Hi everyone! My name is Michal Ozga and I'm a Scientist at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. I work in our Clinical Research Headquarters which is located in the R&D facility in Valhalla, NY. In our lab we continue to serve the athlete and support business needs by studying the effects of exercise, hydration, and nutrition on the human body using the latest scientific technology and equipment in the physiology, biochemistry, exercise performance, and energy metabolism laboratories. Below are 5 tips to help you and your athletes: 1. Hydrate Before You're Thirsty Make hydration a daily habit, not just something you think about during training. Thirst is an important signal but waiting until you’re thirsty may mean fluid losses have already begun. Consistent hydration throughout the day can help you arrive at practice, training, and competition better prepared. 2. Replace More Than Water Sweat doesn't just contain water. It also contains electrolytes, especially sodium, which play an important role in hydration and fluid balance. During longer workouts, intense exercise, or periods of high sweat loss, beverages containing electrolytes can help support rehydration. 3. Start Hydrated, Stay Hydrated Hydration begins long before exercise starts. Beginning training in a hydrated state can help support performance and make it easier to manage fluid losses throughout activity. Focus on drinking fluids consistently throughout the day rather than trying to catch up during practice or competition. 4. Adjust for Heat and Humidity Environmental conditions can have a major impact on hydration needs. Hot weather can increase sweat losses, while humidity can make it harder for the body to cool itself. When training or competing in challenging conditions, pay closer attention to your hydration habits and adjust your fluid intake accordingly. 5. Make It Personal There is no one-size-fits-all hydration plan. Fluid needs vary based on factors such as exercise intensity, duration, environment, and individual sweat losses. Testing hydration strategies during training can help you develop a plan that works best for your needs and prepares you for competition. Here is a resource that will help your athletes gain a better understanding of sodium’s role in the process of electrolyte replacement, how fluid loss impacts performance, and what they can do to help their body maintain fluid balance: Understanding Electrolytes and Hydration - Gatorade Performance Partner Questions? Drop them below!

Thanks for the conversation Ashley! In basketball, I think this is where our data tracking and injury monitoring can really help guide the progression. We are not just looking at whether an athlete is “healthy” or “injured”; we are looking at how they are tolerating the cumulative demands of basketball. We can monitor practice minutes, conditioning volume, strength-training loads, GPS data when available, and individual injury or treatment trends. If a player is coming back from an injury, we can compare their current workload to their previous baseline and gradually increase exposure rather than simply clearing them and allowing them to go right back into a full practice. We also look at what the athlete is actually being exposed to within practice—full-court transition, repeated sprinting, defensive slides, jumping and landing, change of direction, and overall practice minutes. An athlete may tolerate a controlled individual workout but still not be ready for the repeated high-intensity demands of a full basketball practice. One advantage basketball has, particularly at the collegiate level, is that we have a little more time to build toward the competitive season. We have several weeks between the start of school and the beginning of the season to progressively increase basketball-specific demands. That gives us an opportunity to identify athletes who may not be at the same level they were before the summer break and gradually build their capacity rather than forcing them immediately into full competition demands. That is different from some sports where preseason begins almost immediately after athletes return to campus and the competitive season follows shortly after. Those sports may have a much smaller window to identify deficiencies and safely progress workload. In basketball, if we use that additional time appropriately, we can move from individual work, to controlled team activities, to higher-intensity practices, and eventually to full competitive demands in a much more intentional manner. This is also where “doing less” can actually allow us to do more. If our injury monitoring or workload data shows an increase in soreness, treatment needs, or overall stress, we may reduce practice volume or modify certain drills rather than taking the athlete completely out. That allows us to maintain fitness and skill exposure while controlling the specific stressor that may be exceeding their current capacity. Ultimately, I think the goal is to use the time we have in basketball to our advantage. Rather than waiting until an athlete is struggling once the season begins, we can use the preseason window to identify trends, establish individual baselines, progressively increase workloads, and make adjustments along the way. The more information we can gather during that period, the better position we are in to have our athletes physically prepared when the games actually count.

My biggest questions are: How can strength and conditioning, athletic training, and coaching staffs better coordinate off-season workload progression to ensure athletes build capacity and performance while minimizing injury risk? When basketball players train outside of the team facility during the offseason with independent strength coaches, skill trainers, or performance staffs, who ultimately has responsibility for coordinating their total workload, monitoring injury risk, and ensuring that their off-season training aligns with the team’s performance and sports medicine goals?

