Can we have our food now?

At 51 years old I still relax the same way I did as a kid, watching cartoons before I go to bed.  There is a new episode of South Park where one of the parents decides to become a gourmet chef, quits his job as a geologist, and begins preparing his neuvo cuisine in the school cafeteria.  The students are left standing there with their empty trays saying, "can we have our food now?" as the dad becomes totally immersed in his culinary skills and totally forgets he has hundreds of mouths to feed.

I had an email discussion with my buddy Pat Donahue, ATC at U.Illinois @ Chicago.  I was inquiring about a new school of rehab he had experience with, and I asked him how it was working out.  He brought up a very good point- that while its practitioners were claiming outstanding results, it just didn't fit into the A.T. concept.   Very practitioner driven, one-on-one protocols.  In the A.T. environment, our time is very precious to us.  When we tie up our hands with manual techniques we must be sure we are getting the most bang for our buck.  For instance, I do myofascial release.  I choose ART and Graston because I feel they are very effective and extremely time efficient.  However, it appears the Italian School of MF release (Carla Stecco) is really showing an edge.  But it's just too time intensive for the typical A.T. setting.

I feel this philosophy goes well beyond the A.T. room as the health care dollar shrinks.  We don't want to feed our athletes fish sticks and pizza, but we don't want them standing there with empty trays either.