During the 2015-16 school year, eight million of teenage athletes participated in high school sports in order to represent their school and their community. These players must take part in practice or a game almost every day. This amount of work-load is sure to present some forms of physical fatigue or injuries in a select few of the team members.
Common injuries relating to school sports include ligament sprains, muscle strains and tears, and minor fractures to the ankles or the wrist. As all of these points of trauma may appear as a serious problem to the athletes, these players normally can recover from these within a two to four week span.
Newtown High School athletes are no different. Newtown has a full time athletic trainer named Sabrina Byrne. Sabrina assists student athletes with all forms of rehab and is available for on-site medical attention at sporting events.
“Mostly I see athletes come in with complaints about their ankles. With minor ankle injuries I usually give them (the athlete) a two-week recovery. Next is probably hamstring and quad injuries. These muscles require more treatment and may take two-three weeks before they can recover,” Sabrina Byrne said.
Contact-sports frequently cause at least a few injuries to players that may end the player's season. These injuries commonly entail a torn ACL, a severe concussion, or a major fracture or a break in a bone. Most of these injuries are not caused by wear-and-tear, but a specific point in time where direct contact with another focused a lot of force to a certain region of the body.
“Football players are in here all of the time. These injuries are due to the amount of impact the player's experience. Soccer players also tend to get a variety of wear-and-tear injuries that require my assistance,” Sabrina says.
As these injuries are usually linked to contact sports such as football, hockey, soccer, and lacrosse, many non-contact sports experience a wide variety of injuries. For example, cheerleading is recorded as the fourth most dangerous high school sport, and right behind that is gymnastics (popsugar.com). The two of these sports are regarded as non-contact sports; however, both of the physical activities see very high injury rates.
At any time of school related sports events, a trainer must be on sight in order to treat an on-site injury. At Newtown High School, you can find Sabrina running around at any Friday night football game, at any home basketball match in the gymnasium, and assisting players at many other high school sporting events.
With more and more pressure for student athletes to strive to be at their physical peak, high schools are seeing an increase in injuries that had developed from a minor pain in a muscle or bone to severe trauma to that particular area. According to the CDC, more half of all high school sports related injuries are preventable through immediate care from the first signs of pain or soreness (cdc.gov).
Remaining in constant physical shape throughout the season and offspring is a great way to decrease the chance of any sports related injury. A rapid increase in physical activity in a short span of time greatly increases the probability of an athlete experiencing a chronic injury.
“The off-season training for football is essential for preventing injuries. Between January-August, these players are constantly in motion in order to remain in shape. A stronger body leads to a lower risk for an injury,” Sabrina regards.
5 years ago, the addition of the F-wing was completed at Newtown High School. During this construction, the Athletic Trainer's office saw a renovation that swapped multiple pieces of equipment that hadn’t been replaced since 1970. Along with this, the weight room saw some updates in its machinery. All of these additions have greatly improved the efficiency and the safety of the treatment process for all types of athletic injuries.
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