The Monastery of Jeronimos is the stage of ‘the Third International Congress on Sports Injury Prevention: Symposium on prevention and rehabilitation in football and XXIV National Conference of Sports Traumatology: muscle injury prevention' until this Saturday.

The Congress opening was started by Estrella Nunez, dean of research of the university; Alonso Gómez López, CEO of Sports of the Region of Murcia; Jordi Ardevol, president of the Spanish Society of Sports Traumatology; José Luis Martínez Romero, co-director of the Department of Sport Traumatology UCAM; and Pedro Emilio Alcaraz, director of the Research Center in High Performance Sports.

According to Dr. Martinez Romero, one of the key points of this conference is to show   the progress achieved in sports medicine and make these advancements available for both elite athletes and everyday people. "Success is not only to introducing new products and scientific innovations. The important thing is that all of these can come to society and  the best way is to work with the federations and the media. It is useless if our work does not reach the people", he assured.

Beginning of the activities

Experts from the world's leading professional clubs and national teams  participated in this event with the aim of sharing experiences and knowledge about the latest advances in injury prevention and rehabilitation in football. Oscar Sanjuan, physiotherapist and readaptador of Real Madrid; Gerardo Villa, professor of Physiology at the University of León; or Thomas Fernando Fernandez, deputy director of the Department of Sports Traumatology UCAM-Clinic CEMTRO, have been some of the experts who participated in this opening day.

Gerardo Villa gave  a speech about 'Cryotherapy and muscle injury prevention' which stressed the importance of preventing injury instead of healing injury as the best therapy, and we should  apply cryotherapy because "cooling prevents, injuries and helps athletes recover quickly. This is a great strategy for athletes training to  compete in this Rio 2016 competition"

For his part, Dr. Fernandez Jaen has prepared a presentation on the treatment of muscle injuries. He is highlighting limiting the use of ice or anti-inflammatory drugs, the importance of active recovery of high-frequent affected area. Above all,  he emphasized the respect  one  needs to have for the recovery from injury and should not  intervene if he does not know what is being done.

Besides lectures and roundtables, this year focuses on the importance of  workshops. Chema Escudero (trainer) and Daniel Carmona (readaptador) representing UCAM CF of Second Division B had a practical lecture on the protocol followed to avoid injuries of players.