SMU Tennis - Firefly Utilization
One of the biggest challenges of being an athletic trainer with tennis is getting all our athletes through an entire season while performing at their best. Between multiple practice sessions per day along with fitness, classes, and trying to get enough sleep, our athletes sometimes struggle with getting enough recovery time each day. Firefly has absolutely changed the game for us at SMU.
WAYS WE USE FIREFLY
TRAVEL – At the beginning of each semester, I make sure that all of our student athletes have a pair of the Firefly’s to use during our travel trips. For flights and bus trips, I have our athletes wear the Firefly device during the duration of the travel. Most of the time, we practice as soon as we get to our destination, so the Firefly allows us to stay loose beforehand. Travel can be a huge stressor and a lot of times we leave early in the morning. Firefly has allowed our athletes to recover properly and feel fresher even while traveling.
WARM UP – Before matches and practices, some of our athletes like to use the firefly to warm up their legs/arms. When we’re on the road, we aren’t able to travel many of our modalities, so the Firefly is a great way to warm up before even stepping onto the court when treatment is limited. They will usually use the Firefly for about 30 minutes prior to practice/competition.
ARM SETTING – I have received great feedback from our athletes when they use Firefly on their arms. I place the Firefly over the bicep (picture shown below) to increase blood flow to the upper extremity. Because our athletes utilize their shoulder/forearm/wrist so often, I needed a way to recover the upper extremity as well. Some of my athletes even have 2 sets of Firefly’s so they can do both arms and legs at the same time! I use the Firefly on the arm the same way I would for the leg. As long as the nerve is stimulated, it is doing its job. Our athletes will use this setting anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
RECOVERY – We initially purchased the Firefly devices for our conference tournament last year. The conference tournament consists of consecutive days in a row of matches, and I knew we needed something to help us recover each night if we were going to perform our best the next day. Both our men’s and women’s teams won the conference tournament and I think a huge part of that success was due to proper recovery!
HOW WE USE IT:
The Firefly staff has been amazing and we appreciate them so much!
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Hannah Letow, MAT, LAT, ATC. Assistant Athletic Trainer M/W Tennis
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All Firefly Recovery clinical research was conducted with the Firefly
device at the fibular head and stimulating the peroneal nerve. Firefly
Recovery has not conducted research using the Firefly device on the arm.