We’ve all heard of the professional athlete who tears an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), or dislocates a shoulder and the rehabilitation that awaits them. But these are indeed professionals, commodities in a way, which have millions of dollars invested in their future health.

These athletes have at their disposal the very best trainers and facilities that money can buy to get them back on the field and performing at the highest level. But what happens when a high school athlete sustains an injury? What can they do, where can they turn to get the physical training to not only get back on the field, but to stay there?

Albert Lea junior Lauren Klick is one of those athletes trying to recover from an injury with the hope and expectation of being able to once again compete with the crme of the crop in the Big Nine Conference.

Klick, who was an All-Conference selection in hockey and softball as a sophomore, sustained a stretched capsule and acromioclavicular joint separation in her left shoulder during the hockey season.

“I got hit in the middle of the ice, fell and couldn’t get up very quick,” Klick said. “I didn’t know what I had done but I knew something was wrong.”

Not only did Klick finish the hockey season, she played through the softball season as well, playing left field for the Tigers before going under the knife in a procedure called thermal stretching.

“It didn’t really bother me at the plate,” said Klick. “But in the outfield, when I would reach for a ball, then I could really feel it in my shoulder.”

Klick has six weeks of physical therapy ahead of her and will be out of action for close to six months, but that doesn’t mean she is sitting idly by, waiting for her shoulder to heal. That’s because Klick and other athletes in the area are finding out that they too can have access to a top notch trainer at Albert Lea’s Family Y.

The certified trainer Klick counts on is Bill Villarreal, who is on staff at the Y. While Villarreal says they are sports specific for athletes, they will train anyone who wants to be fit. Villarreal stresses strength conditioning, flexibility, endurance and plyometrics.

For all those out there wondering what plyometrics is, it is a type of exercise training to produce fast, power movements, and improve the functions of the nervous system, generally for the purposes of improving performances in a specific sport. It uses the strength and elasticity of muscle and surrounding tissue to jump higher, run faster, throw farther or hit harder.

“We get some kids like Lauren who is coming in after an injury,” Villarreal said. “But in those cases we are just an extension of their physical therapy until they are released from the doctor. It all depends on the injury.

“It’s different today than it was 20 years ago, kids are bigger, quicker, and stronger, so you have to be able to prevent some of those injuries if you want to compete in the Big Nine, for example.”

Doctors are now saying that they are seeing injuries from overuse in teenagers that they used to only see in older athletes, but Villarreal says that it’s not how much you do, but how you are doing it.

“What sport are you playing, how much rest are you getting, and nutrition are a very big part of it also,” said Villarreal. “There are just a lot more variables for today’s athletes than there were years ago. But as far as Lauren goes, she’s a winner, plain and simple; she will be back and be just as good as before, if not better.”

But what goes through an athlete’s mind after all the physical therapy is over and it’s time to get back on the field, or ice and hit or be hit?

“I think it will definitely be on my mind,” Klick said. “At least until I take that first hit, I just don’t want to hurt it again.

“But I feel like working with Bill is going to help me not get injured again and in the long run, make me a better athlete.”