Jessica Anderson of Westfield, N.J., was the 2008 recipient of the NATA's Jack Cramer Scholarship, established by Cramer Products, Inc. to honor the memory of Jack Cramer. The scholarship is awarded to a high school senior planning to pursue a career in athletic training and interested in working in a high school setting.

We recently caught up with Jessica to find out how things are going for her.
"I'm starting the last semester of my senior year at Ithaca College, and looking at grad programs. I hope to be a graduate assistant somewhere." She also plans to take the certification exam some time this spring.

During all four years of high school, Jessica volunteered as a student athletic trainer, working an amazing 4,000 hours. She says, "My high school program was a great experience and I learned so much about first aid. I had an understanding of what to expect in college and that has made my time at Ithaca even more enjoyable. It's exciting to do now what I watched someone else do for so many years!"

Ithaca has been a perfect fit for Jessica. "It's a great program and I love everything about it, including the town and the school itself," she says. "I really like the hands-on experience the program provides, and I've had wonderful instructors. The educational experiences have been very rewarding and I've had an opportunity to work with different teams." Jessica has also been involved in the Eastern Athletic Trainers' Association Student Delegation, serving as an officer this year.

We asked Jessica if she has had a chance to return to a high school setting while attending Ithaca. "Last year," she says, "I had a clinical assignment at Ithaca High School helping with girl's soccer and football.  There were many similarities to my high school athletic training experience, but from a much different perspective." She adds that she has enjoyed the experience of every clinical assignment, including a rotation at Cornell University. "I'm still interested in working in a high school, but now I've been exposed to other settings as well. Every opportunity has pros and cons, and time will tell what suits me best."

Jessica has remained in close contact with her athletic training mentor from high school, Sandy Mamary, ATC. "Sandy is very supportive and gets excited about my college experiences and accomplishments," Jessica says. "She has watched me from the very beginning when I first learned about athletic training...now I'm a senior and about to graduate!"

Last spring, the NATA Research and Education Foundation named Jessica as the recipient of a 2011 NATA Foundation Scholarship. She was recognized during the Pinky Newell Scholarship and Leadership Breakfast at the NATA's 62nd Annual Meeting and Clinical Symposia in New Orleans this past June.  

Congrats and best wishes for continued success from all of us at Cramer, Jessica!  We are very proud of you! 

Athletes know they should just do their thing on the 18th hole, or during the penalty shootout, or when they're taking a 3-point shot in the last moments of the game. But when that shot could mean winning or losing, it's easy to choke. An article published recently in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, looks at why paying too much attention to what you're doing can ruin performance.

"We think when you're under pressure, that your attention goes inward naturally. Suddenly it means so much, you want to make sure everything's working properly," says Dr. Robert Gray, of the United Kingdom's University of Birmingham School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, author of the article. And that is exactly when things go wrong. Something about paying attention to what you're doing makes it not work right.
 
Of course, athletes know that they should just relax and do their usual thing, but it's not very helpful to tell someone to just relax. The goal for psychological scientists, Gray says, is to figure out what actually happens when someone starts paying too much attention to their body. "Focusing on what you're doing makes you mess up, but why? How do your movements change? How can we focus on correcting those issues instead of telling you to stop trying so hard?"

Gray has found that baseball players that are under pressure have fewer hits because their swing varies more under pressure than at normal times. Other researchers have found that climbers move less fluidly when they're higher up on a wall than when they're near the ground, which suggests that their joints move less freely when they're more anxious.

The research shows that there are particular things that go wrong when someone is under pressure-changing the angle of the club head when putting or throwing with more force. If those things can be identified, a coach could work on the particular problems.

One way to do it might be with analogies, Gray says. For example, a golfer who grips the club too tight when she's nervous might benefit from an instruction like "imagine you have an open tube of toothpaste between your hands and the contents must not be pushed out." This would both address the problem and get her attention away from how well she's doing.

For more information about this study, contact Gray at r.gray.2@bham.ac.uk.
 

Researchers have found the first evidence that some athletes who participate in extreme endurance exercise such as marathons, triathlons, alpine cycling or ultra triathlons may incur damage to the right ventricles of their hearts.

The research, published online last month in the European Heart Journal found that although the damage was reversed within a week of a competitive event in 40 elite athletes studied, five showed evidence of more permanent damage, with magnetic resonance imaging showing scarring of the heart muscle (fibrosis). These five had been competing in endurance sports longer than the other 35 athletes in the study.

