As we all know very well is that athletic trainers and personal trainers get mixed up all the time. No... Mixed up aren't the right words for this. Many people believe that athletic trainers and personal trainers are the SAME. Anyone that is reading this knows we are not! Personal trainers do not need a college degree. They don't even need to be certified. Someone can walk into a gym, tell them they are a personal trainer, and BAM! They're a personal trainer. Most personal trainers do not know simple anatomy. Most of what they know is how to work out, and many times it's improper. Athletic trainers, on the other hand, have to graduate from a CAATE accredited university, become certified be the Board of Certification (BOC), and have to become lisenced in most states. We know how the body works and what motions each muscle does and why they're important. Can we "work people out"? You're damn right we can. And we know WHY each exercise is important for each muscle or muscle group. But we also do more than that. We know how to prevent, diagnose (yes, we can make a clinical diagnosis), treat, and rehab all injuries.
Now what does all this have to do with the topic today? Today, I'm going to talk about athletic trainers as wellness or performance coaches. As I have explained in previous posts, I work as a wellness coach currently. It's an amazing profession because people come to you because they KNOW you're better than a personal trainer. They KNOW that you will be able to give them advice and exercises based on your MEDICAL opinion. Yup... That's right. Wellness/performance coaches are just like personal trainers, but with a medical background and an understanding of how the body works. Say somoene comes in and are 9 months post ACL, they do not have any more visits left on insurance for PT, and they still feel as though they need to get more sessions in. Well... Wellness coaches can take that client, understand that they don't necessarily need clamshells or straight leg raises or Russian stim anymore, and create a program that's more effective to what they want to get back to... All with the knowledge of WHY we're doing the program we're doing.
Wellness coaches work with people to change their lifestyle as well. They can be utilized in weight loss, work hardening, and just general health. Athletic trainers are perfect for this because we already know how to coach people through an exercise program, we know why each exercise is being done, we can explain to the client why this program will be best for them... Best of all, athletic trainers know how to be sympathetic. If someone takes a journey of lifestyle change, the process is a tough one, and athletic trainers know how to be sympathetic and empathetic towards the clients. It's in the nature of being an ATC. We are naturally caring to athletes when they go through a season ending injury, so it's not hard to transition over that emotion when a weight loss client comes in and is upset because they gained weight during your program instead of losing it. However, as opposed to a personal trainer, we can empathize AND tell them why they gained weight.
Performance coaches can work with athletes that want to increase performance during their sports. For example, an 8th grader who really wants to play basketball in high school but just isn't fast enough can come into your center and you can put together a program to make him or her faster, stronger, and more powerful. And, again, the difference between personal trainers and athletic trainers in this aspect is WHY you put the program together! Personal trainers tend to think "Oh you want to jump higher? So let's jump" or "oh you want to be faster? Well let's run" and it really isn't that simple. Now, I'm not saying this about ALL personal trainers... But like I said, they don't even need an anatomy class to become a personal trainer, so there are plenty personal trainers in the world that really don't know why exercises are performed.
Athletic trainers can be utilized in many different ways, as we can see here. I think this profession will grow once it is realized that athletic trainers can do many more things than "tape ankles" and "hand out water". This profession is still relatively new. If you do something that is not the normal "ATC" job, let me know. I would love to hear about it!
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Misconceptions of Our Profession: Part 2 - Military
So as I spoke about in my last post, Athletic Trainers do more than just tape ankles and get water. Today, I'm going to talk about one of those ways athletic trainers are more than the stereotype. Did you know that athletic trainers can work as a civilian in the military? No? Well now you do! Athletic trainers have been hired by many Armed Forces in the last several years to ensure the health and saftey of our men in uniform. They can be hired as independent contractors or as Civil Service. The Marine Corps Community Services Semper Fit program has athletic trainers. The Semper Fit program deals with sports, recreation, and safety, among other things, in the Marine Corps. The need for health care professionals in the Marines is high since one of the credentials for mission readiness is musculoskeletal injuries. There are also numerous jobs for an atheltic trainer in the Navy. They can work in the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation system as a Fitness Coordinator or as a Training Specialist to ensure safe and effective physical programs. The SEALs are also using ATCs to work directly with the teams. Along with the Marine Corps and the Navy, the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, and Service Academies hire ATCs. There's even an Armed Forces Atheltic Training Society. Athletic Trainers in the military emerged in 2001 when the idea came about at Ft. Sam Houston about having medical coverage. In 2013, the Marine Corps added 18 ATCs to infantry battalions and in Quantico, the Sports Medicine and Injury Prevention program has been a big success to get trainees back to training when they have been injured. The athletic trainers in the Marine Corps assist in developing the Physical Training programs. They are there to improve resiliency. They are there for preventing injuries and making the Marines less injury prone after an injury. They are also there for head injuy management and will develop as they get to know the emerging profession.
