Day 12

Today was the shortest day so far. I have all my hours and There is not much to do with sports being completed. I started my third and final week of periodization here in the weight room. The next week when I am home I will be doing the 2nd stage of periodization which is with more weight and less sets. I then met with Chris and we went through the catalog and matched it up with the inventory we took last week. We created a spread sheet that consisted of the items and there pin numbers and how many we need. It took about 2 hours and we made it through 60 different items. Tomorrow we will go through the second catalog and then it will be time to say good byes.

Weekly Reflection 2

This week was another great week in the Athletic Training Room. I was a lot more useful this week and felt like I was actually part of the staff. The first week I spent most of my time watching and taking everything in so I can achieve my goals for the next week, which were to be able to directly assist Kelly and Chris.
I did all sorts of things this week. At the beginning of the week it was more learning and practicing. The next day I end up doing a bunch of stuff on my own. I was taping and wrapping actual patients and not messing up. Kids were telling me how I look like I actually know what I am doing and that felt good to know I was definitely getting something out of this because I was pretty clueless prior to this senior project.
The highlight of the week was at the softball faculty vs. team game when Keith and I were the only trainers on duty and Eric Viandier got a decent size cut and I got to treat him and fix it up myself with out the assistance of Chris or Kelly.
The whole second half of the week sports were over so we were focusing on wrapping up this year and preparing for next year. I was a spring cleaning force. We cleaned out all the old stuff and put useless things up in storage and brought a big table out to the rink for next hockey season. We washed all the ice chests, heat pad racks, ice bath machine and fridges. Then we made about 1,000 heel and lace pads for next year and re-did all the med kits and replaced the spring sports stickers with fall sports. It is amazing to see how prepared they will be for next fall when we leave this year. I didn’t realize how many regulations you have to go through to keep everything sterile and clean.
I have successfully been able to tape and wrap people and I feel that the knowledge I have gained in the past 2 weeks is greater than anything I could have even imagined taking in during my senior project. The whole experience was great, and I feel I have learned a great amount of the anatomy and the whole process and I know it will stick with me for a long time to come.

Day 11

Today was the day that put me in the clear for my hours. I now have 72 total hours in the Athletic Training Room. Chris and I had dish duty so we utilized it to put the water jugs through and kill two birds with one stone. When I got toe Athletic Training Room, I had a couple more things to do for Spring cleaning. We cleaned out the freezers and organized a couple more things for next fall. Then Chris and I went around the whole field house and all the locker rooms looking for towels because people tend to steal them every year, we found at least 20 towels. Then Keith and I headed to the softball team vs. faculty game. It was the only athletic event today so we had to go, and it was nice to see my first softball game. Eric Viandier got a decent size cut on his leg and we took care of it since Kelly was playing and Chris was not there, we wrapped it up unassisted and it was a nice feeling. The gator battery died on us so we had to charge it up with security before we could return back to the office.

Day 10

The days keep getting longer. Another 7 and half hour day in the office. Today was by far the most I have gotten accomplished in a single day in the Athletic Training Room. Chris, Kelly, Keith, Hannah and I all did work with the back board. We practiced possible spinal injuries/ situations and went into all the details and techniques of how to correctly put a patient on a back board. After that our one patient of the day came in with a fractured finger, and I observed Chris make her a splint. Even though there was not a lot of people in the room today, I had to do a ton because Chris and Kelly are preparing for next year and cleansing everything for the end of the year. I was an absolute machine in reorganizng and stocking the medkits for the fall. I even beat Kelly in quanitity of med kits done. We restickered them for all the fall sports and they are ready to go for September. Then we had to get bottled solutions and use them to clean the ice box and the heating pad holder. The place is looking spotless and Chris had a meeting so I think he will be pretty impressed when he gets back. Also we went through all the used materials, organized them and then re stocked them fully with all the supplies upstairs in storage. All the shelves are full and mostly everything is clean, we will have to finish up the rest tomorrow. It is a tedious process but definitely something that needs to be done now opposed to the begining of next year, I can only imagine how helpful this is for them when the return to duty in the fall.

