Objective/Purpose:
For my Original Work, I wanted to gather data about physical therapy’s effect on an athlete’s health, injury prevention, and performance. By conducting an eight-week long experiment on myself and recording all my observations, I was able to obtain valuable information regarding extensive physical therapy and athletic performance. I came up with this idea after going through an intensive program of physical therapy after having conversations with my teammates and coaches about how they always have some kind of nagging injury or pain that could easily be prevented - but they don’t quite know how to prevent it. My intention behind running this labor intensive experiment was to be able to utilize this data and turn it into something bigger, something that will be easily accessible to all athletes and will be able to benefit them greatly by making them stronger and helping them to prevent injuries.
Methodology:
Materials
For my project, I decided to complete all my exercises unweighted, so the only materials I used during my experiment was a foam roller, which I used to roll out cramps and knots every Sunday, and an exercise band, which I used to stretch out my muscles every Sunday. Aside from these materials, I also utilized Google search and Google Docs as I compiled a list of websites that helped me choose my eight exercises and taught me how to do them correctly and at their full effectiveness.
Procedures and Process
For my Original Work, every weekday and Saturday looked the same. I would get up and complete all eight of my physical therapy exercises that are known for being the most commonly used exercises for treating injuries in soccer players. I did three sets of ten of each exercise without any rest breaks in between circuits, which would take me about 45 minutes each day. These six days of the week remained unchanged throughout all eight weeks of my experiment. The most crucial days of my weeks were Sundays, which were the days that I would complete my exercises and then foam rolling, deep stretching, measuring, and reflecting. Every Sunday, I recorded a synopsis of how I felt and performed on the field as well as measured my legs to look for slight muscle growth or toning. This is the data that I will be taking into my Final Project. Aside from the rigorous physical schedule, I also utilized one of my weekly Research Assessments for each of the two months in order to explore injury prevention in athletes in order to expand my knowledge as well.
Utilization of Higher-Thinking Skills:
I knew going into my Original Work that I was going to be utilizing both evaluating and analyzing almost every day. By recording my daily progress, these higher-thinking skills were absolutely crucial to the success of my experiment. However, I had not expected that I would be using problem-solving almost every day as well. This experiment was very labor intensive, and while I had correctly predicted the need for constant analyzing and evaluating during my data gathering and processing, I had not predicted how difficult it would be to maintain such a project with my busy schedule as a junior in high school and a competitive athlete. I utilized the higher-thinking skill problem-solving above all others as I had to come up with a solution to my schedule conflicts in order to complete my daily exercises, which was imperative to the successful completion of my experiment.
Results:
I am overall very proud of my Original Work! Although I do recognize that it isn’t much more than data at the moment, I am so excited to be able to turn this valuable information into something that all athletes can use to benefit themselves. These results were actually better than I expected - seen throughout my Sunday entries is a trend that only goes up, where I saw positive changes in my performance, physical appearance, and muscle size. I learned that physical therapy does indeed benefit athletes, and when done correctly and consistently it has an overwhelmingly positive impact on their health and abilities. This data is trustworthy and accurate as a competitive athlete who ran a firsthand experiment so that the accounts could be guaranteed to be credible. While there was a slow start, I am very happy with the outcome of my Original Work project and I cannot wait to take the data to the next level.
Conclusion/Interpretations:
I interpret my results to be nothing short of great knowledge that will benefit athletes and help them to remain at their very best at all times. The overall conclusion I have come to is that physical therapy in consistent doses is nothing short of career-boosting for an athlete. Because my data all comes from a firsthand, qualified, and relevant source (myself) I am confident that it is credible and reliable. I’m very excited to be able to apply my data and create something to display it and make it accessible to athletes everywhere so that they can help prevent those nagging injuries that could turn into a career ending injury with one wrong motion. I was pleasantly surprised with my conclusion - I was expecting it to benefit me, but not all the way to this extent. I now plan on expanding this information into other athletic communities (besides soccer).
Application/Meaning:
This information will be very useful to athletic communities of all kinds, especially soccer seeing as that is the sport I centered my physical therapy around. I plan to utilize my data for my final project, although I am not quite sure what that is to be yet. I will find a way to take my data and make it public so everyone who needs it will have access to it. This will benefit individuals and communities alike - individuals because they will be able to lessen their pain and increase their performance quality and enhance their abilities, and communities because teams will have stronger and healthier players which will improve their overall performance. Throughout this process, I reaffirmed what I already knew and grew an even greater appreciation for physical therapy because it truly does benefit everyone, especially athletes. This project has helped me to advance my knowledge of physical therapy and its benefits.