David House and Joe McCarthy travelled to Warsaw with amputee demonstrator Lee Boxall for a two day running skills workshop. The event was hosted by our business partner in Poland; Orto-Centrum Ltd.
Over 25 clinicians attended the workshop with sessions led by David House on the theory of running, physical assessment, exercising, conditioning, running drills and component selection.
The sun shone brightly on day two, as we all attended the running track at a sports stadium. We were joined by 6 amputees, where we put into practice the learning from day one. A Polish TV crew filmed during the day for a program to be shown on Polish Sport TV!
All of the amputees wore the BladeXT foot for the session, taking part in warm up stretches and running drills, before running lengths of the track. During the session the running was observed and analysed so that techniques could be improved and prostheses adjusted for optimum performance. As always, Lee was invaluable over the two days helping out with the event and providing excellent demonstrations.
Thanks to Anna Łapińska and Orto Centrum Ltd for organising everything so well and hosting such a fantastic event which was enjoyed by the delegates and the amputees alike. Special thanks also to Darek who translated from English to Polish throughout the two days. One bilateral transtibial amputee commented that this was the first time he had been able to run in 9 years, and another ran a complete lap of the track at the end of the session, just four months after his amputation.
We are now planning to return to Poland next year to run a socket technology and casting course, raising yet further our profile in this market.