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Cincinnati ATs Taking the Guesswork out of Return to Play Decisions

Article reposted from WLWT5
Author: Mark Hayes

The youth sports season is no longer just fun and games, especially when it comes to high school athletes.

The games are getting more intense and heightening the intensity of injuries.

WLWT looked into a new cutting-edge technique that has made its way to Greater Cincinnati, aimed at getting injured athletes back in the game in a faster and safer way.

The new process, described as “combine testing,” works like the concussion protocol, except the focus is the lower body.

Trainers measure an athlete’s strength, so that in the event of injury, there is an easy way to know when they are healthy again.

“So we are timing them going left to right, comparing the numbers, seeing if there are differences side to side,” athletic trainer Rocky Tekulvey said.

Tekulvey runs post therapy programs at Mercy Health Orthopedic and Sports Medicine.

“It helps an injury because we now know where they’re supposed to get back to. It’s almost like an impact test for concussions,” he said.

Pat Thatcher, strength coach at Anderson High School, said the technique helps take some of the guess work out of the recovery equation.

“The best thing about the combine is we can identify areas of weakness,” Thatcher said.

Thatcher said that gives them the ability to then correct the weakness.