The human body is a complex and extensive subject. Athletic trainers must know, in most instances, the skeletal, muscular, neurological, musculoskeletal, and neuromuscular systems. Athletic trainers should be experienced and knowledgeable to help you with most problems you may have, ranging from a discomfort in a body movement, to a skeletal fracture or break. Athletic trainers must know all these systems, and they must also know the relations between all of them.
My initial intentions of taking this ELI was to learn about the field of sports medicine and athletic training, but it has evolved to much more than that. I have learned that some techniques come from the eastern hemisphere and their culture, which require a different thought process and level of understanding. In some instances, the healing process uses techniques that are not sensible to explain logically, but more on that in later posts. Some, on the other hand, processes can be easily explained with simple techniques and strategies.
The first half of this study is over the prevention of injuries, which is the most important part of athletic training. The hope is to prevent injuries before they happen, which is only possible by taking a screening test. This is not a typical test you would expect. The trainer will ask the patient to perform a multitude of tests to analyze their body movement patterns, which is important to discover if there are any dysfunctional or painful body movements that the patient may or may not have. If the patient is either dysfunctional or painful, then they have a much higher chance of becoming injured. This has to do with compensation from surrounding body parts, usually muscle injuries.This is how one may be injured but does not know it. Compensation works when the body uses two main anatomical functions, Muscular Spindle Fibers and Golgi Tendon Organs. The Muscular Spindle Fibers determine how far a muscle will elongate and monitors the speed, rate of movement, tension, and length of a muscle. The Golgi Tendon Organs determine the amount of force being applied to the muscle, i.e. how tense or relaxed a muscle will be. If a muscle is injured, then it the spindle fibers will protect the injured muscle by using a connected muscle to perform the movements of the injured muscle as well as its own functions, and the tendon organs will relax the injured muscle and not allow it to perform. The muscle that is overworked is the one that will feel injured when, in actuality it is the muscle that was originally injured. This is why athletic trainers are so important. Without these sports medicine professionals, in most cases, the inexperienced healer would be treating the overcompensating muscle, which will keep feeling injured because the healer is not treating the root of the problem, but rather trying to fix something that will not become fixed, or will but only for a small period of time.
~Tyler
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