17/09/2020-Plymouth Albion-3hrs

The first hour

The first hour consisted of the usual covid testing for all players, staff, and any attendees at the training session, followed by the treatment room.

In the treatment room, I performed taping of 3 players on the knee, ankle, and shoulder as well as massaging the hamstrings and lower back of one of the other players.

Pitchside:

The first part of the training session was in the gym for one of the players, who are in their 7th week of recovery from concussion. This player has been consistently backtracking when returning to play and this evening was no different. The player started in the gym where they began to feel faint and light-headed, noticing this as a sign of concussion and the player not being ready to progress to this stage as of yet, I stated that we should stop, and therefore we did. This player’s symptoms will be re-assessed and they will progress from a lower return to play stage that best suits them.

The player that is recovering from a hamstring tear on 25/08/2020 has been undergoing a 3-week rehabilitation program and is now at a stage where they are ready to return to training at 50-60% of their maximal speed/effort and therefore in tonight’s training session. The player felt the session went well however they did feel stiff after the session and their hamstrings were tight and therefore we will be adding a message and stretching routine into their Pre-habilitation to ensure that they do not get reinjured.

Strengths and weaknesses:

A strength of this session, I feel, was the fact that I identified a symptom of a concussion and stopped the player from advancing and causing themselves further injury. Although the player was slightly disheartened by this it is important to protect their well-being first and it was not safe to continue.

A weakness of this session I feel was not being as involved with any rehabilitation in the early stages to help have a better understanding of the progressions and improvements the players have been going through to get them to the stages in rehabilitation so far.

Thoughts for the future:

In future sessions, I aim to be more hands on when it comes to injuries and stick with the rehabilitation of a player rather than letting someone else do it. This will allow me to better understand not only how the player is doing but increase my knowledge of rehabilitation as a whole through first-hand experiences. Although everyone is different and rehabilitation depends on the individual and the severity of the injury it will be good to learn things from a personal experience rather than being taught what to do in general terms.