Spartans Hall of Fame head athletic trainer on keeping Spartan student-athletes healthy

<p>“As athletic trainers, we arrive here in the morning before the athletes usually go to work out, go to lift weights, go to other workouts, practices, or whatever,” Nogle tells Beekman. “We help get them ready for that. We might stretch somebody. We might tape somebody, put a splint or brace on, whatever they need before they go work out to do their lifting, their conditioning or practice. There are administrative tasks, too, like giving an injury report to a coach. </p><p>“Then treatments start and continue throughout the whole morning. You're doing rehabilitation all morning long for all the injuries that have happened. You may use modalities like the ultrasound, electrical STEM machines, heat, or cold, and then we do hands-on rehab. Then we get to the afternoon and do a lot of taping for football because all their ankles will be taped. Then the practice comes, and so we go out to practice and we cover the practice and we watch them work out and watch the injured people to see how they're performing. Are they getting better or worse? What's happening there? Then we evaluate and take care of any new injuries that happened at practice. It's a long day.”</p><p>Nogle tells Beekman she talks a lot about hydration, sleep, and nutrition with athletes because that's the best way to recover, to be honest, she says. She likes athletes to get eight or nine hours of sleep, too.</p><p>“It doesn't happen very often, but we do like them to get eight or nine hours of sleep. That's what they need at that age and for their body to recover faster and better. We talk about hydration because if you're hydrated, you recover faster and then nutrition can help you with recovery. Our dieticians help the athletes know what to take and when to take it, and that helps them recover also. Between compression units, rolling out, ice tubs, and lifestyle, I'll call it, that helps the athletes recover faster.”</p><p>“With all of the fancy technology and tools and other things available to us, it sort of comes down to kind of what you