What you’re describing sounds less like “I need another job” and more like “I want to expand my impact as an Athletic Trainer.” You can absolutely do that without leaving your current position. My biggest piece of advice is don’t assume that “doing more” means taking on another job, more teams, or more hours. If you already love your position, the better question is: "How can I increase my impact, responsibility, and professional fulfillment within the job I already have?" Here’s how I would approach it. 1. Identify what you’re actually missing Before adding anything, figure out what is driving the feeling that you could do more. It could be: You want more clinical challenges You want more leadership You want to teach or mentor You want to feel more recognized You want to have a greater impact on your athletes You want to create something You feel like you're capable of more professionally You simply want to continue growing Those are very different problems and require different solutions. 2. Don't just add more coverage This would be my biggest caution. If you're already covering two high schools and a summer baseball league, adding another team or another league may give you more work without giving you more fulfillment. Instead, look for ownership opportunities . For example: “I'm going to take responsibility for improving our concussion management process.” or “I'm going to develop a better return-to-play system.” or “I'm going to create an injury-prevention program for our athletes.” That's career growth rather than simply workload growth. 3. Pick one problem nobody else owns Look around your organization and ask: “What could be significantly better if someone took ownership of it?” It could be something relatively simple. Maybe nobody is systematically tracking injuries. Maybe coaches don't really understand the Athletic Trainer's role. Maybe emergency preparedness needs work. Maybe rehabilitation is inconsistent. Maybe parents don't understand when an athlete should be evaluated. Maybe there's no formal mentorship for young Athletic Trainers. Pick one. Then become the person associated with solving it. That is how you start becoming a leader without necessarily getting a leadership title. 4. Teach more One of the best ways to feel like you're doing more is to start transferring your knowledge to other people . You have three built-in audiences: Athletes → Coaches → Parents You could do short 10–20 minute educational sessions throughout the year. For example: Concussion recognition Heat illness Hydration Injury prevention ACL prevention Proper recovery When to report an injury Why athletes shouldn't hide injuries What happens during rehabilitation You don't need to turn it into a huge program. One good presentation a month could make a significant difference over a year. 5. Mentor someone This is something I think Athletic Trainers sometimes overlook. If you've been doing this for a while, there is probably someone younger who could benefit tremendously from your experience. You could become the person a young AT calls and says: "I have a difficult situation. What would you do?” That can be incredibly rewarding. You don't necessarily need a formal mentorship program. Just make yourself available to help someone develop professionally. 6. Start measuring your impact This is something I strongly recommend. Athletic Trainers often do a tremendous amount of work that nobody sees. Start keeping track. For example: Annual Athletic Training Impact Athletes covered Evaluations Treatments Rehabilitation sessions Injuries managed Referrals Concussions Emergency situations Return-to-play decisions Coach education Parent education Prevention programs Community events After 12 months, you'll have evidence of what you're actually contributing. And you may discover that you're already doing far more than you realize. 7. Build something you're proud of This is probably the advice I'd emphasize most. Create one thing that didn't exist before you started. Maybe it's a concussion protocol. Maybe it's an injury database. Maybe it's a return-to-sport system. Maybe it's a coach education program. Maybe it's an Athletic Training student mentorship program. Maybe it's a baseball injury-prevention program. At the end of the year, you should be able to look at it and say: “I created that, and it made our sports medicine program better.” That's a very different feeling from simply working more hours. 8. Don't overlook your summer baseball league That could actually be an opportunity for professional development. Because baseball has a very different injury profile, you could develop expertise around: Throwing injuries Pitch-count/load management UCL injuries Shoulder health Arm-care programs Hamstring injuries Sliding injuries Heat management Return-to-throwing protocols You could eventually develop a baseball sports medicine program that becomes part of your professional identity. 9. Give yourself a professional challenge every year I'd create a simple rule: Every year, accomplish one thing that makes you a better Athletic Trainer. For example: 2026: Develop an injury-tracking system 2027: Present at a conference 2028: Mentor an AT student 2029: Publish an article/case report 2030: Develop a comprehensive injury-prevention program You don't have to completely reinvent your career. You just need to keep moving it forward. Most importantly I wouldn't interpret this feeling as “I need to find another job.” I'd interpret it as: “I'm comfortable enough in my current position that I'm ready to challenge myself again.” That's actually a pretty good place to be. You love your job. That's valuable. Don't sacrifice that simply because you feel like you're capable of more. Instead, use the position you already have as a platform to become more of a clinician, educator, mentor, program developer, and leader. If you do that well, eventually you may find that your current position has become much bigger than the job description you were originally hired to perform.

