Subjects Of Athletic training Philosophies (SOAP) Notes

Hello Everybody! Today I am going to focus on Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization (IASTM). Full disclosure, I am M1 Graston Technique certified. I frequently use instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization in my treatments. There are three treatment goals I use IASTM for; 1) increase localized blood flow to the target tissue, 2) increase neural proprioception of a joint or muscle, and 3) decrease myofascial adhesions/malaligned fibrous tissue. Working a lot with baseball athletes leaves my practice prone to “routine treatments”. These are treatments I end up doing just about every day usually with pitchers as part of their process to get ready for sport activity. This often means I will perform Graston Technique on the same target tissue for one guy multiple days in a row. I started to notice that from one day to the next or even one week to the next I could not detect a difference in tissue quality on the athlete. Every time I performed IASTM on the same athlete in the ...

Hello Everybody, In today’s SOAP Note I will discuss routine treatments or as I often call them, “the feel good stuff”. I would classify these as treatments that are performed almost daily on an athlete, or treatments that the athlete asks for based on what they like. Typically with the intent of just making the athlete “feel good” prior to activity without relation to any particular injury. I work mostly with baseball athletes, so most of my discussion will use baseball specific examples but this topic fits with any sport. In my undergrad studies, one thing that was consistently imposed on me was being able to answer the question “why?” this is also something I always reinforce to my students. Part of answering “why” for treatments is being able to justify what treatments you decide to use based on sound medical science. Godforbid you find yourself in court, they will judge you against decisions made by a prudent athletic trainer faced with the same information. This is the reaso...