Podcast 26: Kevin Kikugawa, Head Football Athletic Trainer of Arizona Wildcats

In the next episode of “Thermography: Science, Health and Sport” (in English) we introduce Kevin Kikugawa, Head Football Athletic Trainer of Arizona Wildcats.

In this episode, we focus on American football, specifically on injury prevention and fatigue management. Kevin Kikugawa, an experienced athletic trainer, emphasizes the importance of using thermography to identify asymmetries in soft tissues and target areas for intervention.

He shares a case where thermography detected an issue before the athlete felt discomfort, illustrating its preventive potential. Kevin believes that thermography’s ability to objectively measure internal load makes it a valuable tool for sports performance and injury prevention.

Despite occasional false alarms, the technology’s quick and efficient nature is seen as a positive
You can listen to the next episode by clicking the link of the bio.

TRANSCRIPTION

Ismael Fernández (Host): “Kevin, how do you see the role of thermography in sports performance in the future?”

Kevin Kikugawa: “Well, we could go back to what I just said, you know. We’ve never really had a great way of measuring internal load. We all have all these great tools to measure external load, you know, whether it’s dynamometry or GPS or something like that, but you know having an objective number that just looks at this individual at this moment in time, is extremely helpful. (Thermography) It’s not time consuming, it’s a very quick picture and then the UI (User Information) that your program has to analyze the data it’s been very speedy so… I can take a picture of a guy, and within seconds, I’m showing the individual, where what areas we might need to investigate and then we kind of go from there, so it’s very quick…”