Today my day consisted of three different destinations.

To start off the day I was in the office at Newton Abbot from 9am till 2:30pm creating exercise programmes for athletes, discussing potential exercises which the coach can incorporate into their training sessions to help prevent injuries (strengthening exercises) and plan with the coach what we are going to be providing at the primary school at 3pm.

After the rehabilitation programmes were complete, I needed to create a post that needed to be sent out to all parents that are associated with our Somerset and Cornwall regions, offering my services via online portals (Spond, Zoom and Emails). In this post I explained that I am currently a student in my third year, what I can do for the athletes, what the rehabilitation process is and what I can offer to help further prevent the injury from reoccurring.

At Cockington Primary School, the aim was to focus on “T= Together” from the SAINTS acronym. We ensured that the group of 8 were split into two teams and worked as a team to gain the most points.

After the after school club, I then travelled to Ashburton for our Regional training session from 5pm till 8pm.

In total, there were eight injuries that I needed to oversee whilst at Ashburton training session. These injuries were across age groups, U10’s, U11’s, U12’s and U14’s. A few of the injuries occurred last week, so their parent shad messaged me prior to book in to see me so i can assess their injury and give further advice/treatment. Whilst assessing and giving advice, I advised a few of the athletes with strengthening exercises that will help reduce their pain and help prevent the injury from reoccurring. I then mentioned that I will create rehabilitation programmes for them tomorrow which I will send via either Spond or Email.

What Went Well

I found today very busy. I felt a little rushed however, all of the injuries that occurred on the evening seemed to have occurred when I was free and able to see to the injury so the injuries were perfectly timed!  There were a few injuries that occurred/that needed my assistance that were injuries I had great knowledge on (growth pains, ankle rolled etc) so i felt confident in providing the advice given; exercises, stretches and procedures to follow to help ease pain (heat and ice).

Next Time

Next time, I would like to be able to time the booked appointments prior to the training session at the start of the session so it does not effect or take away my time for the athletes who get injured during the training session. My goal by the end of the season is to help the coaches provide exercises and stretches in order to reduce the amount of injuries occurring at their training sessions.