Story by Solana Singer
Staff Writer
Photo by Zoe Chen
Staff Photographer
SPHS teacher Andre Zumaeta’s advanced sports medicine class hosted an athlete recovery workshop on Tuesday, Jan. 30 and Wednesday, Jan. 31. Each day, the class hosted two sessions — one from 8 to 8:30 a.m. and another from 8:40 to 9:10 a.m..
The event intended to help student athletes recover and staff members refresh from the demands of daily life on campus. In addition, Zumaeta wants to showcase the skills his students learn in class.
“The purpose of this event is to…get my advanced students used to providing patient care,” Zumaeta said. “The other side of this is to help our athletes, and in this case also some of our staff…recover and feel better.”
The class started training for the event in the fall of 2023 by practicing with Physical Education students. In total, the event attracted 46 staff and student athlete participants.
Students set up the gym before the event with an array of tables for athletes and staff to lie on. Throughout the session, Zumaeta’s students exhibited their knowledge by stretching muscles such as the hamstrings, hip flexors, piriformis, quadriceps, and low back. Before and after the stretches, the students used therapeutic massage guns on their patients.
“[The therapeutic massage guns] relax the muscles first,” senior Zachary Quirk, a member of the advanced sports medicine class, said. “Usually if you have…a tense patient, when they’re trying to stretch, it makes it a little harder.”
This is the first year in which Zumaeta’s sports med class has held an event like this, and the first time that he has taught his Sports Medicine curriculum at the advanced level.
“I’m hoping for [the student and staff body of SPHS] to see that this [event] is an outlet for athletes, for them to come and get some recovery,” Zumaeta said.
