What does a podiatrist do for sports teams?

Probably the most popular sports in Australia is Australian Rules Football (AFL). To people outside this it is regarded as considerably weird since they have observed no sport like it, but they are in awe of what tremendous athletes that those who play the game at the professional high level is. It is a totally professional men's competition of Australian rules football and it has been competed for over a hundred years. It started in the state of Victoria, but now some other states have teams in what is now viewed as a nationwide competition. The eighteen professional clubs which play in the AFL invest greatly in the sports sciences and also sports medicine to get the most out of the athletes in each team. The sports medicine team with each team has a podiatrist associated to help manage the foot injury and shoes needs of the players. The role of Podiatry practitioners in the AFL in Australia is regarded as a template of how podiatry practitioners should be involved with professional squads all over the world.

For one of the shows of the podiatry associated livestream, PodChatLive the hosts talked with 5 of the podiatry practitioners associated with Australian Rules Football squads to talk about the world leading template for Podiatry inside an elite sports league and also the growing function of the recently formed, AFL Podiatry Association. The Podiatry practitioners that were on this show were Ben Holland with the North Melbourne Kangaroos, Emma Poynton with the Western Bulldogs, Nicki Quigley from the Hawthorn Hawks, Todd Brown from the Geelong Cats and Tom May with the Adelaide Crows. They discussed the requirements of AFL and how this impacts the athletes along with what the common injuries seen. There was a superb conversation about the shoes worn as well as the issues that can bring. There was also a chat of the preseason assessment procedure that is commonly implemented in the 44-man teams. The episode was streamed live on Facebook, however is also available today on YouTube.

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