Lindsay Gately is an assistant athletic trainer for the Washington Commanders, the first full-time female member of the training staff in franchise history. She sat down with Special Olympics Virginia to talk about getting and staying healthy and injury-free.
Special Olympics Virginia: What is an athletic trainer’s job?
Lindsay Gately: We do a lot of things. We very much deal with injuries in athletes. We’ll start with when they first get injured on the field: We are the people who see them first and make sure nothing really, really bad is going on that they need to go to the hospital. So let’s say we determine that they’re good, they don’t need to go to the hospital. We’re going to see how bad is the injury – is there anything we can do for it in the moment – then decide whether or not they can keep going in the game. And then we try to see what we can do to make them feel better.
So let’s say the game’s over, it’s the next day. Are they really injured? Are they going to be out for a long time? Then we’re going to give them the exercises and the treatment they need to get back to full health. That’s kind of a synopsis of what we do.
SOVA: How did you become an athletic trainer?
Gately: When I was younger, I actually learned a little bit about it with my sister being a physical therapist. I played soccer and lacrosse growing up, so I wanted something that combined the two.
SOVA: How does stretching and drinking enough water help?
Gately: Both those things are really important. We want to stay super-mobile. If you can move in more ways, then your body’s going to be less likely to get stuck and then be injured. If you drink enough water, your muscles are going to stay really hydrated.
SOVA: What is the best way to recover from injury quickly?
Gately: I think being honest with your athletic trainer and being honest with yourself, and realizing when something hurts too much you need to rest and do the appropriate thing, like get treatment and exercise to get back faster.
SOVA: What happens if you try to come back too soon?
Gately: You can definitely put yourself at risk for injuring the same thing again, or even injuring a different part of your body. That happens sometimes when somebody will come back really fast from an ankle sprain, but then because they’re not stable, they may get injured the next time they go out.
SOVA: What happens when you get older? Do you get injured more easily?
Gately: Yeah. When you get older, muscles aren’t working the same as they used to, bones aren’t in the same health as they used to be. You can get a little more injured when you’re older.
SOVA: Do men or women get injured more in different sports?
Gately: Great question. I think in football, with primarily men playing, it’s such a violent sport that the injury rates tend to be pretty high. But if you compare men’s and women’s soccer, for example, we tend to see a lot of ACL injuries in women’s soccer.