SAVE THEM!
Noted physical therapist points to increasing injuries and burnout among junior athletes
“Hell” is the word noted sports therapist Everald “Eddie” Edwards used to describe the troubling injury situation that many of the nation’s junior track and field athletes have been facing over the years and believes it will only get worse if nothing is done to protect the youngsters.
Edwards, most notable for his work with the world’s fastest man alive and Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt, currently operates the Fast Recovery Human Tecar Treatment Centre in Kingston where he helps in the treatment and rehabilitation for persons with injuries.
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He has been a part of Jamaica’s technical staff to several major events including the Olympics and World Championships and has also treated the likes of Jamaican stars Asafa Powell, Chris Gayle and Andre Russell.
Edwards paints a grim picture of what he described as a gross overworking of some of the island’s young athletes, caught on the wrong side of the pursuit of glory.
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He told the Jamaica Observer that the training methods being conducted by some high school coaches are destroying the youth.
“Most of the workouts that some of these kids that come to my office are doing, I cannot believe it…when they show me evidence (all I can) say is this is madness!” Edwards said.
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“How can you have 13, 14 and 15-year-old kids run twelve 300 metres, twenty 200 metres (in training); that’s madness. You have kids training from Monday to Sunday!”
Edwards, disheartened by the huge number of injured student athletes that he treats on a regular basis, says some coaches ignore the athlete’s standard of living, when preparing their programmes.
“These kids are students first so they have to get up early in the morning. Some eat breakfast, some don’t. They have to go to class, they have to go up stairs, some of them don’t eat properly or have enough fluids then they go to training, running all those 300m and stuff,” he said.
“Then they go back home, some don’t eat properly because they don’t understand what it takes to build back muscles and tissues when they are damaged, they have to do homework, go to bed at 11 pm, get five hours sleep and get up back at 6 am to go train and some train twice per day. Some of these athletes are running close to what the professionals are doing while still being a student. It’s very stressing on them,” Edwards added.
He says some of the damage that his student-athlete clients face leaves him distraught.
“One morning, a female patient from a prominent high school came to my office and she said she got twelve 300 metres to run and a prominent senior coach was at my office at the time and said that this could not be true because he coaches professionals and the most they would get is five. A 14-year-old told me he got twenty 200 metres, that’s too much,” said Edwards.
“Parents come to my office and their child is just shaking, they can’t sleep in their bed because they’re tossing and turning, their child wets their bed. That’s how serious it is out there,” he added.
Seven years ago, Edwards says he tried to alert the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) of the situation after working with the team at the World Under-20 Championships, but says he was ignored.
“Most of the athletes were injured. After doing all that work, I wrote a letter to the governing body…No one responded. Now those athletes who got injured and needed help, some fell by the wayside and some are still battling out there but they would have been doing so much better if they got help,” Edwards said.
The situation, he believes, is driven by the primary objective of most coaches at the secondary level – success at the high school championships.
“A coach is at a school for his salary. That school needs performance, so the coach will do whatever he needs to do, to get the performance. If a man wants 30 points in Class Two and 60 points at Class Three to win Champs, him don’t business. It’s the sad reality,” Edwards reasoned.
The therapist says in addition to trying to bring the issue to the JAAA, he has also offered to help in raising awareness and education among coaches; efforts that have been largely ignored.
To ensure a smooth transition to the senior level, Edwards is proposing that the JAAA invests in at least 100 junior athletes islandwide and take care of their most pressing expenses, while monitoring their training and preparation.
“There are three counties; set up areas where these athletes can go and make sure nutrition is taken care of. You can have physiotherapists and doctors in these three counties that are responsible for the juniors so you know if you get injured, you can go to that specific doctor and physiotherapist and you don’t need to pay because JAAA takes care of it. They can go to Puma and say we have 100 athletes in our junior programme that we’re taking care of so they send sneakers, training gears, bags, whatever,” he said.
He also believes involving the likes of world-class coaches like Glen Mills and Stephen Francis would benefit the athletes as far as consultation is concerned.
“Call a meeting with the high school coaches and tell them these are the number of meets you can run, monitor their training and maybe once or twice a month, meet at GC Foster College or Jamaica College and have them train together and the individual coaches can come and then the senior coaches like Mr Mills and Stephen Francis can also come and keep an eye on what’s going on, give their advice, have seminars and so on,” Edwards said.
Edwards believes the JAAA needs to intervene as soon as possible before the situation worsens.
“Some of the egos of these coaches making wrong decisions to win at all costs is costing the athletes and the country. We’re going down a bad path so we need to address that, we need to have some seminars with the coaches, let them know how the body functions and hopefully they take heed,” he said.
“The governing body needs to step in and protect these athletes.”
