Alabama Football: Utilizations of the Firefly Recovery Device

Recovery: We like to utilize as many resources as we can throughout the week. We typically schedule several massage therapists M-TH for a recovery aspect, along with promoting a lot of stretching, Normatec, yoga, etc. By the time Friday rolls around we like to give our guys as much space as possible. We look at this as a mental day. We’re huge on portable devices for recovery on this day, and firefly’s are the most popular device. We offer them at several points in the day. If it’s an away game we make a hard push for everyone to have a firefly before boarding the team plane. Additionally, we no longer bring Normatec units to our team hotel, and instead hand out Firefly’s like candy. This has been huge for us. We feel like we reach more guys, the “treatment” time is longer, and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on how they feel the day after.   

Pre-Practice / Warmup: Recently we shifted away from utilizing firefly’s solely as a “recovery” device, and used it almost everyday as a “warm-up” device as well. Meetings before practice typically last 1-2 hours. We like to maximize our players time, and again we are huge on portable devices to treat our guys when they can’t be in the training room. Firefly’s are a big part in keeping our guys ready to hit the field after they have been sitting in meetings.   

Acute Treatment: Lastly, we saw a lot of success in our management of acute injury with firefly’s. Primarily Ankles. We’ve been combining compression wraps + firefly’s for swelling management in the first 48-72 hours for ankle sprains. Really saw good success! 

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Matt Gorby – Assistant Football Athletic Trainer