Hello everyone, My name is Richard Campbell, MS, ATC, and I’m an Assistant Director of Athletic Training with Rutgers Athletics, where I work directly with collegiate student-athletes in the areas of sports medicine, injury management, rehabilitation, and return-to-play decision-making. Over the course of my career, I’ve developed extensive experience working in collegiate athletics, particularly at the Big Ten level, with a focus on helping athletes safely return to competition while balancing the demands of training, academics, travel, and performance. Some of the areas I’m particularly passionate about include: Injury evaluation and management Rehabilitation and return-to-play progression Objective testing and performance-based rehabilitation Communication between athletic training, sports medicine, strength & conditioning, and performance staff Supporting the overall health and well-being of student-athletes Developing practical, evidence-informed approaches to sports medicine One of the biggest challenges I regularly see is finding the right balance between protecting an athlete's health and allowing them to perform at their highest level. Decisions aren't always as simple as whether an athlete is "injured" or "healthy." They often involve managing symptoms, workload, rehabilitation progress, sport-specific demands, medical recommendations, and the athlete's individual goals. I also believe that communication and education are critical components of sports medicine. The best outcomes happen when athletic trainers, physicians, physical therapists, strength & conditioning coaches, coaches, athletes, and administrators are working toward the same goal. I’m looking forward to being part of this community and sharing experiences, practical strategies, and lessons learned from working in collegiate sports medicine. If you have questions about athletic training, injury management, rehabilitation, return-to-play, collegiate athletics, or the challenges facing today's student-athletes, feel free to ask. I’d be happy to contribute to the conversation!

Hey Ralph! I found myself fixating on one metric—or even get caught up in which metric I should be looking at. On the force plate, I used to rely heavily on Jump Height. While everyone loves to hear how high an athlete is jumping, I found that Jump Height alone wasn’t necessarily the best metric for assessing performance readiness. It was more of a byproduct of what was happening. I found mRSI to be more useful for assessing daily readiness because it considers both how quickly an athlete gets off the ground and how high they jump. When I started using it consistently, I found it provided much more useful information for making day-to-day adjustments to training. I’ve also changed how I interpret subjective wellness data. I used to see an athlete report being extremely sore after practice or training and immediately question whether I needed to make significant adjustments. While I still think wellness questionnaires are valuable for identifying trends and starting conversations, I’ve learned not to let one subjective data point drive the entire decision. When I compared those responses with objective data from force plates and GPS tracking, I often found that performance was still tracking well. For me, the biggest lesson has been to look at the whole picture rather than letting one metric dictate the decision . Use the data to identify trends, talk to the athletes, understand the context, and then use your coaching judgment to make the adjustment—or decide that no adjustment is necessary. That balance between objective data, subjective feedback, and coach-athlete communication is something I value much more now.

I agree with @jpedulla that individualizing player warm-ups in a team setting can be a bit tricky. I think one way to get more specific is to organize the warm-up into layers: general team preparation → position-specific preparation → individual needs. For example, with softball, you could start with a general team warm-up that prepares everyone for practice, then have position players and pitchers transition into movements specific to the demands of their position. This allows you to address some of the positional and tactical demands without making the entire team warm-up overly complicated. I’ve also individualized mobility and additional work within the weight room. There are a lot of variables to consider, but you can group athletes based on common needs—hip, ankle, shoulder, etc.—and then incorporate additional mobility, activation, or strengthening based on those limitations and prior injury history. I’ve found that lifting either before or after practice can work. The key is being intentional with how you lay out each training component and understanding what you are trying to accomplish that day. Regardless of when the lift occurs, there are opportunities to address individual needs without taking away from the team’s preparation. At the end of the day, the goal is to have the team warm, prepared, and ready to perform, and you’re typically working within a tight time constraint. I think both a position-specific approach and individualized work can help you accomplish that while keeping the process efficient. Hope this helps, and I’d be happy to connect more!

