If you can imagine a college campus filled with young elite athletes with everyone focused on performance rather than where the next party is …you’re close to the mark.
A few times a year I get the opportunity to spend a week working at the olympic training center in Colorado Springs or San Diego. It is an amazing experience to treat these elite athletes, work the sidelines of sports like wrestling, Track and Field, and gymnastics,and be on call in case any emergencies occurred after hours (they did).
My goal is to provide the best care possible to these athletes while learning as much as I can from the integrated medical team working along side myself. The center is comprised of an amazing team of chiropractors, MDs, physical therapists, athletic trainers and massage therapists providing the lion share of the care. There are other specialists -surgeons, nutritionists, sports psychologists that are there as part time or as needed. The exciting part is there is a lot of cross-communication and collaboration between the different practitioners.
It is inspiring to see all of these health care practitioners working together with one goal in mind: getting the athlete back to practice so they can perform at their best. The Olympic and Paralympic athletes are truly motivational when you see all they give and sacrifice to be at the top of their game. I get exhausted when I run an hour or two and feel I’ve done my exercise for the day. Training and practice can be up to 8 hours for these men and women…then they wake up and do it all over again. And all of the athletes I’ve ever interacted with there (sorry can’t name drop) are down to earth and grateful to have the support, even those with medals.
It is a true pleasure to sit in on wrestling (men and women’s), gymnastics (men’s), fencing, weightlifting, Track and Field, archery, paralympic basketball, and shooting to name a few. I feel privileged to get to take what I learn each time from working with this distinguished sports medicine team and elite athletes back to the incredible athletes in the Bay Area. We are lucky to have perfect weather and environment for many different types of athletes and we at ProActive love helping them all.