Seven systems, one movement, and what to do when it goes wrong

Take a single movement — a netball player receiving a pass and shooting — and follow it through. The point is not that seven systems are involved. The point is that they are involved in a sequence, on different timescales, and some of them started work long before the ball arrived.

Two things in that table are worth more than the rest.

First, the digestive system contributes by having finished. Its work was done hours ago, and during the movement it is actively shut down. A system can contribute to a movement by being suppressed, and an analysis that only looks for systems that are busy will miss it.

Second, nothing here is a chain of command. It is easy to write "the nervous system tells the muscles to move, which needs oxygen, which the lungs supply". That reads well and is wrong in an important way: the circulatory and respiratory responses were triggered by the same sympathetic activation that prepared the movement, before the muscles had used any oxygen at all. The body anticipates rather than reacts, which is exactly what Lesson 7's autonomic table and Lesson 6's adrenaline sequence described.

Every movement uses all seven systems. That is true, and on its own it is useless — it says nothing different about a shot put and a marathon. The analytical question that does distinguish them is: which system's capacity is reached first? That system is the limiting system, and identifying it is what turns a description into an analysis.

This is also the answer to Card 01. The powerlifter and the marathon runner have not trained "different amounts" — they have trained different limiting systems, and each would be limited by a system they have barely developed if placed in the other's event.

The dot point says demonstrate and analyse, and the demonstration is not decoration — you cannot analyse a movement you have not watched carefully. The standard method is to split it into four phases and ask the same questions of each.

Two habits make this analysis good rather than merely complete.

• Name the contraction type in every phase. Lesson 2 established that the same muscle acts eccentrically in one phase and concentrically in the next. An analysis that says "the quadriceps contract" has said nothing that distinguishes the jump from the landing, and the landing is where the injury risk lives.
• Do not stop at execution. Most student analyses are excellent on the phase that produces the result and silent on the two either side, yet the preparation phase determines how much force is available, and the recovery phase determines whether the athlete is injured. The phases that get least attention are the ones that get people hurt.

The syllabus asks you to discuss the role first aid plays in response to movement, and discuss means considering more than one side. So state the role precisely, and then state its limits, because a discussion that only lists benefits is incomplete by definition.

The role of first aid has four parts, and they are in priority order:

• Preserve life. A collapsed and unresponsive person needs an airway, breathing and circulation, before anything else is even considered.
• Prevent the injury getting worse. Removing the person from the danger, stopping the activity, immobilising what needs immobilising, and cooling or warming as required.
• Promote recovery. Early appropriate management of a soft tissue injury measurably shortens the time to return to sport.
• Make the decision about what happens next. Continue, stop, seek medical assessment, or call an ambulance. In practice this is the part performed worst, and it is the part with the most serious consequences.

For an unresponsive casualty the action plan is DRSABCD: check for Danger to yourself and others, check for a Response, Send for help, open the Airway, check for Breathing, begin CPR if they are not breathing normally, and attach a Defibrillator as soon as one is available. Danger is first for a reason that sounds callous and is not: a second casualty helps nobody.

For a conscious, injured athlete the assessment sequence is TOTAPS:

Every step is a gate, not a box to tick. If the athlete cannot move the joint actively, the assessment stops there and they do not play. Running a skills test on someone who failed the active movement step is not a thorough assessment; it is the error the sequence exists to prevent.

The syllabus offers three contexts for first aid in response to movement: inefficient movement, dehydration, and undue stress on the body. Each produces a characteristic injury or illness, and each has a response.

1. Inefficient movement — poor technique, fatigue-driven breakdown, inadequate warm-up, unsuitable surfaces or footwear. The typical result is an acute soft tissue injury: a sprain (ligament), a strain (muscle or tendon) or a contusion (bruise).

• Assess with TOTAPS and remove the athlete from play.
• Manage with rest, ice, compression, elevation and referral — RICER. Ice for around 20 minutes every two hours in the first 48 to 72 hours, wrapped rather than applied directly to skin.
• Avoid heat, alcohol, running and massage in that early period — the HARM list — because each increases blood flow and therefore swelling.
• Refer where there is deformity, an inability to weight-bear, a sound at the moment of injury, rapid swelling, or no improvement — any one of these is a doctor's decision, not a coach's.

2. Dehydration — fluid loss through sweat that is not replaced. Lesson 5 established the mechanism: falling plasma volume reduces stroke volume, so heart rate must rise to maintain cardiac output, and the same fluid loss impairs the body's ability to shed heat. The signs run in a sequence and the sequence is the important part: thirst and dark urine, then headache and rising heart rate, then cramping and dizziness, then confusion.

• Mild to moderate: stop, move to shade, drink cool fluid in small frequent amounts, loosen clothing, and do not return to play.
• Heat exhaustion: pale, sweating heavily, weak and dizzy with a rapid pulse. Lie them down, elevate the legs, cool actively with water and airflow, give fluids if fully conscious, and seek medical help.
• Heat stroke is an emergency. The distinguishing features are a very high body temperature and altered mental state — confusion, aggression, slurred speech or collapse — sometimes with sweating that has stopped. Call an ambulance immediately, cool aggressively with whatever is available, and follow DRSABCD. Confusion in a hot athlete is never a discipline problem and never something to run off.

3. Undue stress on the body — a training load, an intensity or a duration beyond what the person is currently prepared for. This one is different because the harm accumulates instead of happening in an instant.

• Overuse injuries such as stress fractures, tendinopathy and shin pain: the tissue is loaded repeatedly without adequate recovery, so damage accumulates faster than repair. The first aid response is to stop the activity and refer; the real response is a load and recovery review, which is where Lesson 13's FITT principle comes in.
• Exertional collapse: an athlete who collapses at or after the end of maximal effort. Treat as DRSABCD, do not assume it is simple exhaustion, and get medical help.
• Cardiac events, which are rare in young people and catastrophic when missed. Chest pain, unusual breathlessness, or collapse during exertion require an ambulance and, if the person is unresponsive and not breathing normally, immediate CPR and defibrillation.
• Psychological stress, which Lesson 6 covered: chronic stress impairs recovery, and that is one of the mechanisms by which an unchanged training load becomes an undue one.

This activity delivers the demonstrate half of the dot point, so it has to be performed rather than imagined. Work in pairs. Choose a movement with a clear start and finish — a vertical jump, a netball chest pass, a soccer instep kick, a bodyweight squat. Perform it while your partner films from the side, then swap.

The analysis: name the system responsible for each difference you observed, and say which phase deteriorated most. Then the injury question: given what changed, at which instant is this movement now most likely to injure the performer, and which tissue would be damaged?

You are the responsible adult at a Saturday junior competition on a hot day. For each incident, write down: what you do first, the sequence you follow, whether the player returns, and whether professional help is required. Then say which situation from Card 08 it belongs to.

Finally, the question that makes this a discussion rather than a checklist: in which of these four incidents is the greatest risk that the correct action is not taken, and what makes it hard to take? Be honest about the pressure involved — from the player, the parents, the coach and the scoreboard.