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How Athletic Trainers Improve Your Athletic Performance

Professional manipulating right leg of patient.

At Phoenix, we couldn’t be more excited for Fall sports to ramp back up as school starts. We love to see our patients, family members, and friends get into the sports they love and push themselves to become better athletes.

One great way to maintain your physical health while boosting your overall performance is to take advantage of athletic trainers (ATs). ATs are often stationed in schools, rehabilitation offices, and other medical settings. Highly-trained and multi-skilled professionals, ATs work together with physicians to make sure they’re providing athletes with top notch care.

What type of care can ATs provide?

Because ATs understand sports, the body and different types of injuries, they’re able to provide athletes with a wide variety of care.

  • Prevention
  • Examination
  • Diagnosis
  • Treatment
  • Rehabilitation
  • Support

Your AT can help you avoid injuries altogether by challenging you with different types of stretches, exercises and post-activity care. Take this for example: maybe you’ve noticed a larger amount of ACL tears in youth athletes. ATs can come up with prevention plans to ensure athletes are strengthening the necessary muscles that can help prevent an ACL tear.

Additionally, ATs are able to examine, diagnose, and treat minor injuries—both acute and chronic. Say a player breaks their ankle. The AT on duty will be able to act quickly by providing immediate pain relief, examining and diagnosing the broken ankle. Then they can direct the athlete for advanced medical care with a physician for further assessment.  Once the final diagnosis is rendered, the AT will work with the physican and physical therapist to make sure they are back in their feet as soon as possible.

On top of their medical benefits, ATs often serve as a great source of encouragement for athletes. They’re there to support you during the ups and downs of playing a sport.