Athletic Trainers?

Does anyone have any information concerning this profession? I know what they do, but Im looking for info regarding practice settings and curriculum studied concerning spinal conditions.

[quote]rnav30 wrote:
Does anyone have any information concerning this profession? I know what they do, but Im looking for info regarding practice settings and curriculum studied concerning spinal conditions.[/quote]

Look at www.nata.org. This is the website for our National Organization. As for practice settings, ATC’s work primarily in High Schools, Physical Therapy clinics, Orthopeadic Dr’s Offices, Colleges and Universities, Industrial and are becoming more popular in Military settings. As for “curriculum studied concerning spinal conditions”, I am not sure what you mean. Please explain.

Thank you for responding to the post. I have been over to the NATA website quite a bit the last few months. Here is the info Im looking for. I would like to possibly enter the MAT program at my university. I have a few classes to take since my undergrad was in business and not exersise science related. I want to primarily use this degree to get into peformance enhancement. Ideally, I would want to rehab injuries for about one year after completion of the program, then move into performance enhancement. I think the background knowledge concerning biomechanics and rehab would be invaluable towards my goals.

I pretty much know what type of rehab settings the trainers are used in, but I don’t know to many ATs that work in the industrial, strength and conditioning, or personal training setting. I am here in TX, and have talked to about 10 to 15 ATs, and most work in a high school or an orthopedic outpaitent setting where they work in the hospital and then travel to local high schools. I think one or two wanted to work on a collegiate level. These three areas really wouldn’t interest me.

If I was to stay in the field, I would primarily want to rehab paitents eight hours a day like a physical therapist in a clinical setting. I called a few rehab clinics and talked to a few PTs and they said that in their clinics, if they had any ATs on staff, they were mainly used as physical therapy assistants due to billing issues with insurance. None of the clinics with the exception of one had any ATs.

There was one clinic where the ATs did do rehab along with the PT, but one of the ATs owned part of the clinic (if I undersood the AT correctly). Im hoping to have a talk with another AT that works in a hospital where he works with paitents in their wellness clinic to achieve specific athletic oriented goals. That would be something I would be interested in, but hes the only one that I know of doing that type of work.

I looked at the rest of the staff of the wellness clinic and most were personal trainers. Do you think I should go the AT route to gain the knowlege I need? I looked at some the undergrad and grad school courses for exercise science and they have about two to three biomechanics classes and two to three athletic training classes concerning injuries and rehab.

Would this consititute enough knowlege about orthopedics in order not to injure a client. I’m not looking to be an expert in the field, Im just looking to have a good, sound knowledge base to apply to clients.

Another question is that when I have asked most ATs about rehab, everyone seems to be very knowledgeable about rehabbing knees, shoulders, elbows, and ankles. When I ask them about rehabbing different spinal conditions such as herniated disks, they usually tell me they just refer out to a physical therapist for those types of injuries. Why is that? Do you think a MAT program would cover spinal injuries equally as opposed to other areas of the body? One last question is concerning the pay for an AT in an industrial setting, what is the pay range for those folks? Any info would greatly be appreciated.

[quote]rnav30 wrote:
Thank you for responding to the post. I have been over to the NATA website quite a bit the last few months. Here is the info Im looking for. I would like to possibly enter the MAT program at my university. I have a few classes to take since my undergrad was in business and not exersise science related. I want to primarily use this degree to get into peformance enhancement. Ideally, I would want to rehab injuries for about one year after completion of the program, then move into performance enhancement. I think the background knowledge concerning biomechanics and rehab would be invaluable towards my goals. [/quote]

If you want to get into performance enhancement (ie. strength and conditioning), I would probably go the exercise science route. Very true you would learn a lot about biomechanics, physiology, anatomy, assessment, and rehab of injuries, but you could get all of those things minus learning how to evaluate an injury and rehab by going through exercise science. If you go into performance enhancement, you really wouldn’t be using a lot of the skills that an ATC uses on a daily basis (esp. assessment and evaluation of injuries, taping, modalities, bracing, rehab etc). Sounds to me like you might benefit more from going E.S. and maybe volunteering at a PT clinic which employs ATC’s and PT’s and just try to learn rehab from them. Honestly, you learn a lot about rehab through course work, but on a day-to-day basis I use more of the things I have learned by working with other ATC’s and PT’s.