Day 9

The days keep rolling bye in the Athletic Trainer's Room. Only a few more days left. Today I was in there for a while, working form 1030 am - 545 ish. I was present for the Boys Varsity lacrosse alumni game. It was good to see some of the older guys from last year and even older too. There were no injuries and it was not taken too serious by the guys. I was upstairs in storage doing a lot of cleaning out and re organizing today. We moved a huge cabinet up stairs and took a patient bench all the way to the rink that was upstairs. This is where my NEOC moving company days came in handy. I practiced wrapping with Keith and also did some more tape jobs. Today we also starting the cleaning up process and prep for next year as well. So we made about 1,000 heel and lace pads for next year. Then I filled up the whirl pool with hot water to clean it. It started to over flow with suds and I thought I was doing something wrong but Chris said it was normal. I helped out some kids in the weight room today as well and once again assisted people in signing in. The next couple days will be pretty low key so I can get a lot of practicing in and ask any last questions I may have.

Day 8

Sports are starting to come to and end at this point of the spring. It is nice for us because we can get out 15 minutes early since teams are not having as long of practices. I got to work on day 2 of the second week of periodization for me in the weight room. Targeting the legs I can already feel it but not a soreness like last time just a good fatigue. Which leads me to the next thing I learned about which was soreness and spasm cycle. I researched what it was and how it works and why it happens. It is basically your bodies instinct reaction to prevent further injury. Also I shadowed Chris on some start to finish diagnosis'. We had a case of a stress fracture so i researched that and found out that woman are much more likely to get stress fractures than men. I got to do a lot today on patients, I wrapped a lot of ice on to athletes and I wrapped a few shoulders dry. I am feeling more helpful each day. I also did some concussion work, I re took the test from an Athletic Trainer's point of view to see what it is exactly trying to get for results and we also talked about the danger of concussions. There is so much more to learn and tomorrow I am going into some of the vitamins and more on stress fractures.

Day 7

Today was pretty straight forward. I got back into my 2nd cycle of periodization in the weight room. After my shower and lunch I headed back to the Athletic Training Room to get the waters out to the teams for practice. Boys jv lax had a game so I had to put together a ice kit for them. I headed out to that game with Kelly and Keith and watched its entirety with no injuries. When I got back, it was time to set up the new sign in system. This is something that will be a great hand for Chris and Kelly and it is a great technology step for the room. This is something Chris has wanted for a while and they finally fit it into the budget this year. Chris and I tested it out and I was kind of a secretary for a while helping people sign in for the first time. I did a lot of wrapping ice on people today, which is nice because I feel like I am very useful not making Chris and Kelly do it who are busy with more important things. Zamkow got his tires today from Chris, so that was a big deal today and we spent time thinking of different ways to use them for workouts with different sizes. Kelly then gave me the scoop on the ice machine so I now can set up ice baths for people and get the right temperature. Today was especially nice because I didn't have to do much cleaning because some people that needed community service hours were kind enough to pick up the cleaning end of it..cough cough jamie and sarah. Back at it again tomorrow!

This first week in the Athletic Training Room was very similar to what I was expecting. It is a lot of hard work but fun at the same time. The hardest part is all the terminology, anatomy, and tools. At first I was very overwhelmed with all the long terms Chris would use and make it seem so simple. After just one week though, I feel so much more comfortable and actually have some confidence in what is going on.
The routine was the first thing I learned. Things like waters and clean up are all in the daily routine. The first couple days felt a bit long because I was mostly observing, which is very important in Athletic Training. After I learned the basic anatomy of certain parts of the body and gained a lot of knowledge in a brief amount of time with Chris and his books, I was soon taping ankles, wrapping shoulders, stretching people out, and learning all about fitness and exercises to help prepare your body and prevent injury along with rehab from injury.
The first thing Chris and I did was work on inventory for a good chunk of time the first few days. We spent a great deal of time talking about the business aspect of the Athletic Trainers Room. They are given a certain budget to stay in and they have to carefully decide what is necessary and what is not. There are some things that would greatly enhance the Athletic Trainers Room, but the budget just does not have room for it. There is a lot of stuff behind the scenes that I never knew about. I attended the weekly meeting for the whole Athletic Department and discussed practice times and didn’t realize all the effort and things they take into consideration.
I spend at least an hour a day taping ankles and practicing so I can do it on athletes for real this upcoming week. I feel I have become a much bigger help to Chris the second half of the week because I understand so much more of it now. The other day I was stretching out Nick Libby on my own for the first time and he said “Wow, you actually seem to know what you are doing, that stretch felt really good.” That gave me a lot of confidence.
Wednesday and Saturday are game days. I attended the girls varsity lacrosse game and the boy varsity baseball game. The main thing I learned from watching the games from an Athletic Trainer’s point of view is that you need to be scanning the field at all times for possible injuries or collisions so that way you can be knowledgeable of how it happened when or if an injury occurs.
Chris and I spend a lot of the down time in the weight room keying in on certain muscles and how to strengthen them with different contractions. The rest of the down time, Chris gives me words that are relative to what we do each day so I can be more knowledgeable of the basics, because he says the key to being a trainer is understanding the underlying anatomy. I was assigned words, muscles or bones such as, periodization, navicular bone, modality, eccentric and concentric contractions, brachioradialis muscle, delayed onset muscle soreness, and posterior tibialis. Those are just some of the knew things I learned that I had no clue what they were going into this week. So along with the terminology, all of the hands on taping, wrapping, applying ice, heat, stim, or ultra sound are all things I have learned in one quick week.

