Athletic Trainer Evaluate and treat musculoskeletal injuries or illnesses. Provide preventive, therapeutic, emergency, and rehabilitative care.
Athletic Trainer is Also Know as
In different settings, Athletic Trainer is titled as
- Athletic Instructor
- Athletic Lecturer
- Athletic Trainer
- Certified Athletic Trainer
- Personal Trainer
- Resident Athletic Trainer
- Women's Athletic Trainer
Education and Training of Athletic Trainer
Athletic Trainer is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Athletic Trainer
Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.
Education Required for Athletic Trainer
Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).
Degrees Related to Athletic Trainer
- Bachelor in Physical Fitness Technician
- Associate Degree Courses in Physical Fitness Technician
- Masters Degree Courses in Physical Fitness Technician
- Bachelor in Athletic Training/Trainer
- Associate Degree Courses in Athletic Training/Trainer
- Masters Degree Courses in Athletic Training/Trainer
Training Required for Athletic Trainer
Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Athletic Trainer in different industries are
- Sports Medicine Physicians
- Exercise Trainers and Group Fitness Instructors
- Exercise Physiologists
- Physical Therapist Assistants
- Occupational Therapists
- Recreational Therapists
- Physical Therapists
- Coaches and Scouts
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians
- Chiropractors
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Psychiatric Technicians
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Dietitians and Nutritionists
- Respiratory Therapists
- Massage Therapists
- Nurse Practitioners
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
What Do Athletic Trainer do?
- Conduct an initial assessment of an athlete's injury or illness to provide emergency or continued care and to determine whether they should be referred to physicians for definitive diagnosis and treatment.
- Care for athletic injuries, using physical therapy equipment, techniques, or medication.
- Evaluate athletes' readiness to play and provide participation clearances when necessary and warranted.
- Apply protective or injury preventive devices, such as tape, bandages, or braces, to body parts, such as ankles, fingers, or wrists.
- Assess and report the progress of recovering athletes to coaches or physicians.
- Collaborate with physicians to develop and implement comprehensive rehabilitation programs for athletic injuries.
- Advise athletes on the proper use of equipment.
- Plan or implement comprehensive athletic injury or illness prevention programs.
- Develop training programs or routines designed to improve athletic performance.
- Travel with athletic teams to be available at sporting events.
- Instruct coaches, athletes, parents, medical personnel, or community members in the care and prevention of athletic injuries.
- Inspect playing fields to locate any items that could injure players.
- Conduct research or provide instruction on subject matter related to athletic training or sports medicine.
- Recommend special diets to improve athletes' health, increase their stamina, or alter their weight.
- Massage body parts to relieve soreness, strains, or bruises.
- Confer with coaches to select protective equipment.
- Accompany injured athletes to hospitals.
- Perform team support duties, such as running errands, maintaining equipment, or stocking supplies.
- Lead stretching exercises for team members prior to games or practices.
- Perform general administrative tasks, such as keeping records or writing reports.
- File athlete insurance claims and communicate with insurance providers.
- Teach sports medicine courses to athletic training students.
- Clean and sanitize athletic training rooms.
Qualities of Good Athletic Trainer
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
Tools Used by Athletic Trainer
- Air splints
- Automated blood pressure cuffs
- Automated external defibrillators AED
- Biofeedback equipment
- Body-fat calipers
- Cervical traction units
- Cold therapy equipment
- Crutches
- Desktop computers
- Elliptical trainers
- Emergency response stretchers
- Exercise bands
- Exercise bicycles
- Exercise treadmills
- Exercise tubing
- Face shields
- Fixed splints
- Free weights
- Goniometers or arthrometers
- Heat therapy equipment
- Hydrocollator heating units
- Knee immobilizers
- Laptop computers
- Lower extremity braces
- Lumbar traction units
- Medical examination protective gloves
- Medical scales
- Mouth guards
- Muscle strength dynamometers
- Neck braces
- One-way valve pocket masks
- Oxygen administration equipment
- Parallel bars
- Personal computers
- Pulse oximeters
- Rowing machines
- Sling psychrometers
- Spinal immobilization equipment
- Sports helmets
- Stair climbing machines
- Swiss exercise balls
- Therapeutic paraffin baths
- Therapeutic ultrasound equipment
- Tilt tables
- Traction splints
- Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS equipment
- Two way radios
- Upper extremity braces
- Vacuum splints
- Walking canes
- Weight machines
- Whirlpool therapy baths
Technology Skills required for Athletic Trainer
- BioEx Systems Exercise Pro
- Database software
- Digital Coach AthleticTrainer
- Email software
- ImPACT Applications ImPACT
- Injury tracking software
- Keffer Development Services Athletic Trainer System ATS
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft Word
- Premier Software Simtrak Mobility
- Scheduling software
- Spreadsheet software
- Web browser software
- Word processing software