[quote]
I pretty much know what type of rehab settings the trainers are used in, but I don’t know to many ATs that work in the industrial, strength and conditioning, or personal training setting. I am here in TX, and have talked to about 10 to 15 ATs, and most work in a high school or an orthopedic outpaitent setting where they work in the hospital and then travel to local high schools. I think one or two wanted to work on a collegiate level. These three areas really wouldn’t interest me. [/quote]

That’s kinda my point b/c if you go through a MAT program you are probably going to have to work in some of those settings in order to get your degree. Athletic Training curriculums involve a lot of course work, but also involve a lot of field work as well.

[quote]
If I was to stay in the field, I would primarily want to rehab paitents eight hours a day like a physical therapist in a clinical setting. I called a few rehab clinics and talked to a few PTs and they said that in their clinics, if they had any ATs on staff, they were mainly used as physical therapy assistants due to billing issues with insurance. None of the clinics with the exception of one had any ATs. [/quote]

I am not sure how much you know about many of the issues that are going on with Medicare, billing, and ATC’s working in clinics right now, so I won’t get into all of it. Most of the ATC’s I know who work in clincs either work as PT aides or work their mornings in the clinics and work evenings at High Schools covering sports.

[quote]
There was one clinic where the ATs did do rehab along with the PT, but one of the ATs owned part of the clinic (if I undersood the AT correctly). Im hoping to have a talk with another AT that works in a hospital where he works with paitents in their wellness clinic to achieve specific athletic oriented goals. That would be something I would be interested in, but hes the only one that I know of doing that type of work. [/quote]

That’s one of the beauties of our profession is that we learn alot about so many different areas that we can work in almost any area that involves rehab, helping ppl with injuries or general wellness.

[quote]
I looked at the rest of the staff of the wellness clinic and most were personal trainers. Do you think I should go the AT route to gain the knowlege I need? I looked at some the undergrad and grad school courses for exercise science and they have about two to three biomechanics classes and two to three athletic training classes concerning injuries and rehab. [/quote]

If you can go the E.S. route and take some extra Athletic Training classes, I would go that route. Again, you would gain a lot of knowledge from a Master’s Level Athletic Training degree, but if your future is in performance enhancement there would be a lot of stuff that you would learn now, but not use later.

[quote]
Would this consititute enough knowlege about orthopedics in order not to injure a client. I’m not looking to be an expert in the field, Im just looking to have a good, sound knowledge base to apply to clients. [/quote]

If you go through a quality E.S. program, you should gain enough knowledge not to hurt anyone.

If you are asking a lot of older ATC’s, then yea I could see where you might get a lot of those kinds of answers. It really all comes down to education and continuing education. A lot of ATC’s and PT’s coming right out of school really only know the basics. It takes a few years to really hone your skills. You pick up tricks and techniques from ppl along the way. Also, as a ATC and PT you have to take Continuing Education Courses in order to keep your certification and/or liscensure. Some ppl pick up their knowledge about rehabing spinal injuries from these courses and just from experience. Generally in Athletic Training, you really only see lumbar strains, some spondy’s, and maybe a herniated disc here and there b/c you are dealing with young athletic ppl who for the most part are in decent physical condition. However, PT’s see a much broader scope of ppl, but primarily older patients (at least that was my experience in the clinical setting) who are more prone to back injuries. So they gain a lot of there knowledge from just working with so many ppl w/ spine injuries.

That would really depend on the curriculum, but a good curriculum will include rehab of spine injuries. However, understand you are propably going to learn more about spine injuries commonly seen in sports. You probably are not going to learn how to rehab ppl who are paralyzed or have degenerative back problems.

