Week 2: Theories in Action

This past week has been way more hectic in the training room for Sports Medicine. Almost all of the football and basketball athletes have come back to campus to begin training for their seasons this fall and winter. The athletic trainers, the other intern, and I spent all day last Monday doing physicals on the new athletes. During this process, I was able to learn how to take someone’s blood pressure and heart rate among other things. Throughout the week, I was given more independence when working with the athletes and began performing different therapy treatments without supervision. So far, I have been able to learn how to do a thermal ultrasound, STEM, High Volt, Bio-wave, and Cupping techniques. Through all this, I have begun to recognize different symptoms of injuries, be able to read medical charts with ease, and picked up medical terminology of the different parts of the muscles.

One leadership theory I was able to connect back to my internship site was Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory, specifically, the Coaching style. By using this style, the leader must focus on using proper communication to both facilitate goal achievement and support their subordinates’ social and emotional needs. This can be done through encouragement and asking for input. When applying this theory to my internship, the athletic trainers and strength coaches would be the leaders and the players would be the subordinates. When working with the athletes, one must be both encouraging and positive while also demanding discipline. This especially applies to trainers working with injured athletes as it is very common for them to lose motivation throughout the rehab process, especially when it is for an extensive amount of time. Athletic trainers must be able to work with them not only on a physical level but on a mental level as well. At the same time, they must also push the athletes they work with to push past mental blocks and fully recover.

One of the athletes I work with is recovering from an ACL repair surgery and is about 5-6 months out. However, we are working on getting him to start running again, but he is hesitant because he worried about hurting it again. Even though he does not specifically tell us this, you can tell through the way he favors his good leg and supports most of his weight on that leg compared to his bad leg. By knowing this, the athletic trainers and I work with him on getting past this fear of re-injuring his leg and to push himself to start running normally again. Our main goal with him is to get him to a point where he is 100% recovered, or as much as he can be, in time to get back to practicing with the rest of the team during fall camp and during regular season.