Hi Matt, I think having access to some type of jump tracking technology can be incredibly helpful. I realize that's not available at every institution, but when it is, it provides valuable insight into jump counts and overall workload for each practice. From there, you can begin to identify what a low-, moderate-, and high-volume day looks like for your team. That information can then be used to better prepare athletes during the offseason and to structure training throughout the preseason and in-season. In the offseason, I typically incorporated a progression of low-, moderate-, and high-intensity plyometrics within the same session, usually before lifting or agility work. For example, we might start with jump rope (low intensity, higher volume) to prepare the tissues, progress to hurdle landings in multiple planes of motion using both bilateral and unilateral variations (moderate intensity, moderate volume), and finish with more explosive movements such as box jumps, broad jumps, or approach jumps (high intensity, lower volume). The biggest goal was to progressively build the athletes' capacity to tolerate the demands of volleyball before preseason, rather than exposing them to a sudden spike in jumping volume once practices began. Here's a great article that discusses managing plyometric intensity and volume for volleyball athletes: https://simplifaster.com/articles/plyometric-training-womens-volleyball/ I'd be happy to discuss this further if it would be helpful. Hope this gives you a few ideas!

Hi Michael, This is a great topic to bring up as the school year begins and teams start ramping up for training and competition. I especially liked your point about keeping the athlete at the center of every decision by focusing on " getting it right vs. being right". That mindset creates trust across the performance team and encourages collaboration instead of letting individual egos drive decisions. I also liked how you separated collaboration and communication because they are related but require different approaches. Being proactive and establishing expectations early is critical, especially once the demands of the season increase and it is easy for meetings and conversations to fall by the wayside. I've been fortunate to collaborate with several high-performance teams throughout my career. As a Sports Performance coach in the collegiate setting—particularly with Olympic sports, you often work with multiple performance teams, each with its own culture and communication style. One thing I have found valuable is establishing recurring meetings throughout the different phases of the seasons. Whether those meetings happen weekly, monthly, or quarterly often depends on the head coach, but having a consistent schedule helps everyone stay aligned while also creating accountability. From a communication standpoint, I completely agree that every team is going to be different. Some groups communicate primarily through in-person conversations, while others rely on group messaging platforms or shared athlete management systems. Being flexible and understanding how each discipline prefers to communicate helps information flow more efficiently and ultimately benefits the athlete. From the Sports Performance Coach perspective, information I find valuable to bring to both initial and ongoing performance meetings includes: Performance Trends Team and individual performance trends Objective metrics such as Force Plate data, GPS workloads, and weight room and non-weight room performance Athlete readiness, wellness, and overall energy levels Programming & Periodization Weekly training schedules and session objectives Competition week modifications Planned transitions between training phases Position-specific or developmental programming differences Return-to-Play Progressions How a RTP athlete's program differs from team training Performance metrics used to determine readiness Practice modifications and daily plans while progressing back to full participation Having a framework like this helps create productive discussions, ensures everyone is working toward the same objectives, and keeps the athlete at the center of the decision-making process. I would also be interested to hear how others structure their performance meetings and what information they prioritize throughout the year!

Katie, This is an awesome topic! Professional baseball deals with quite a few different climates and it sometimes changes in the same week, especially at the Major League level. The minor leagues can also deal with hydration issues as there are leagues and teams in some pretty hot places. Here are some strategies and some additional questions from the professional baseball space: Love the use of the urine color charts in the bathrooms (above the urinals / in stalls). Easy way to gauge hydration. "Hydration Cart" outside of the clubhouse or on the way to the field - Especially in Arizona, we will set up a cart full of water, gatorade, electrolyte mixed drinks, fruit, quick snacks for players to grab on their way outside for a "fool proof" method to get athletes to hydrate. Gamify hydration - we used a USG tester to track pregame urine USG. Players would track this on a sheet and we would have a winner at the end of the week. MHP (Most Hydrated Player)! Pre and post practice / game weights - have a scale and chart for players to track pre and post game weights so they start to become familiar with how much they lose in a game. It can also bring awareness the need to replenish over night as baseball is an every day competition. It is not unusual for us to have to remove players with dehydration / cramping symptoms in games. For those chronic offenders, we will premix hydration cocktails / water bottles with their names on it and put them in the dugout. This ensures they have access to proper hydration and can't use the excuse of "I forgot to make one for myself". These are a few pretty low cost ways we push hydration in the professional baseball space. Another thing we love to do is present information to our players and teams. I am curious what is the most effective presentations you or other members have used to really get the importance of hydration through to your athletes? We haven't figure out the best way to have the message land, but would love to hear some of the things everyone has used?