Looking Back...

High school football is officially over.  Alcoa High School won their 15th state championship in football while Greenback's stellar season fell one win short of that gold ball.

It's this time of year that all of our Athletic Trainers stop and look back on what we might have done differently.  It's the nature of the beast.  Could we have done anything to reduce the incidence of injuries?  Could we have done anything to reduce the severity of injuries?

It's not that we aren't always doing our best.  We really have to bring our "A" game every single day.  It's just that self-reflection is part of how we make sure that we are always doing all we can.

You may not know that our sports clinic (Total Rehabilitation-Cherokee) is open at 7 AM for evaluation of athletic injuries of all kinds, for all sports.  Monday through Friday.

You may also not know that Ortho Tennessee-Maryville (formerly known as Maryville Orthopedic Clinic) opens their doors early just in case we need to send an athlete up for an orthopedist to see.  That's unheard of.  I know of no other community where the orthopedists provide that service.

But what I'm sure you don't know is that to provide that athlete evaluation clinic at Cherokee every morning, we bring most of our athletic trainers in to take care of those athletes.  One of the really great things about that is the collaboration that we use to make sure that we are doing the very best job that we can.

If I'm unsure about something, I've got a bevy of colleagues to call on for help.  And if we still don't know, we can call on the doctors at Ortho Tennessee-Maryville for advice and/or evaluation.

So with all that said, what did all that retrospection reveal?

Shoulders need to be stronger.  I have forever been against using the bench press in strength training.  It's not so much that the bench press is a bad exercise, part of it is that kids just put way too much emphasis on it and end up with shoulders just looking to be injured.

Ankles need more training in changing direction.  Lots of athletes run for training.  What I'd like to see them do is work more on ballistics (look it up) and changing direction.  If their sport is on grass, then they need to train more on grass. 

Everybody needs better core strength.  Everybody.  What is the core?  Everything from your kneecaps to your armpits.  Pretty much every high school athlete we see has an inadequate core. 

Necks need to be stronger.  We know that this helps prevent concussion.  More education is needed in concussion prevention as well.  Kids need to know what happens when the head is used in play.

Weight training needs to emphasize "whole body" exercises.  Isolating muscles for development is a waste of time when considering athletic performance.  The best example is probably curls.  Isolated curls are a waste of time.

The closer to the time of injury that an athletic trainer can look at an injury, the better the outcomes will be.  This year, I had one football player that got Turf Toe and didn't tell me about it for 2 weeks.  I learned about the injury 3 days before a big game.  That's way too late.

There's no reason for that.  We are there.  We are at every high school football practice held in Blount County.  If you're in sports, you know how to find us.  Our 7 AM clinic is just part of our outreach programs.  So there's no excuse for not checking in with us.

None.