Sports and Exercise Therapist

The day is finally here! 3 years of hard work and effort is over and I can finally call myself an undergraduate sports and exercise therapist. I am at the moment working with the rugby league referees to provide sports massage together with Ian Mitchell when they need me. I also work alongside Brendan Chaplin (strength and conditioning coach at Leeds Metropolitan University) where I have have started my case study for my UKSCA (United Kingdom Strength and Conditioning Association) accreditation on a very talented badminton player. She had a knee surgery about a month ago and was back lifting heavy weight the second week after surgery. I am convinced that the reason she was able to progress and recover so quickly is because she was very strong prior to her surgery and therefore didn't suffer any athrophy! Having said that the surgery was just a "small" clean out with no major damage. I will get some photos taken from the gym to show you some of the exercises she work on in the nearest future.

If anyone is interested in getting a sports massage or need help with injury management/rehabilitation you can contact me to arrange an appointment on 07942461440 or email me on monicatorland@hotmail.com

Tonight is the last fitness session for the 13 year olds tennis players before the summer so I will make sure they finish with a nice and tough session:)

Cheers

Scapular wall slides

Poor upper body posture can be linked to several problems such as shoulder pain and neck pain. Poor posture may be something you are born with, but more often is it linked to muscle imbalances. An exercise to target the muscles at the back of your shoulders is "scapular wall slides" (mainly rhomboids and middle trapezius). I have attached a video clip so u can have a look. Key points to consider on this exercise:

• Try to keep your back in contact with the wall
• Keep pushing your elbows into the wall
• Pinch your shoulder blades together

Give it a go, it may look simple, it's not if you do it properly.
Apologies for looking serious, just very consentrated:)
Cheers!

Fighters are some strong athletes!

Apologies for not really been to active on the blogging side over the last few weeks. It has been a bit of a hectic time and still is with four weeks left of uni, two weeks until dissertation is due and several other pieces of uni work that needs to be completed. That is the boring bit, however I have still kept going with my placement, that I really enjoy! Tennis is back on again after a few weeks of Easter break and I have recently started to join Brendan when he is working with some fighters (MMA). That has been a new experience for me! A few things have inspired me with their training. Their training includes tyreflips (80 kg), sledgehammering, heavy lifts, pulls and pushs just to mention a few. The guys I have worked with so far have an incredible work standard. Loads of sweat and blood in those session! I am convinced that whoever trains with Brendan will experience some of his "not very standard" exercise regime! Impressive to watch! After their hard sessions I have started giving a few of the guys a sports massage to prepare them for their fights which they seem to enjoy (enjoy= pain, but no pain, no gain so they can handle it).

Next weekend I am going to Edinburg for the Magic Weekend to massage the rugby league referees together with Ian Mitchell who is a sports masseur. I have been working with Ian and the referees for over a year now, but have never been to a match before so I am looking forward to it and think it will be a good experience.

Will try to keep updating my blog more in the future, so just bare with me:)

Have a great weekend, recovery is important so sometimes it is allowed to put your legs up like I will do tonight.

Cheerio for now

This is the start of a new adventure..

Welcome to all strength and conditioning interested individuals! My name is Monica Torland and I will be blogging about my experiences as a final year Sports and Excersise Therapy student and a budding strength and conditioning coach.

One of the requirements of The Society of Sports Therapy is that students perform a minimum of 100 hours practical experience on related placements. Last year one of my placements was with Teleri Wilson, who used to be the head of strength and conditioning at Leeds Met University. I really enjoyed the work and this year I have taken on another strength and conditioning placement with Brendan Chaplin, who currently is the head of Strength and Conditioning for Leeds LTA High Performance Tennis Centre. Brendan is also strength and conditioning coach for Huddersfield Giants Rugby League and has also got his own personal clients, in other words a very knowledgeable and busy man! Check out his website here

The week’s placements and lectures are now over and the weekend is approaching. Since I am in the middle of writing my dissertation about ACL rehabilitation I have got an exciting weekend of journals, journals and more journals to look forward to. Anyway this is the price we have to pay to get the degrees we want, so it’s all for a good cause after all! Keep smiling and keep training:)