LEADS Academy was created to build foundational leadership and empower the next generation of leaders in the Michigan Athletic Trainers Society. Jacob Ortega-Schultz and Courtney Lewis join me live at MATS 2024.
Brian Parker spoke for an hour at the Michigan Athletic Trainers Society annual meeting. Energy drinks, stimulants, drugs and the need to educate athletes.
Taylor took anabolic steroids to get bigger faster stronger.
He quit cold turkey and that lead him to depression and he chose to take his life.
Brian speaks at a lot of regional meetings and would love to come share Taylor story with your group.
3 questions to ask:
1. Contains banned substances?
2. Am I using it properly?
3. Is it necessary?
Just one energy drink can hurt your blood vessel function.
Quality improvement project on how I spent my time.
Why did these need to be established?
As a young professional, I hadn’t yet learned what I needed. It took a lot of self-awareness and reflection to understand my own needs so that I could practice putting boundaries in place.
Walk us through some of these Professional Boundaries conversations.
Self-awareness is a journey. It doesn’t end, it’s continual and ever-changing.
Tuning into self in each moment will help to outline needs that can be met.
It is your ownership of that, responsibility that matters. Take action for yourself, no one else will.
What are some of the boundaries you see other Athletic Trainers needing help with?
I hear ATs talk about being taken advantage of, lowest paid, constantly overworked, etc. The story feels redundant at this point. I wish more ATs felt empowered to change their own script. If you’re burnt out, who has the power to change that? Stop pointing fingers at the system and start being an agent of change.
Establishing boundaries helps create life balance. What does life balance look like for you currently?
For me right now, I love my work but it’s definitely not what I spend most of my time or energy on. Some might scoff at that, but truly it’s been a process of shifting the scales so that I came first. My body, my mental health, my spirit, and then my family friends pets.. it took a lot of practice and still does (every day) of ensuring that my cup is full so I can give.
I love Financial Peace University and we are debt-free including the house. How do you think finances play into life balance?
I also love the messages about financial peace. Finances play a big role in this balance.
It can be tough… I was an AT with a Masters salaried working 60+ hrs a week and paid under $40k. I had 3 job offers in the same week and that was the highest… needless to say I lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time, feeling totally stuck. Eventually, I moved to working 5-6 jobs at any time to get “unstuck” but then found myself burnt out. I’m sure this story is familiar.
I decided to put energy into one place. For me, that was starting my small business. This created freedom of my time which is actually the most valuable. Long story short, this journey brought me to where I am now. And I still have multiple sources of income but it’s much more harmonious.
I think for ATs the balance of life and work does revolve a lot around money. I think we need to talk about it more often. We need to justify and prove our worth not just “say” it.
IMG Academy offers opportunities for Athletic Trainers different from most secondary settings. Kaitlyn Deshaies and Jared White share what life is like at IMG.
Kaitlyn, how did you get into Athletic Training, and what led you to IMG?
I was an injured athlete in high school.
I met an AT while traveling with the team and knew Athletic Training was what I was meant to do.
Jared, How did you get into Athletic Training
Planned to go to med school and do orthopedics because I loved being in and around sports.
A random guy was sitting behind our bench with a little black bag and I started asking questions about him and what he did.
I had zero previous experience with Athletic Trainers.
Went to Anderson State University then transferred back to middle Tennessee State
Worked with Vanderbilt
GA at Auburn
Season intern with the KC Chiefs
Became the head AT for the KC Brigade Arena football
Became head AT in Nashville at a D2 school for about 7 years.
At the interview, I loved the IMG academy environment and leadership.
The academy has a boarding school with the traditional student life.
We do not have tryouts, but we have 12 support teams for the one baseball director.
We also have campers throughout the year.
Many pro teams use our campus as an off-season host site.
We are a for-profit business.
We have a very diverse population of TV Stars, a 10-year-old tennis player who is the son of an Abu Dhabi prince, professional athletes, and working-class athletes.
Wayne said there are a lot of unique growth opportunities for an AT at IMG. Can you explain?
You may have a camper here for a week or a student with a torn ACL.
Our ATs have a lot of physician interaction and see a lot of injuries.
Both Kaitlyn and Jared have been forced to grow.
As a for-profit business, we have to help the company make money.
Personal and professional growth.
We are focused on customer experience. Our staff has to understand the ins and outs of the business.
We are housed in a building that houses strength coaches, nutritionists, mental health specialists, leadership and character development, and sports science and data analytics.
We get to work with a lot of sponsors like Gatorade or Under Armor.
IMG Academy’s summer hires are looking for a staffer who can be part of our team in the future.
A good candidate needs to be a part of the team and do the same tasks as the full-time staff.
You do need to be an LAT to work in Florida.
We started the growth summit where we host an entire week of education for our AT staff.
Wet Bulb Globe Temperature is the standard for protecting from heat illness which is 100% preventable in athletics. Tom Woods discusses where we are as a state in adopting it.
