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Basic Athletic Training Paper

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What is athletic training? Athletic training is the concern of the well being of the athlete and generally assumes the responsibility for overseeing the total health care for the athlete. This basically states that an athletic trainer's job is to be there for the athlete whether he/she is injured or not, and to practice the prevention of injury. By learning the proper techniques and steps to stretching, an athletic trainer can pass that information onto the athlete to help prevent common problems such as cramping. Another way of looking at an athletic trainer is that they must be prepared and capable of dealing with any type of trauma or catastrophic injury that may occur. If that wasn't enough, the NATA website offers this …show more content…

A written multiple-choice exam, followed by a scenario exam (where you must highlight the correct action to be taken), and then a practical exam. Unlike most other professions, say a physical therapist, an athletic trainer spends more time preparing for the professional world than others.
What about physical therapy, you ask? Physical therapy, unlike an athletic trainer, is more of a one-on-one profession with the patient at hand. The definition of physical therapy, as told by the online glossary of medical terms is "the treatment of injury and disease by mechanical means, as heat, light, exercise, and massage." While athletic training is directed more towards sports than any other profession, physical therapy is open to a variety of patients, ranging all ages. You ask what is different between a physical therapist and an athletic trainer. Athletic trainers work on all types of injuries, ranging from muscles, to ligaments, and even to bones, while a physical therapist work mostly around the muscles. A physical therapist is trained to work 3 specific muscle types; the skeletal muscles, which work as voluntary muscles that works upon volitional commands to move (which means that the muscle contracts to move a certain part of the body a certain direction); smooth muscles, which are involuntary muscles that work on their own accord (much like the muscles of the bladder or intestines); and lastly we have the 3rd type of muscle, the

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