[quote]
One last question is concerning the pay for an AT in an industrial setting, what is the pay range for those folks? Any info would greatly be appreciated.[/quote]

I am not exactly sure, but generally ATC’s in clinics, military, and industrial settings do a little better than those of us on the collegiate setting. I would say you are probably looking at a starting salary of anywhere from $32,000 to maybe $40,000 depending on the state or city you live in (if you have a Master’s Degree).

If you don’t mind me asking, what school are you attending in TX? In summary, if I were you I would go the E.S. route and maybe volunteer in a PT clinic and/or the Athletic Training room at your college (if they would allow it).

Also, if your goal is performance enhancemnt, see if your school has a Strength and Conditioning coach. Preferably, one w/ his/her CSCS or CSCC degree and volunteer with them to learn. Hope that helps!!

Sorry its taken a while for me to respond back. I haven’t been on here for about a week or two. Thank you for all the information you gave me on this profession.

I looked into a few classes at a university near by and it looks like six or seven classes would get me to where I want to be in the exercise science track. Your basic anatomy and physiology class, one or two biomechanics classes, and it looks like three athletic training classes.

Do you think this will give me enough knowledge in peforming a postural assesment and injury prevention and management?

I looked around the web and it seems you can find a seminar or two dealing with postural assesments. I think these would be an essential tool for everyday clients. I also plan on doing some heavy reading on orthopedics and biomechanics. I know this might sound overboard, but I want to be able to help individuals in various aspects and know how to consult with various members of an injury team such as a Physical Therapist or Athletic Trainer.

I have talked to a few “trainers” that I know personally and when I mention injuries or postural assesments or periodization, its like I’m speaking a foreign language. I know their are many good performance enhancement specialists and personal trainers out there with a great knowledge base, but there are some that I would never go see. I would like to be able to help a client who has had multiple musculoskeletal injuries once they have been cleared by an Athletic Trainer or Physcial Therapist. Im sure you know of a lot of folks that have been hurt in the gym because of bad advice, I was one of them. Its a tough lesson to learn.

By the way, my undergrad was in business. Ive been out of school for almost ten years now, but the business world is not my cup of tea. Im going to return to school, but looking at a variety of options right now.

Oh, in your experience working, what is the going rate for a competent performance enhancement specialist or personal trainer out there? What would be your best guess? I know its been debated on here numerous times, but just curious as to what you encounter on a day to day basis.

I ask folks in the profession that I know locally and it seems everyone exagerates their salary! If they made the 40 to 80 dollars per hour some claim, they wouldn’t change jobs so frequently! This only applies to the handfull that I have known the last five to ten years.

Now I know that working with a few clients at those prices isn’t going to pay the bills, but once you figure out a resonable formula such as clients per week, how many clients per day, time with client, expenses, the money is decent. I really think that if you produce results people will come back. Educate a client, develop a plan, execute the plan, and follow up on the plan. People will pay for services that produce results in a time efficient manner. I know there is a demand for this out there. With the obesity rates skyrocketing, there is a definite need. The fitness industry is expanding like crazy. The amount of knowledge in exercise science is out there. The only problem I see is the lack of standards within the industry.

Another problem is the pseudo science that doesn’t want to go away no matter how many knowledgeable professionals are out there in the field. Its a travesty. Thats why I think a fantastic living could be made for the passionate, knowledgeable professional.

Oh, one more question that I mentioned before but I don’t think was answered. The CSCS certification. Do you know of any ATs that actually utilize their CSCS. I know its good to have as it opens doors, but does anyone actually use it (specifically ATs)? I would assume that an AT would have more knowledge on injury managment and prevention than the certification could offer. I might be wrong.

And I assume that if you used it, would it be in peformance enhancment. If so, is the AT going to be used in a strength and conditioning role instead of a rehab, injury prevention/management role? I have never met an AT that was a performance enhancement specialist.