Hi, I'm Madisyn Pluhowy, the Performance Coordinator and Provincial Coach at Sask Rugby. I am a Kinesiology student completing my fieldwork at Sask Rugby as the Performance Coordinator. 

As a coach and during my time as the Performance Coordinator, I noticed many young athletes weren't consistently using effective injury prevention strategies. To better understand the issue, I surveyed U16 and U18 athletes about their warm-up, cool-down, recovery habits, current injury prevention strategies, and injury history. The results showed that while 75% completed a warm-up, fewer than 5% completed a cool-down, only 20% practiced injury prevention outside of team sessions. The data also showed that 70% of these youth athletes had experienced an injury in the past year that affected their participation.

To address this, I developed and integrated education sessions presented by SMSCS including injury prevention, sports nutrition, mental performance, and concussion education, evidence-based and easy to follow warm-up and cool-down protocol, and an injury prevention poster for athletes, coaches, parents, and staff to promote education around the importance of injury prevention strategies for youth participating in sport.

Pre practice and game warm-up should include evidence from World Rugby's Activate and Tackle Ready programs, emphasizing rugby specific movement pattern preparation, acceleration, mental readiness, and safe contact practices, while cool-down should focuse on mobility, breathing, and recovery post practice and/or game.

By providing practical, evidence-based resources, athletes gain the knowledge to care for their bodies, reduce injury risk, improve performance, and stay in the game longer. Being Smarter, Safer, and Stronger allows us to play better and play longer.