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.
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