If you are lucky in your job then there can be times in your life when momentous vocational events happen. August 2017 provided another such time for me when out of the entire world I was fortunately selected to be one of 6 Chiropractors to work at the IAAF World Athletic Championships in London. To be one of the final few that make it to these types of events takes a mixture of post-graduate education, experience and the type personality that hopefully gets on with people. I have lots of extra training and experience behind me but if you listen to my wife it’s the personality that still needs some work…well that’s her opinion!
The World Championships also gave me a chance to stay with one of my oldest and best friends, Stefan Prince, for the week. Stef and I went travelling together around Southern Europe when we were 18 and I had forgotten his weird ability to be able to get up, shower, dress and leave the house with his teeth clean within 10 minutes…it’s truly incredible to witness and made me revaluate my whole wake up routine!
The day before I started I picked up my ‘Runners’ kit which was high quality Asics gear, despite the tops that were a very bright pink. After getting used to the shirts we were required to wear, I have now come to quite like them and have even worn them in the clinic at work since!
Day one started at 8am and I was thankful to see that everybody just goes straight to the canteen for a bacon roll and a coffee! The hot food supplied for breakfast and lunch was actually very good and varied each day which really helped as I got further through the week. So after a quick bit of fuel we made it back to the poly clinic for a bit of orientation. The poly clinic was well stocked with open plan treatment beds, taping, an ice bath and leg recovery room (the latest in tech – air pump massage leg sleeves), private consultation room and a diagnostic ultrasound room for soft tissue injury scanning. We had physiotherapy, sports massage, chiropractic and osteopathy available for the physical therapies team. There was also a full pharmacy, GP, ultrasonography, sports medicine and nursing facility. The clinic was about 6 inches from the warm up track and when you weren’t working it was impossible not to see all the stars of the track and field. It was quite an experience just to watch them train, let alone treat them.
Soon enough the first athlete came through the doors. Now I cannot say who they were or where they were from but I can say that we were very unlikely to treat the huge and highly funded countries like the USA, GB and Jamaica teams etc as they brought a lot of staff with them but we did still treat some real stars from the athletic world. Luckily for me the first athlete came in asking for a chiropractor. It was a nice simple case of a female 100m runner asking for a check over after a long flight and a bit of a manipulation. After we completed her history and examination I noticed that she had significantly reduced power through her left hip flexion and right hip extension which is quite a common pattern. The coach who was observing was quite concerned and I could see that he didn’t want to upset the confidence of his athlete at this late stage. I explained it was ok and that we could easily fix it. Sure enough after a quick chiropractic treatment we had her at full power all over and she and the coach were delighted. They were so happy that they proceeded to send every athlete from their country in one after the other and before too long the word spread and I was flat out with work from enthusiastic athletes from all corners of the world. Now the advantage of working at a poly clinic such as this is that I could work (like we do at Cleve Chiropractic and Next Step) as a team, so once I had done my work I could refer to a top physiotherapist for some physio work and taping and then onto the sports therapist for excellent massage treatments. I must say that as health professional, the working environment was as good as it gets and wonderfully enjoyable. As for the athlete, it was the perfect experience that they expected at such a big event. After the initial rush of the first few days and as more and more events passed the poly clinic became less frantic and we settled into a steady flow. If I wasn’t busy I would help putting ice in the ice baths or helping people into the recovery pumps.
As the week went on I made lots of friends from the physical therapists to the runners and maybe even a few of the athletes but nonetheless eventually my time had to end and I had to pass the baton of chiropractic onto another colleague to cover the 7am-3pm shift. I was sad to go but to be honest when I finished I was tired all the way to my bones. You don’t realise how much effort and mental energy it takes to do such events. It was amazing and one of the best if not the best work week of my life but I was looking forward to getting home and seeing my family. Now it is back to reality with a jam-packed clinic life, Bristol Rovers matches, the world’s strongest disabled man competition, writing this blog, organising a ski trip for the whole of the chiropractic profession in the UK, being secretary of the Royal College of Chiropractors Sports Faculty, British Chiropractic Association meetings and of course playing ‘which child can wake Daddy first’ each day…but you know what? I wouldn’t change it for the world…