Military men and women might not be considered athletes, but a high level of athleticism is needed to perform all of the tasks of a serviceman. This being said, all military men and women need to stay fit and healthy. Athletic trainers work as coaches to improve lifestyle of each personnel and to decrease risk of injury. They are recently important in the military setting and will continue to be an asset to our service men and women in years to come.
http://www.afats.org/
http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/Status-of-ATCs-in-the-Military.pdf
http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/MCTimesSitrep.pdf%5B1%5D.pdf
Military men and women might not be considered athletes, but a high level of athleticism is needed to perform all of the tasks of a serviceman. This being said, all military men and women need to stay fit and healthy. Athletic trainers work as coaches to improve lifestyle of each personnel and to decrease risk of injury. They are recently important in the military setting and will continue to be an asset to our service men and women in years to come.
http://www.afats.org/
http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/Status-of-ATCs-in-the-Military.pdf
http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/MCTimesSitrep.pdf%5B1%5D.pdf
Monday, January 4, 2016
Misconceptions of Our Profession: Part 1 - My Experience
How many times have you read that athletic trainers only tape ankles or only stretch people? Or how ATCs are only water boys/girls? What about how athletic trainers and personal trainers are apparently the same thing? I can't tell you how many times I have heard comments like this. "Oh you just tape ankles?" or "Oh you're just a water girl?" My absolute favorite is, "Oh you're a trainer? Do you even need to go to school for that?" All of these misconceptions are negative toward the profession. Athletic trainers do way more than the common stereotype. We go beyond the thought that we just hand out water or give out supplements or just tape ankles. We are more educated than a personal trainer, since you do not need a college degree for that. We don't just "work people out". Athletic trainers are more than all of this. We are at every practice and every game. We help prevent, rehabilitate, and educate athletes and people alike about injuries, among other things. We are not just in high schools; we are in colleges, professional sports, performing arts, the military... The list goes on. As of 2015, we NEED a master's degree to become a certified athletic trainer. This includes graduation from a Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE) program. It requires thousands of hours of clinical experience. We need to get 50 hours of continuing education units every two years. We are part of the medical field. We contribute to the livlihood of many different populations. We can save lives in many different ways. We are Athletic Trainers.
For Part 1 of the topic at hand, I want to talk to you a little further about what I do and why my particular job breaks the boundaries of the stereotype of the athletic trainer, as all athletic trainers can relate to. This will be a multi-part blog and we will be talking a lot about different settings and different responsibilities that athletic trainers have. I wanted to start with my experience because I feel like people can relate to personal experience more than just facts.
If you are just joining this blog, I am the athletic trainer for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. The Blue Crabs are an independant (non-affiliated) minor league baseball team in Waldorf, MD. I am contracted to them from a physical therapy company, Orthopedic Sports and Physical Therapy (OSPT). During baseball season, I am with the team basically 24/7 from April to October. Yes, I have the typical athletic training responsibilities with the team, but I do way more than that as well. I am there for each and every player when they are injured. I am the first responder for an in-game injury. I do rehab with the injured players. I make sure the athletes who need prevention exercises are doing them. I do injury evaluations. Yes, I even get water for them if they need a quick cup of water (but only in special circumstances). Those are the obvious parts of my job. But there are other responsibilities I have. When a player gets injured, I am there for them as someone they can talk to. I can't tell you how many players have come to me, with injuries that have kept them out for an extended period of time, and all they want to do is talk. Athletic trainers serve as therapist/psychologists a lot of the time. If an athlete has a season or career ending injury, the athletic trainer is usually the first person that they talk to about it. It's comfortable, we know what we're talking about, and we're sympathetic to how they feel. As I said, I am there for my players 24/7 during the season. I do not have any off days, even though the team might. I am there when I get a phone call at 3:00 AM when a player has injured themselves in the game that night and can't sleep because he's in so much pain. I am there to develop the players physically and mentally as they prepare for a 140+ game season. If you are an athletic trainer in any setting, you can relate to everything I just said here.