Dr. André La Gerche, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at St. Vincent's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Australia, now based at the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium, said, "It is most important that our findings are not over-extrapolated to infer that endurance exercise is unhealthy. Our data do not support this premise."

However, he said the findings suggest that some athletes might have been born with a susceptibility to develop damage as a result of long-term endurance exercise.

La Gerche explained, "Virtually all of the changes in the athletes' hearts had resolved one week after taking part in a competitive event. In most athletes, a combination of sensible training and adequate recovery should cause an improvement in heart muscle function; that is, the heart rebuilds in a manner such that it is more capable of sustaining a similar exercise stimulus in the future. This positive training response can be over months rather than weeks. The question from our research is whether there are some athletes in whom extreme exercise may cause injury from which the heart does not recover completely. If this occurs, affected athletes may be at risk of reduced performance - a cardiac 'over-training' syndrome - or it may cause arrhythmias. If this occurs, it is likely to affect only a minority of athletes, particularly those for whom more intense training fails to result in further improvements in their performance."

Results showed that immediately after the race the athletes' hearts had changed shape, with the volume increasing, while the function of the ventricle decreased. Levels of the chemical B-type natriuretic peptide, secreted by the ventricles in response to excessive stretching of heart muscle cells, increased. Right ventricle function recovered in most athletes after one week, but in the five who had been training the longest, MRI detected signs of scarring. The researchers also found that the post-race changes to the function of the right ventricle increased with the duration of the race. In contrast, the left ventricle showed no changes.

La Gerche said, "Our study identifies the right ventricle as being most susceptible to exercise-induced injury. Large, prospective, multi-center trials are required to elucidate whether extreme exercise may promote arrhythmias in some athletes. To draw an analogy, some tennis players develop tennis elbow. This does not mean that tennis is bad for you; rather it identifies an area of susceptibility on which to focus treatment and preventative measures."

The RigidLite Slimpak is the newest addition to Cramer's RigidLite line of lightweight modular kits and pods, engineered for maximum organization and durability in the field.

The Slimpak is named for its profile--relatively sleek in contrast to many kits on the market today. Featuring ergonomic padding and wide comfort straps, it rides high on the back and up through the shoulders, preventing strain from overload. The air channel padding ensures you'll stay cool and comfortable even when carrying the kit in high temperatures.

The Slimpak, like all products in the RigidLite line, is made from lightweight thermoform-an abrasion-resistant, dense, foam. The front section, designed for athletic training supplies, has a rigid skeletal structure with three removable modules that can be organized with quick-access items.  To customize the kit even further, remove the two lower modules and replace with the large RigidLite Pod!

The rear section of the Slimpak can hold more athletic training supplies, but can also be used as a mobile office, perfect for a laptop and paperwork. It also features storage areas for chargers or power cords.  The laptop pouch, by the way, also is large enough to hold the Cramer medical organizer.

We asked the athletic training department at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to test the Slimpak this past fall, and we recently checked in to see how they liked it. Jeremy Cleven, ATC, head athletic trainer, said, "The Slimpak looks small, but carries a lot of stuff. It's very durable and held up well-it's got a tough outer shell. That RigidLite material really takes a beating!" Jeremy added that the Slimpak is a good size for an athletic trainer traveling with a small team, such as volleyball. "It would be really easy to take on the bus," he said."

Dusty Lang, ATC, said, "I used the Slimpak all fall during the soccer program. It was interesting, first of all, and it was the first time I had seen something like that. I like the concept! The exterior is rugged and the construction is excellent and really good, ergonomically. For soccer, it was hard to fit everything in. It would be a great kit for baseball, softball, or cross country, because I carry fewer supplies for treating those athletes."
 
Dusty continued, "The Slimpak kit was very comfortable to wear, and I liked the fact that it didn't hit my knees while I walked! The exterior is durable and good for outdoor sports. The top flap fit snuggly and held everything in, and it all worked very well and kept things organized."
 
Jeremy said, "I've used the Game Day Kit and the Pods, and like the idea of the pod system. It's different, and I like the intuitive feel. These are great products that will help athletic trainers. Cramer does a nice job of listening to what athletic trainers need. They are responding to us and meeting our needs in a new way that is very beneficial."