Subjects Of Athletic training Philosophies (SOAP) Notes

Hello Everybody, Today’s SOAP Note is going to be about injury rates in sports. The field of athletic training is generally moving towards more injury prevention instead of a reaction approach to injuries. The first step in injury prevention is to identify how they happen. I’ve had some recent thoughts I want to share on how and why injuries occur (in a general sense, not a specific mechanism of injury) and my role as an athletic trainer in their prevention. Anytime injury rates are discussed, football always dominates the conversation. Football, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, rugby, these are all high contact sports. When it comes to athlete-athlete collisions, injuries are near impossible to prevent. You can build the perfect athlete with no compensation patterns, ideal muscle balances, incredible strength-to-weight ratio, etc. and as soon as that athlete is hit by another those measurables go out the door. A “perfect athlete” may be able to withstand more forces, but...

Hello Everybody! Lately, I've given much thought about working with the perfect athlete. In that situation, what role does the athletic trainer play? What role is the strength coach? What about the sport coach? I’ve talked about coaches’ roles before in my “Internal vs. External cues” article. This time I have a slightly different way to look at it. Imagine a group of buddies going on a road trip. The athlete is the vehicle; some are sports cars, some are pickup trucks. In this scenario the pedals and steering wheel are separated in the two front seats. The strength coach controls the gas pedal and brake pedal. They decide how fast or slow the athlete advances. As the road changes (games, practices, time of the season) the strength coach might need to adjust the speed of the car. To consider the body’s ability to adapt and develop I will add that after a while of traveling at certain speeds the car can change. A minivan that continues to run “pedal to the metal” will eventua...