Day 6

Saturday was my second day of doing games. I got into the Athletic Training Room around 11 am. The first thing I did was put the waters out. There was only one game so I only had to do 2 waters and one ice box. Kelly and I cleaned up the weight room and sanitized a bunch of weights. Chris and I then went back to my leg injury and we found the root of the problem and made a plan to solve it. I know I am learning things because we are able to use so much new medical vocabulary every time we discuss things now. We talked about modality which is treatments you can do in the Athletic Training Room such as stim, icing, exercise, heating, and ultra sound. We knew my leg injury was deep in the tissue so we decided to use ultra sound. Chris explained that based on the injury we had to do a longer time period of it and higher volume of it because it is so deep. Chris and I then set out for the Varsity Baseball game. The team didn't play that well but I got to learn a lot about what you are exactly doing during the game. Chris explained that at all times you are "scanning" the field and always checking out what going on. There was injury on Holderness, a kid slid into second base and hurt his arm. Seemed as if he may have fractured it or just a deep bruise. It was good to sit with Chris and talk about some different types of injuries and also talk to a bunch of faculty about my project and explain what I have learned so far. I then gathered the waters and returned to the Athletic Training Room. I waited for a couple teams to return and then I cleaned down the whole room and was able to leave. Tomorrow is my first day off and then its back at it Monday.

Day 5

I was unable to blog last night because I was at the Bruins game all night, so here is my blog for Friday. It was a shorter day because I left early to go into Boston, but it was enough time to get accomplished what needed to be done. At 930 am Chris and I sat down to focus on the chest and shoulders. He gave me exercises to do and walked me through them showing me exactly what they are targeting and we were able to relate it to the new vocabulary I have been learning. Then I went back to the Athletic Training Room to fill up the waters and distribute them to their fields. I should be a professional gator driver. When I got back I did the usual with Keith, which is practicing taping ankles and wrapping shoulders until it starts getting busy with athletes. I then went to the gym to help stretch and warm up a couple of athletes before their practice. I also helped spot Oliver Moore in the weight room and was able to enlighten him on some of the things Chris has been teaching me about the weight room. Oliver graciously thanked me and plans on using the tips as soon as tomorrow! When talking more about building strength and preparing for a season or event, Chris gave me the word, periodization. This means to have a plan that leads up to the event. You do about 50% of your max load with 15-20 reps for a bout a month then you switch the weights higher and reps lower until about 2 and half months from now you are doing 1-3 reps of your max weight. On any body building website, they say periodization is the key to success. After doing a lot of careful observing of some work Chris and Kelly were doing on injured athletes, it was time to go. I finished the first 5 days with 31.5 hours so far and today is a game day so I can't wait.

Day 4

Oh just another day in the office here at Andover, NH. Its tough work but you have to love what Chris and Kelly do everyday. I am getting the hang of the routine they are in every day now. The waters and clean up is automatic for me now and I am able to take initiative with those things and get them down before they ask. Chris was working on recovery for a torn ACL so with the exercises there are two different types of contraction. Eccentric and concentric contractions are what Chris had me research so I found out the difference and we talked about what type of exercises are each kind. I talked with Chris about some good exercises to do with my body being sore and that got us into the topic of what exactly was sore and why. The key to all diagnosis and treatments and the actual anatomy of the injury. If you can find the stem of the actual injury then you can understand exactly what is hurt and the stretches and rehab exercises are easier because they make much more sense. The muscle was in my forearm called the brachioradialis muscle and it is most likely from hammer curls. I also had to research what delayed on set muscle soreness was. DOMS is basically just the overuse of a muscle that is not used to that type of stress on it. It can usually go away within 72 hours on its on and you can help it by eating healthy and doing light activity to get blood flowing through it. On a more hands on note, I got to practice more ankle tape jobs and I am getting quite good. I was able to also learn how to wrap a shoulder and I actually got to do one on the patient. It is a lot easier than the ankle. I feel a lot more comfortable with the room now that I know where everything goes from doing inventory so I can be a much bigger help to Chris putting stuff away for him. The waters is still the best part of the day because driving the gator is awesome. The days have gotten better and better so far soI look forward to each day.