What is the ATLAS ambassador?
What changes would you make to protocols in Texas?
WBGT takes in several more important factors than Heat Index
Don’t forget about band, dance, cheer in your WBGT needs
What is the next major tech advancement you would like to see?
Switching to WBGT and becoming a mandate rather than a recommendation.
NFHS covers 48 states..but not TEXAS
Will heat illness training become a required training?
What can I do to benefit my athlete since turf is here to stay?
Making sure the field is well maintained, and proper personal protective equipment is significantly important. A lot of football players like to wear narrow cleats which can contribute to lower extremity injuries based on the cleat pattern, length, and width of the shoe. The time of day we practice is important as well.
Is there any data or research done about laces and appropriately tying the shoe with appropriate arch support?
Great question, I’d have to look into that. I’m sure there are studies – I didn’t delve into that. These are very important questions, I think that core strengthening is a very pertinent point as well.
You spoke about an increase in PCL injuries. From my education, the mechanism of injury for PCL is that dashboard injury, coming from direct force on the anterior tibia. Is there any research, or from your background and knowledge, why is it that we’re seeing more prominence from that mechanism on that turf?
When it’s not a dashboard injury, the common mechanism is that you onto your knee bent at 90 degrees, your toe has interacted and your cleat is stuck in the turf so it's not giving away.
Your foot is in this dorsiflexed position and you land on that knee with all of the force going back through, as opposed to if the shoe gives out allowing you to land on less of a 90-degree angle.
Is there any correlation to gastrocnemius weakness regarding those Turf Toe injuries?
I think that's a valid argument, I don't have enough science or background to say but I do think that would be an interesting thing to study.
We talked about the history of turf in your presentation, would you say we’ve moved in a safer direction? Are we moving to a safer surface?
I think we are, I think we’re moving to a safer surface for our lower-level athletes. I think our higher-level athletes have different muscle builds and different muscle types that may lead to some of those injury at a higher level.
I do think the technology that's going into it is moving towards a safer playing surface, I don't think there's much we can do about the heat and some of the other things, and they are looking into that. I think we are moving there, the important thing here is that turf isn't going away, I don't think that we’ll ever go back to grass.
With technology moving forward, I do think it's becoming safer. I don't think it'll ever be 100% safe but with education, and proper maintenance, I think we can make it as safe as we can.
You mentioned the coconut or the cork, those things are natural materials that would rot, and putting turf in is a lengthy and expensive process. How does it make sense for a high school field to put something that might rot underneath there?
So part of it is just the turnover of it, so it's got to be properly maintained. So when we use the proper equipment and the proper rakes just to shift it around that's a valid question, especially in a wet and humid environment like it is here. It’s not being used a ton yet, and I think that's yet to come. We may determine years from now that it's a bad idea.
Rice uses wood instead of rubber on their field, I found that interesting when we played there last year.
Did you notice any difference?
Thinking back, I think your point about feet being sore on these fields; is a major problem. Your feet hurt at the end of the day on the rubber. There’s less of that impact.
We did have in our Rice game, but I don't think it makes a difference in injury, we had an ankle fracture that game, we had a significant hamstring rupture, and a couple of other things so I don't think it makes a difference as far as the interaction of the cleat but it may make it as far as the softness.
You mentioned your time in the military where you would sweep and make sure there was no foreign debris as part of the turfing. Can you speak briefly about your time serving our country?
I served in the Navy for 12 years and loved it. I trained as an intern, and then I was 3 years as a flight surgeon with the Marines, serving in an F-18 squadron. I had the opportunity to go all over the world with that, then finished my ortho training in San Diego.
Then I spent 4 years as an orthopedic surgeon in Japan and Florida, and loved it.
They were not allowing me to do sports medicine, which is what I came to Houston to do a fellowship for. So, there are nothing but good things to say about the Navy and those who serve.
People who go to the military to become physical therapists or surgeons, can you talk about what they should and shouldn't think about before?
So for me, it was an avenue for me to pay for medical school. They paid for me to go to George Washington University, and so one thing is well paid and very well educated no matter where I go in the world or in the country.
The training that we got is respected. Same thing for physical therapy. Other than the Naval Academy, and probably West Point Force Academy, there are not a lot of athletic trainers in the military.
But you certainly get that experience working with different types of teams, and I think the opportunities that you get serving far outweigh the downsides of deployment or other unfriendly things like being told where you have to be, when you have to be there, where to have to move to, overall very positive.
I think the Navy and all of the armed forces provide great education both in-person and online learning. A lot of the coremen would enlist, and have their education paid for while working on campus, and several of the individuals I worked with would graduate with a year's degree while they were on active duty service with no cost to them.
Got Questions about Turf Toe?
Dr. Paul Shupe – Reach out to his office and tell them the Sports Medicine Broadcast sent you
