICIENT DATA
[If ready: "Phase advancement to Phase [N+1] requires Chairman confirmation."]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Output 2 — R2P Session Template

R2P modifies the standard EFL 8-block session structure as follows:

RPE Ceilings by Phase (P3 mandate):

• Phase 1: RPE ≤ 6
• Phase 2: RPE ≤ 7
• Phase 3: RPE ≤ 8
• Phase 4+: Standard RPE with P3 wave structure (confirm per program)

Session time ceiling: 60 min maximum (reduced from standard 70 min).

Template format:

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R2P SESSION TEMPLATE
Athlete: [Name] | Surgery: [Type] | Phase: [N] | Week [N] post-op
Session ceiling: 60 min | RPE ceiling: [N]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

BLOCK 1 — MOVEMENT ASSESSMENT & PREP [15–20 min]
[Exercises — bilateral, affected-side monitoring, pain check]

BLOCK 2 — ACTIVATION [10 min]
[Isometric or isotonic per phase — affected side only within clearance]

BLOCK 3 — POWER / PLYOMETRICS
[LOCKED — Phase [N] / PERMITTED — [exercise list] / See Gate Check]

BLOCK 4 — PRIMARY STRENGTH [15–20 min]
[Exercises — pattern-restricted, RPE ceiling noted per set]

BLOCK 5 — ACCESSORY STRENGTH [10 min]
[Non-affected pattern emphasis]

BLOCK 6 — CONDITIONING [5–10 min]
[Low-impact Phase 1–2 / Running protocol Phase 3+]

BLOCK 7 — SPEED WORK
[ELIMINATED — R2P Protocol]

BLOCK 8 — COOLDOWN & MONITORING [10–15 min]
[Recovery work + pain/swelling post-session check — report to Austin]
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Failure Protocol

Delegation Map

EFL R2P Protocol SKILL.md v1.0 | April 1 2026 | Board-approved: P1–P5, B4 Evidence base: BJSM 2016, IJSPT 2021, EU-US Meniscus Consensus 2024, ISAKOS 2022