Joe Gagliardo Internship Reflection

My name is Joe Gagliardo. I'm a third year student here at UB in the physical therapy concentration and Exercise Science Department. And today, I'm going to be going over three reasons why students should do their internship or practicum here at TrainSMART, and the most important things that I took away from my experience here during the semester.

So for starters, the three reasons why you should do your internship here is the learning opportunities. Each week, Joe and his team send out articles and videos from different influential people within the physical therapy and fitness realm. And these articles have lots of information and give you great insight to their philosophies. And second, over the course of the semester, we have 13 to 15 workshops. And with these workshops, Joe has some of the same people come in and show us different exercises, learning philosophies, different diagnosis processes, assessment processes, and the opportunities are endless when it comes to learning here. Second, the coaching experience that you get here, we're basically full time coaches here. And we're seeing clients, multiple clients, all day. And the only way to become a better coach is to coach. And here, you're gonna get that experience, you're gonna get that exposure, and you can become a great coach early in your career. So that's one of the most important things. And second is Joe pays for the full time interns here to get their Certified Functional Strength certification. Which, to my knowledge, no other practicum site does that. So to be able to have a certification, for free, and to be able to use that on clients. And not to mention that, especially as students, you can use that degree to make some extra money while you're in school. So I think that's just an even more bigger incentive to do your internship here.

The most important things that I learned from my experience over the past semester here at TranSMART, for starters, would have to be the principles of functional training. For me personally, I was very into bodybuilding when I first started my fitness journey. And I dealt with the repercussions of what happens when you only do bodybuilding. So I quickly learned the principles of functional training and how to utilize it to my advantage, and to correct the issues that I have with my body. And it's the same principle with all these clients that you will be with. These, this functional training will help them it will make them better at their activities of daily living, and will make their life easier and pain free. Next is the idea of low back pain. Here we follow a strict principle from Dr. Stuart McGill, arguably one of the most influential icons when it comes to low back pain. So here you will learn almost everything that Stuart McGill goes into about low back pain, next to the consequences of sitting and not being active. When it comes to being a student. And even as an older adult, working at a desk job setting is something that our society has turned to a lot and it has massive repercussions. And here you will learn about those and how to counteract that. And I think that's extremely important as everybody sits. Next is how to become a good coach. Like I said before, the coaching experience here is massive, you will be coaching a lot. And like I said before, the only way to become a better coach is to coach. So I think that is an extremely important skill to learn how to coach. And finally is the importance of continuous learning. You know, the coaches here, Joe, and any other physical therapist, personal trainer will stress you the importance of continuing your learning education down the line. It will never stop and it should never stop. And if it does stop, you're doing it wrong. So these are the most important things that I learned from my time here at TrainSMART.