The second part of my job, in the off season, is working in OSPT's Personal Wellness Recovery (PWR) Program. As part of the PWR Team, I work as somewhat of a wellness coach. My supervisor and I are both certified athletic trainers. We work with clients with so many different goals, from clients who want to lose weight to injured athletes who want to play again to work hardening clients. I am not your traditional athletic trainer in this setting. Do I do an initial eval? Of course. But it's a little different than your average injury eval. Most of these people coming to us want to change their lives, they're not just coming to us because they are injured. So the eval will include the FMS and/or SFMA for everyone to determine what mobility or stability issues they have. We find out what the clients are initially coming in for (back pain, weight loss, etc.), and then we dig a little deeper. We have to ask the hard questions. "Why are you here? Why do you want to change?" It's tough on both the clinician and the client. But if done right, they learn to trust us from that moment on. After the eval, we have to make exercise programs for each client based on their needs, and it should change once every two weeks. No two programs are the same. It's like going to a gym but constantly getting one-on-one time with a medically certified personal trainer rather than going to a gym and paying a ton of money for someone who doesn't know how to rehab an injury but will tell you to lift heavy. We get to know the client, talk to them about their life, continue earning their trust. And again, you're not just training the client physically, you get to help them emotionally and mentally. It's such an awarding experience when the client can walk without pain or can pick up their kids. If you work in a setting like this, you can relate.
I know this was a long winded post, but it's opening up the door to the topic that I feel really needs to be addressed. If you have anything to add or if you work in a non-traditional setting or do non-traditional things in your job, comment below. It will be a better topic if you all worked with me on this one. Next week I will dive into the topic more, getting into more of the misconceptions and proving that the stereotype is wrong.
For Part 1 of the topic at hand, I want to talk to you a little further about what I do and why my particular job breaks the boundaries of the stereotype of the athletic trainer, as all athletic trainers can relate to. This will be a multi-part blog and we will be talking a lot about different settings and different responsibilities that athletic trainers have. I wanted to start with my experience because I feel like people can relate to personal experience more than just facts.
If you are just joining this blog, I am the athletic trainer for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. The Blue Crabs are an independant (non-affiliated) minor league baseball team in Waldorf, MD. I am contracted to them from a physical therapy company, Orthopedic Sports and Physical Therapy (OSPT). During baseball season, I am with the team basically 24/7 from April to October. Yes, I have the typical athletic training responsibilities with the team, but I do way more than that as well. I am there for each and every player when they are injured. I am the first responder for an in-game injury. I do rehab with the injured players. I make sure the athletes who need prevention exercises are doing them. I do injury evaluations. Yes, I even get water for them if they need a quick cup of water (but only in special circumstances). Those are the obvious parts of my job. But there are other responsibilities I have. When a player gets injured, I am there for them as someone they can talk to. I can't tell you how many players have come to me, with injuries that have kept them out for an extended period of time, and all they want to do is talk. Athletic trainers serve as therapist/psychologists a lot of the time. If an athlete has a season or career ending injury, the athletic trainer is usually the first person that they talk to about it. It's comfortable, we know what we're talking about, and we're sympathetic to how they feel. As I said, I am there for my players 24/7 during the season. I do not have any off days, even though the team might. I am there when I get a phone call at 3:00 AM when a player has injured themselves in the game that night and can't sleep because he's in so much pain. I am there to develop the players physically and mentally as they prepare for a 140+ game season. If you are an athletic trainer in any setting, you can relate to everything I just said here.
The second part of my job, in the off season, is working in OSPT's Personal Wellness Recovery (PWR) Program. As part of the PWR Team, I work as somewhat of a wellness coach. My supervisor and I are both certified athletic trainers. We work with clients with so many different goals, from clients who want to lose weight to injured athletes who want to play again to work hardening clients. I am not your traditional athletic trainer in this setting. Do I do an initial eval? Of course. But it's a little different than your average injury eval. Most of these people coming to us want to change their lives, they're not just coming to us because they are injured. So the eval will include the FMS and/or SFMA for everyone to determine what mobility or stability issues they have. We find out what the clients are initially coming in for (back pain, weight loss, etc.), and then we dig a little deeper. We have to ask the hard questions. "Why are you here? Why do you want to change?" It's tough on both the clinician and the client. But if done right, they learn to trust us from that moment on. After the eval, we have to make exercise programs for each client based on their needs, and it should change once every two weeks. No two programs are the same. It's like going to a gym but constantly getting one-on-one time with a medically certified personal trainer rather than going to a gym and paying a ton of money for someone who doesn't know how to rehab an injury but will tell you to lift heavy. We get to know the client, talk to them about their life, continue earning their trust. And again, you're not just training the client physically, you get to help them emotionally and mentally. It's such an awarding experience when the client can walk without pain or can pick up their kids. If you work in a setting like this, you can relate.
I know this was a long winded post, but it's opening up the door to the topic that I feel really needs to be addressed. If you have anything to add or if you work in a non-traditional setting or do non-traditional things in your job, comment below. It will be a better topic if you all worked with me on this one. Next week I will dive into the topic more, getting into more of the misconceptions and proving that the stereotype is wrong.
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