-Edmund Aguilera
After tearing my calf muscle playing indoor soccer, I could have sworn I was done for the season. Never experiencing this before, I was definitely down in the dumps, especially being that it was at the end of Spring and I had a whole Summer to look forward to. Included in this, was a trip to South Africa in five weeks, of which I spend playing soccer and coaching kids. Needless to say, I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
I went to Aspen Club Sports Medicine to see what my chances were to get back on the field as soon as possible. It was amazing how the team got together to help. There was talk about Dry Needling performed by Dr. Peter Scher and Kinesio Taping by Physical Therapist Amber Mathews. I immediately became interested and met with both to see if this might help. They were both very optimistic, even after I told them that I expected to be running in five weeks. We immediately started on sessions of Dry Needling followed by Kinesio Taping. Within 24 hours I could feel the difference. I made sure to do all my stretches and exercises recommended. We met twice the first week and dropped it down to once a week thereafter. My progress was definitely noticeable. Within three weeks I was jogging lightly, four weeks…picked up the pace and five weeks was sprinting lightly; I decided to take it easy the fifth week to be sure not to re-injure myself. By the sixth week I was in South Africa and played my first game three days after landing. Put it this way…everyone was calling me Messi. For those of you who plays, you know what type of compliment that is (I was wearing Barcelona shorts, so that helped). I have played in over 12 games since and lifting weights ever since.
