Development and Recovery Week in the Books for Football

HANOVER, N.H. — The Dartmouth football team wrapped up its development and recovery week, which didn't feature any practices with the pigskin, but rather an opportunity to get better in other ways. Improvement from this week isn't focused on short term, but rather long term with an eye towards the fall.

Time is a key difference of the spring season compared to the fall.

"We only have 12 practices in the spring, so it's a lot more time to be intentional with our student-athletes in terms of how we manage their recovery, their injury prevention and their overall maintenance in terms of athletic performance," said head athletic trainer Ben Schuler.

Practices and team events throughout the spring are also spread out, with practices coming on Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays.

"Some of the injury prevention techniques we use in the spring are breaking up practices to have more recovery time every other day and decreasing player load," said athletic trainer Tory Engel.

With two full weeks of spring practice down and two to go, this development and recovery week is a good opportunity to recover and reevaluate where they stand.

"Reevaluate whether or not they like where they're currently at and the things they need to work on," said Spencer Brown, Holekamp Family Director of Strength and Conditioning. "[This week provides a] little bit more time to maybe watch a little bit more film, spend time with each other and assess what we need to do for the last two weeks of the spring."

Everything in the spring is done with an eye towards the fall, and that's true for both strength and conditioning and sports medicine.

"We have this really great opportunity to set our student-athletes up for success by really teaching them how to take care of themselves," said Schuler. "As our student-athletes adjust, particularly our first-years, to college and collegiate athletics, there's a huge learning curve in terms of the time it takes to prepare yourself for an activity, to adequately warm down and to make sure you're doing the routine preventative maintenance.

"Those are all things we're trying to really celebrate and teach throughout the course of the spring term."

Growth in the present is critical to success in the future.

"I want to make sure that everybody continues to grow as a team," said Brown. "It's really driving home who we are as a team and making sure we have all those pieces in place before summer."

Practice picks up again for the next two weeks leading into the spring game on Saturday, May 4.

Gallery: (4-20-2024) Football: Development and Recovery Week

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