How chemistry is used in Sports Medicine/
Athletic  Training

Description of the Sports Medicine/Athletic Training profession

First of all to make it clear to people who may be confused, Sports Medicine and Athletic Training is the same thing. Athletic Training is the more professional way of saying it and Sports Medicine is a more general term.
An Athletic Trainer is an allied health care professional educated and experienced in the management of health care problems associated with sports participation. An Athletic Trainer is skilled in prevention, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of injuries of the physically active.

Working with patients who sometimes have limited use of their own bodies due to sports injuries, an Athletic Trainer builds flexibility, strength, and spirit. His/her goals are to reduce the patients’ pain, to increase their range of motion, and to give them back their sense of self-determination. The Athletic Training profession is emotionally and physically demanding. Emotional attachment to patients/athletes is almost inevitable and sometimes when a patient's body is not responding to the treatment they can take it on you, which leads to frustration from both parts. Most of an Athletic Trainer's time is spent standing, crouching, bending, and using his/her muscles; therefore, Athletic Training is as well as emotionally a physically demanding profession.

"Why Sports Medicine?" This is a question I hear over and over again.
I think the main reason why I chose this area of study is because I enjoy helping people and working with them. I am also interested in the complexity of the human body and wellness. I think that being participating in sports is very important and it can be a lot of fun as well. Being active helps in having and maintaining an overall positive attitude and this is the kind of people I would like to work with: optimistic and full of life.
 

Different types of jobs that one can have with an Athletic Training major

Athletic Trainers can be found almost anywhere people are physically active. