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!
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