Third Year student, Callum Bloys, travels to Istanbul for the European Championships.
How did you get involved
with this placement?
I first got involved with this placement back in February, when
I responded to an email requesting students to conduct fitness testing for the
England Amputee Football Team. Upon my response I found I was already familiar
with the Head Coach as I had gained experience working with him on my placement
at the Lancashire FA with deaf and partially sighted futsal players. I travelled down to Crewe that same weekend, then continued travelling down to
Crewe from Preston for the monthly training weekends.
What was involved in
the placement leading up to you traveling abroad with them?
My role within the team was predominantly elements of Strength
and Conditioning/Exercise based. However, I did also gain some clinical
practice in the build-up to the Championships. Responsibilities of my role included
leading the team warm-ups before each session, conducting fitness testing,
presenting results of testing back to the coaching staff, soft tissue
management, pitch-side first aid and providing additional information regarding
injury prevention/diet and gym based plans. For example, I attended the FMA
conference in May and the following weekend I was with the team, so a task of
mine was to prepare a presentation on developing resiliency/robustness in our
athletes and to feedback any other key points from the conference.
How did this
opportunity come about?
After attending a few of the training weekends I was
informed that team was interested in taking me away with them to one of the
international competitions we had this Summer. Originally the plan was for me
to travel to Poland for the Amputee Cup in June but due to changes in staff I
received the opportunity to travel to Istanbul for the European Championships.
England Amputee Football Team are a charitable foundation and therefore lack
funding from any governing body, therefore every player and member of staff was
required to raise £750 for each tournament to cover the expenses involved with
the competition.
How did you feel
working in this environment?
I was excited, apprehensive and was not quite sure
what to expect before heading into the tournament. The goal of the team was to
go there and win the tournament so from day 1 there was an element of high
pressure upon myself to perform well. However, my clinical educators provided
me with the opportunity to develop my confidence in a variety of ways. I was
told from the beginning of the week that I would be given the lead
responsibility with a number of tasks and my clinical educators would be there
to simply oversee that I was practising in a safe manner. I was given the
lead role in the delivery of the team’s warm-ups/cool-downs, hydrotherapy
sessions and prehab sessions. It was my responsibility to speak with the
players in the morning to obtain any information of who was carrying any knocks
or injuries, I would then need to feed this back to my clinical educators
and devise a plan or timetable for treatment. This was whilst consistently
employing my injury management skills on a daily basis by carrying out subjective/objective
assessments, developing treatment plans, and performing hands-on skills such as
special tests/manual therapy/STM.
If you could go back, would you change anything about the placement or the experiences you had?
The only thing I would change if I could would be the timing of
the placement, it was at the beginning of the academic year and in the medical
team our average working day kept us busy for 16 hours. So I knew that I would
be falling behind with assignment and proposal deadlines. However, to make sure
I didn't fall too far behind, we maintained additional
clinical work practice in the evening with my clinical educators after
treatment sessions and team meetings. The long days were gruelling and there
were times where I was working under a lot of pressure, but I loved every
minute of the trip. The facilities we had access to were incredible, staying at
the Turkish Football Federation Complex. The only other thing I would change of
course would of been to have won in the final that night in Istanbul!
What was it like
delivering a warm up in front of thousands of fans?
Leading the warm-up in front of 40,000 Turkish fans in the
stadium was incredible and it’s definitely a moment I will never forget. I was
amazed by the shear hostility and compassion of the fans who filled the
Besiktas stadium that night. I also had to think about how I was going to
present the warm-up as I couldn’t hear myself speak let alone what the
players must have heard. However, I benefited from employing the same
routine before every game during the tournament, this way the players knew
exactly what they were doing through each stage of the warm-up with the
prehab, mobiliser and stretching. Overall the opportunity was amazing, it
gave me a potential insight and some great inspiration for my future
career as a Graduate Sports Therapist.
Review from Lead Academy Physiotherapist, Charlie Wilton;
“Callum came away with
the England Amputee team to Turkey for the European Championships, his main
goals were to effectively lead warm ups with clear concise communication and effective
skills to warm up the players so they can deliver on the pitch and reduce the
risk of injury. As we went way other
goals were discussed as to working with effective cool downs and also, pool
recovery sessions. These all focused
around communication skills and effective exercise delivery to focus on within
his goals. Callum was successful in reaching his goals in these areas are I
feel was a growing in confidence and ability throughout the 10 days, he helped
create a successful team that was injury free in the tournament and resulted in
the team reaching the final.
Callum also was
available in the injury clinic sessions where we assessed players and delivered
soft tissue. He wanted to learn and practice in his skills in subjective and
objective questioning and tests to look for weakness and injury markers. He did
well and improved throughout the week on his communication of asking subjective
questions and also explaining movement patterns and aiding in players
understanding of self-management and importance of pre-hab work.
His soft tissue skills
improved and he was a valuable member of the team and fitted in well as a
person and I feel he learned a lot from his experience.”
Photo Credit: LAJPhotography @LajWarrington
