Health care center offers free clinics for Valley athletes

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Harder, faster, and stronger. These days, there's a lot of pressure on high school athletes.

"They're working on performance enhancement skills, such as balance, agility, speed, but in addition because they're being run by certified athletic trainers, we're also offering a lot of injury prevention or even rehab for prior injuries that they've had," Dr. Amy Overlin said.

When it comes to youth athletes, Dr. Overlin has seen it all. She says these days, a lot of high schools expect athletes to train year-round, including over the summer.

Which is the reason over-use injuries are so common among this age group.

"By doing injury prevention over the summer, we're not only improving our athletic skills, but we're also allowing our athletes not to fall behind due to injuries and missed time from training," Dr. Overlin said.

That's why the Steward Health Care Center for Sports Medicine and Community Health is offering free week-long clinics for the student athletes, like Jesus Beltren.

"We do a lot of squatting, strengthen for my legs and conditioning, we do full-body all the time, mostly, he said.

Jesus tore his ACL last year playing football and he says the clinic has helped him immensely.

"Like in school football, I have to pay, right, but here it's like free like, so it helps a lot and I think it's better going here than actually paying for somewhere else," he said.

It's also a relief from a hug financial burden that can come with playing high school sports.

"For them, this is a huge benefit at no cost to them, so they're really excited about having the ability to improve their skills over the summer, when without this program, they really wouldn't have that opportunity," Dr. Overlin said.