February 15th saw our first Sports Medicine Symposium, held in the Geoffrey Blainey Auditorium at Federation University, Mt Helen. Over 40 participants joined us for what was a very successful and enjoyable day.
Our first keynote speaker was Matt Hornsby, the Head of Performance at St Kilda Football Club. He generously provided us with an insight into how an elite sporting organisation structures its training to prevent injuries from occurring in the first place, rather than having to treat them afterwards. Later in the afternoon our other keynote speaker, Dr Scott Talpey from Federation University, translated this into the community sport space. He neatly showed that using a warm-up efficiently at any level of sport can give teams an extra 12 hours of training per season, without even trying.
Other highlights included:
• Dr Greg Harris outlining some of the decision-making process in allowing players back to sport after a concussion.
• Dr Bronwyn Sudholz describing the psychological effects of injury, and how this can affect the return to play.
• An excellent round-table discussion about ACL injury, with Dr James Ooi providing a neat summary of the differences in injury rate between men and women, Mr Luke Spencer describing some of the surgical techniques for ACL reconstruction, and BallaratOSM physiotherapist Luke Blunden introducing our return to sport assessment after ACL injury.
• Kerri Gordon from Lake Health Group providing a succinct guide to dietary recommendations for football, and other sports.
• Matt Clark sharing his expertise in assessment and management of anterior knee pain.
• Chris Radford wrapping up the day with some advice on strength training to prevent injury, and a pointer to some useful on-line resources.
• A lunchtime tour of the brand-new Sports Science precinct at Fed Uni, which is now one of the best equipped Exercise Physiology laboratories in Australia.
Our thanks go to Federation University and to AFL Goldfields for their support in making this event possible, and to all the members of the highly engaged and interactive audience.
Thanks also to all our presenters, who have kindly allowed their material to be available online here.
Plans are already being hatched for next year’s event, so keep an eye out for more information in a few months!
