Through the East Gym, past the locker rooms you’ll find a small room often times overly crowded. The FHC Training room on any given day will have five to twenty-five injured athletes in need of heat, tape, stretches, or ice. In America, high school athletes are estimated to be responsible for 2 million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits, and 30,000 hospitalizations every year. Many people will claim that getting hurt is just a part of playing sports. They’re wrong. There are many steps that can be taken towards preventing an injury and proper recovery after an injury to keep Ranger athletes on the court, field, and turf for the entirety of their seasons.

I sat down with Head Athletic Trainer and Strength and Conditioning Specialist JaNae Stewart to find out why FHC students get injured so often and what we as athletes can do to prevent it. She gave me a list of things that have been scientifically proven to prevent or reduce injuries. From misconceptions to hard facts, JaNae hopes to make all Ranger athletes aware of what they can do to stay healthy.

“We’re here to kind of act as a liaison between [the athletes] and the medical professionals within the area,” said JaNae, as she hopes to combine her own extensive knowledge and education with students’ primary physicians’ evaluations.

The athletes of FHC are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be seen by a medical professional on any given day in the training room, without having to go to the doctor’s office. However, that is not all the trainers are here for.

“A lot of students don’t understand that we’re not just here to evaluate injuries; we’re here to take care of and prevent them as well,” JaNae said when discussing the responsibilities she holds at FHC.

Each week, in this sports blog – “Inside the Training Room” – I will be releasing a method of injury prevention, a factor of what causes injuries, or how to recover when an injury presents itself straight from Inside the Training Room.