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00:00Live from Radio Rose, Sports Grid's coverage of Super Bowl 59. Joe Lisi
00:05joined by A.J. Duffy, health expert in regards to all athletics in terms of
00:13college and NFL. A.J. talk to me just briefly about the Super Bowl as a whole,
00:19the big game on Sunday. We have two great teams in terms of Kansas City and
00:24Philadelphia. What are your thoughts about the game on Sunday?
00:27Well, living in Philly for 35 years, I probably have a slight edge for them. I
00:33grew up a Lions fan. I was hoping that they would be here for the first time,
00:36but I also have a connection with the the Chiefs and that the Rick Burkhalter
00:42is their head athletic trainer and he was with Andy with the Eagles and Tom
00:45Hunkle, who's the head athletic trainer for the Eagles, and I bring them up
00:51because they have two excellent staffs to make sure that both teams are under
00:56the best possible care and that they will be both ready to rock and roll come
01:01Sunday. Absolutely, and you talk about sports performance and treatment. How has
01:05it changed over the past 20 or 30 years? Because now you talk about technology,
01:10you talk about different types of techniques potentially to get players
01:14ready and back for major injury. What have you seen in terms of just your
01:19industry as a whole? It's exploded. I was talking to someone earlier, it's a year,
01:25it's not just at the professional level because it's obvious it's year-round at
01:29the professional level, but even in the lower levels, high school, the small
01:34Division 3 schools that we're talking about, if you're not participating and
01:37active year-round, you're setting yourself up for potential issues. So
01:42that's what I really see and I think that the technology is, we're able to
01:47figure out what the issue is earlier so we get the proper treatment and that's
01:51key. Right. What is the biggest piece of advice? Because I'm always curious when
01:56you have trainers and you're talking about just performance as a whole, the
02:00biggest piece of advice, because back in the day it was all play multiple sports,
02:05right? Play basketball into potentially baseball and then football. Is
02:10that still the case that athletes that play multiple sports are in better
02:15sports performance shape where they have less injuries as opposed to just
02:20concentrating on one sport throughout the year? I think that you have to be
02:24very careful about when you concentrate on one sport. If you look at
02:28the research and you hear what Nick Saban says, most of his
02:33players played two or three sports. So by playing multiple sports in your
02:38young days, it gives you the opportunity to adapt to different things. And then as
02:43you get older into the high school, then you can start to select it. Hey, you know
02:47what? I want to hone in on baseball or football. But the opportunities that
02:52you have in youth sports, playing multiple sports, sets you up to be a
02:56better athlete, you know, once you finally decide to get to one. Now do you speak to
03:01multiple teams across, like I know that a lot of athletic trainers or people in
03:08the industry go from in the offseason about certain types of approach and
03:12technique. So are you working across the nation throughout the given year talking
03:17to universities and potential high schools? How does it really work and
03:21operate? You know, I've just started this position as president of the
03:25National Athletic Training Association back in July. And that's my
03:30intention is to get out and have conversations with individuals to tell
03:33them what we're all about. So typically when I was at Widener, I would be working
03:39with athletes, multiple athletes, multiple teams, making sure that during
03:44the offseason they're preparing themselves for their next season. And that
03:47is even, hey, make sure that you take the common sense and let your body rest,
03:52okay? So they can recover and get ready for the next upcoming year. It's
03:56interesting too for me, I think when you see the significant injuries that occur,
04:01especially in the National Football League, right? The turnaround time where
04:06ACL, if you had an ACL injury, you should take back in the day and when I played
04:11it may be 16, 17 months to recover. Now we're seeing athletes back on the field.
04:16I think Cam Akers, you know, for an Achilles, he was back potentially within
04:21the same season. Is that just due to the technology and how the athletic
04:27trainers just handled the athletes on a given day-to-day? Well, I think there's a
04:31couple things that are critically important here. One, when you're
04:34talking about individuals at the professional level, they are highly
04:38trained athletes. They've been doing it for many years and they've got the best
04:42care at their disposal and their job is to get better. And then you take that
04:46back to the surgical techniques that are utilized. They're much better today
04:50than they were years ago. So it's all about having that balance and that your
04:55athletic trainer is working with you, can say, you know what, everything looks good
04:59but there's one thing you can't change and that's just the body's healing. You
05:04know, when I explain that to someone, I say, how do you like your hamburger?
05:08Medium well. So how can you tell, right? You've got to open it up. So it's still
05:14gonna be a little red in there for what you like and that's the analogy I like
05:18to say, make sure, we got to make sure that the body heals appropriately.
05:23Younger athletes, if there's one piece of advice you can give them to prevent
05:27injuries from college to the NFL, anything that they could do or change
05:32maybe their approach, what would you recommend? Common sense. Common sense.
05:37Common sense. Work within what your body says, okay? Try to make sure that you're
05:42not going, doing too many things. Right. Because you could have a baseball player
05:47in the summer play for three teams and if he's a pitcher, yes, there's pitch
05:51counts but if you take those three teams and he's doing the pitch count for all
05:55three, he's setting himself up or herself up for failure. So it's common sense, work
06:00within yourself and find, make sure that you're working with individuals that
06:04understand your sport so they can guide you in the right direction. I remember
06:08there was a survey or there was a test study done like where soccer players had
06:14the most concussions and you would think that it was like hockey and football
06:19players. Is that true? I haven't looked at the latest research but soccer players
06:24do have high incident concussions. You know, when you talk about concussions, the
06:29care there has dramatically improved. You know, I'm sure back when you played
06:35for the Bullets or the Rams, right? I got my ball wrong and we would even treat
06:41them, hey, after 15 minutes if your sign's gone away, back in there. But now we're
06:46much more intentional. The research shows, hey, we need to give them time to, for
06:51their brain to rest, their brain to heal and then we, again, gradually get them
06:55back in activity. And the difference at the college sports is they go to
07:00class and they continue to have headaches. Then we got to pull them back
07:04because if the brain can't function in class, it means it's not completely
07:07healed yet. So conversation, understanding of what it's all about and making
07:13sure that the symptoms you share with your athletic trainer are real will go a
07:19long way so that you get back to the field sooner than later. Great insight and
07:23information from AJ Duffy. Now back after this.