Day 3

This was a different pace of work for me today. Today was my first game day so I had to get in there 2 hours earlier. I got in there at 930 am and Chris gave me some good stretches to target my sore areas and gave me some cardio exercises to get blood pumping to the sore muscles. After I brought the water out to the fields for the teams that had games and their competitors. Keith and I practiced taping each others ankles over and over again. I also practiced on a bunch of other people through out the day. Chris also taught me how to use the compression wrap which is more for walking around not support for games or practices. There was a lot of shin splints today so Chris made me look up the tendons and bones that are connected with the posterior tibialis. The novicular bone was the answer to what the tendon connects to. After reading up on that Chris gave me another book to look through and I looked at visuals of step by step ways to wrap ankles and wrists. I attended the girls varsity lacrosse game. It was the girls last senior game so they gave it their all and won. After the game I had to make some ice bags for the away team and tape it on them. When I headed back to the Athletic Training Room it was time to treat all of the returning athletes. I stretched out a few people for hamstrings and back. I went to retrieve all the waters and then cleaned everything off in the room and left for the day. Tomorrow should be a lot like the first two days and I will just keep practicing to get repetition so I can be more and more helpful every day.

Day 2

Today was easier because I had a better idea for what I was in for. I got to work out my leg that I hurt on Friday playing hockey. It was a deep tissue injury in my thigh so I was able to work in some exercises to help rehabilitate the muscle. Keith and I took the Gator out for waters again, and I must say I am becoming quite a pro at driving it. I then pulled out the ankle taped and must have practice on at least 10 different people's ankles. The heel lock is killing me I can do all the other parts without wrinkles. I did some more inventory with Chris, there is still tons of supplies we have to go for. Chris gave me a dvd on agility drills to improve speed and reaction time. I watched it and learned many tips and new drills to add in to my routine to help prevent myself from being injured while playing sports. Chris and I then sat down and talked more about the business aspect of the Athletic Training Room. We talked about budget and I looked over this entire years records of expenses. I never realized how quick that total can creep up on you and soon enough you are exceeding your budget. The athletic training room needs so many supplies and machines to be successful and productive so it is an expensive place to run. Chris broke down prices of different supplies and modern technology and we talked about what things are good investments and other things that would be great to have but just are not reasonable with the budget. The business aspect is very interesting because it underlies all of the medical treatment that happens in the room.

Day 1

I woke up at 930 am for an Athletics Department meeting in the Athletic Function Room. The meeting consisted of Gregor, Jake Johnson, Kelly, Keith and myself. I didn't realize how much stuff went on behind the scenes in the Athletic Department. They strategize about how to make practices at the best times possible so kids can get to meals on time and also not have too much free time and possibly get in trouble. Keith and myself took place in a 2 hour workout and worked out certain parts of our body to trigger different muscles and see their tolerance. I returned to the Athletic Training Room at 1 pm and I stayed there until 6 pm with no breaks. Kelly and Chris' days are so long, I was very tired by 3 in the afternoon it was tough to stick it out for the rest of the afternoon. I learned a lot about the business aspect in the trainer's room today. Chris and I took inventory on two very over stuffed shelves in the trainer's room. Their were so many different types of band aids, gauze, bands, rehab tools, treatment materials etc. and Chris knew exactly what all of them were. This took us over 2 hours and we didn't even complete half the room. I felt that I was able to help with a lot of the busy work today and take some of the pressure off Kelly and Chris. I got to drive the Gator around and put out all the team's waters and pick them up again at 5:45. I learned briefly to tape an ankle. I got to practice 3 or 4 times on different ankles but still have not mastered it. Tomorrow I hope to master the taping and get some good inventory work done.