by Morgan Roberts–Being a student athlete includes interacting with athletic trainers on campus.
Everyone has different experiences, but I thought I would share my story as to why I will never step foot in the trainers office again.
Being a distance runner and hurdler, I have a lot of hip and knee problems. The main one being IT Band Syndrome. It is this band of tissue that runs on the outside of my thigh from the hip to just under the knee. Pain occurs when it gets too tight and rubs against the thigh bone.
The pain got worse as the cross season of 2019 went on so I decided to get help from the athletic trainers on campus.
I gave my symptoms and where the pain was, resulting in the trainer needing to “scrape” my IT band. Scraping is taking this little metal slab and gliding it across the muscle to relieve tightness and break down any deep scar tissue.
Notice how I said “muscle,” which an IT Band is not. It is actually a large tendon. Once it is stretched and broke down to a certain point, then it doesn’t go back to working how it should.
I wasn’t well versed in scraping from the trainers, but when they said I needed to get it, the football players in the room visibly flinched.
The trainer wasted no time and went right into using full force on digging into my leg. I audibly screamed and they courteously gave me a rag to bite on while they continued the torture. I was told “crying is a good sign” as I had tears running down my face from the pain.
I’m not sure if they confused me with a football player with the amount of force they used, but I think they actually touched my bone when scraping me.
Overall it did more harm than good because my pain persisted as the season concluded and track season started.
I ended up going to a chiropractor where he gave me leg exercises to strengthen my hip and showed me how and where I was supposed to be scraped. It turns out the main areas to work on were my hip and knee and not the now broken down IT Band.
A year later with the exercises the chiropractor told me, I have little to no hip pain and have successfully avoided the athletic trainers on campus.
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