Today I travelled to Torquay Academy for a U12’s football match. I took another student from Marjon with me as he was in charge of the VEO Camera to film the game and analyse the match.

Today’s game consisted of 4 x 20 minute quarters.

Prior to the game starting, a player was complaining of ankle pain. They had slight restriction in dorsi-flexion and eversion. The player asked if I could apply K-Tape to his ankle to give him extra support (and confidence) to play the match. I told the athlete to let me know if their pain persists or gets worse than a 5/6 out of 10 on the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS).

The next injury was an injury that a parent messaged prior to check this players knees. This athletes has recently had a growth spurt so the parent is explaining that this pain in his knees are caused by the recent growth spurt. Whilst assessing the player he had no pain in any of the movements of the knee. However there was slight discomfort across the patella ligament on palpation. I applied K-tape around the knee and across the base of patella to give support and reduce the slight swelling.

The pain continued with the first athlete so I performed mobilisations (mobes) in dorsi-flexion, planter-flexion, and eversion 30 per minute for 2 minutes in Grade 3. This helped increase the range of movement in all ranges after just 2 minutes of mobes. These mobes also helped reduce the pain that was occurring in eversion.

What Went Well

Overall, I found that with today’s injuries I was able to confidently assess the athletes and give the correct advice where necessary. Being able to speak to the coach and give him advice about his players and their injuries or what he should suspect with these injuries or potential future injuries went well and I was able to speak to him professionally and confidently as I have seen these injuries occur so many times due to growth spurts so I feel as though I have a lot of knowledge around the area.

Next Time

Next time I would like to be able to change up the warm up and cool down to make sure that it is adapted to these players who are beginning their growth spurts to help reduce any pain occurring and to help strengthen the surround muscles around the joints. I will need to do  extra reading around what the best exercises will be for a warm up and cool down for athletes at the start of their adolescent ages.