Today consisted of three locations- Newton Abbott Office (2.5 Hours), Shaldon Primary School (1.5 Hours), Regional Training Ashburton (4 Hours)

In the office today I set myself tasks to complete prior to attending.

• Reassess heel rehabilitation programme
• Email parents from last week- Cornwall and Taunton parents
• Learn admin work for the office

I reassessed the heel programme to progress the exercises due to pain reducing and wanting to focus on strengthening Heel Pain Programme 2

I find writing programmes quite easy as it is becoming a regular thing. I think it is a good thing that it is becoming more easier for me to put together a programme as it is challenging my knowledge of exercises that can help strengthen and reduce pain. Knowing how to regress and progress exercises is a very good skill to have when being a rehabilitator as I need to know how to make exercises easier and harder for my patients/clients.

The next hour in the office I had phone calls with two parents discussing how their child has been doing with the exercises provided to them last week and if they feel like the exercises are too easy or too hard. Both of the injured athletes have been recovering very well, and have both started to return to their training sessions to avoid missing out on anything. They are finding the exercises to be helpful and wanted to continue doing these same exercises for another week.

I then discussed with the coaches in the office about possibly starting strength and conditioning again at training on Monday’s for the old age groups, which they all agreed with. I then sat and discussed with the strength and conditioning coach on what the plans will be, what we could focus on each week and start to put a programme together for the next 6 weeks training sessions.

Today I think it was very productive in the office today, I got a lot of admin work done and replied to all of the emails which I needed to reply to. They have now added me onto the main Saints email account so I now have access to their main emails so I can go through them to see if there are any emails that I could respond too.

The next hour and half I was assisting coaching at Shaldon Primary School with the Year 1 age group with Coach Ryan. We earlier discussed in the office that we could work on Together in the SAINTS Acronym and allow the year 1s to work together as teams in gaining points. This session went really well considering their age group and not wanting to listen half the time which made it difficult to coach them, however we patiently waited and coached them ensuring they were all listening and learning. We give feedback and hand out a certificate to the participant who worked well. Each week we try to give someone new a certificate to try to make it fair.

At Ashburton Regional Training, I had an appointment booked with an athlete who has ongoing heel pain. We discussed the new heel pain programme (linked above) and I demonstrated how to perform the exercises correctly. This appointment went really well as the athlete and parent were both fully aware of what has changed, how to perform the exercises correctly and was comfortable in doing so.

Half way through training, a goal keeper had hit his finger and he was very limited in his range of movement. I applied general first aid by strapping his finger to his middle finger and explained that he could not continue playing in goal and insist that he carried on training just as an outfield player instead. He was very understanding as his finger was in a lot of pain.

Near the end of training an athlete from a couple of weeks ago came to see me. He had pulled his MCL and is now using crutches to partially weight bear, I asked him if he could possibly try to move to using just one crutch by the weekend and he explained that that was the plan anyway (which is excellent). His parents gave me great feedback in saying that the exercises that I had given him prior has helped massively and that they greatly appreciates everything I have done to aid this athletes recovery.

Overall at training session I felt super confident with every injury that occurred today, I got excellent feedback from parents and overall feel like I am apart of the Saints team!