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Post by cnunley on Apr 15, 2009 7:15:15 GMT -6
How have you guys handled this before.
We had a Trainer on staff last year to take care off the taping/injuries/etc...
We're a small Group A school so we normally never had a trainer before. The coaches did all of that stuff.
Well last season we would have several players who would see the trainer every day with some type of "injury" to try and get out of practice. And sure enough they would be on the side lines all week then game time they had the healing power of Thursday and were ready to go. Now, keep in mind the players that pulled this were the ones that NEVER got to play. Clean up time if any. How did you guys handle players like that? We're thinking that next season we're going make them do something active.
Example: "Hurt Shoulder" means theyre going to ride a stationary bike for the length of practice. "Hurt Ankle" mean crunches/situps the entire practice. Basically we're not going to let anyone sit on the sidelines even if they dont play. Make sense?
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Post by Coach Huey on Apr 15, 2009 7:33:43 GMT -6
once injury is diagnosed .. a treatment/rehab plan should be established by the doctor and/or trainer. this is what those athletes should be doing.
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Post by phantom on Apr 15, 2009 7:34:08 GMT -6
It makes sense to keep the injured players active doing what they're capable of doing and in providing a disincentive for being hurt. Who's going to supervise, though?
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Post by jpdaley25 on Apr 15, 2009 7:45:41 GMT -6
You need to have a talk with your trainer. Our trainer is great - there are no phantom injuries and his rehab workouts really motivate players to get well fast. He's a physical therapist. Ours have learned that an injury isn't an out. Our problem is sickness. Little Johnny tells momma he's sick and then sicks momma on the coaches. I tell them all the same thing - If he's too sick to practice on Mon.-Thurs., then he's too sick to play on Fri. night.
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Post by olinecoach61 on Apr 15, 2009 7:55:09 GMT -6
I agree with jp. We are fortunate and have a great trainer. We told him earliy on we only want guys missing who are really hurt. He tells us when he thinks one of our guys is dogging it.
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Post by atalbert on Apr 15, 2009 8:05:59 GMT -6
Lower Body "injury" = push-ups. We had alot of guys around "the campfire" last year until the trainer told me she didn't know how hurt they really were. As long as they didn't complain about their arms or shoulders, they did push ups.
'For every 15 minute session - individual, skelly, etc., I told them they needed to get 100 done. We had one kid with a legitimate injury (torn ACL) who was in charge of watching them.
When it came time for special teams, they had to do 10 every time there was a punt or kickoff.
For conditioning, if it was distance, they had to do 250 in the time allotted for the running (8 minute mile, they had 8 minutes, etc.). For sprints, they had 10 for every sprint run by their group.
We had one kid who was a starter with a legit ankle injury ( got rolled on) who didn't mind doing the push ups and he counted that he did over 1100 one day. Now granted, most of the weaker kids did knee or "prison" push-ups (a$$ up, face down), but it was better than dikking around with their buddies pretending they were football players.
I know that's alot, but it might be the secret to quick healing - most kids were back in pads within a day of having to do all those. The ones who were players who had legit injuries got a heck of a workout - in fact, one kid told me he like it so much he still tries to do 500-700 a day. He was the one with the ankle injury who would have contests with the weak kids to see how many more he could do then them in the time allotted. He's not right.
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Post by mitch on Apr 15, 2009 8:26:13 GMT -6
Communicate with the trainer. Hopefully you have one that will tell a kid when nothing is wrong, rather than one of the vast majority who sit them out if they have a hangnail. STRONGLY encourage them to be one of the former.
Also, we make kids clear it with a coach before they see the trainer. This cuts out a lot of the BS.
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ccox16
Junior Member
Posts: 343
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Post by ccox16 on Apr 15, 2009 9:38:54 GMT -6
Georgia practice on our field before their bowl game. Richt had everyone who was hurt walking around the track, even the kids with torn ACL's. Of course this wasnt right after they tore it, but you get my drift.
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Post by coachsky on Apr 15, 2009 10:03:23 GMT -6
Some thoughts:
- It's a delicate balance. Some kids don't give the full extent of their injuries because they want to play.
- Other kids use "owies" as an excuse not to practice and probably have a low pain threshold.
- Some are straight up, they really do hurt and can't go and probably need rest.
- Our district is very strict with trainers. In almost any case of injury, they require a doctors clearance to return to the field. They see is as a liability issue. Better to put the burden on a doctor outside the district than a trainer in the district.
- The trouble with that is some of these kids and parents still go to Pediatricians that think football is evil. They get swelling to an elbow or a dislocated finger and the Pediatrician tells them to sit for three weeks, in season. We often times have to tell our kids and parents, especially our starters, that they need to go to a Sports Medicine Clinic immediately. There are often times where they have to get a referral to see a specialist and this can take a few weeks or so. We work with them to make sure they are in to see these guys and get cleared in days, not weeks.
So we let kids and parents know that football players are always dinged, get used to it. We don't want kids to play if they have a chance to further injure themselves.
We work with our trainer to make sure everyone injured and in attendance has some type of rehab work.
We emphasize that a major aspect of our S&C program is to help avoid injuries.
It's not written, but it's a demonstrated rule, if your an "owie" person, with a low practice pain workout ethics, you may not be cut out to play varsity football. Bottom line. We also reward our "warriors" we had our Will last year break 3 fingers and another bone in his hand. He is a tough little Islander. He had it spinted up and padded the next day. Never missed. To this day his nickname is "Hook"! Conversly, we also go the other way and rested our stud RB who had a high ankle issue throughout the year. When you praise and honor that type of dedication and rest kids when needed true players figure out what you are looking for.
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Post by wingtol on Apr 15, 2009 14:46:14 GMT -6
I think we all know that there are legit injuries and times you may need to rest a kid and from being around the game you get a feel for that. Those types of things aren't what I am talking about below.
I have to say that it comes down to 2 things: the attitude you take as a coach on the toughness end of it and also what kind of trainer you have (provided you have one). I know there are trainers that are like black holes, as soon as a kid walks over there you know they are lost. The you have trainers who tell a kid to get the hell away from them unless it's a real concern. We are lucky to have a great trainer who doesn't baby the kids and understands that basically by the middle of the season everyone is hurt but not injured.
We also tell our kids up front that football is not a contact sport but a collision sport. Your body is not designed to play football. The things you need to do to your body in order to play the game are going to make you sore, achy, stiff, hurt and cause you pain sometimes. Get use to it.
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Post by touchdowng on Apr 15, 2009 21:13:02 GMT -6
We tell our kids, by law the trainer must try his best to diagnose and treat your pain. If he cannot, he will send you to your doc or a specialist. He will also know if you are milking the injury or faking it. He may not tell you but he'll tell the coaching staff and you can consider that worst than being injured because from that point, we will not trust you.
We don't have problems and our trainer isn't a "he" she's a "she" and "she's" pretty good looking. But she isn't afraid to expose a fake and she's very up front about it.
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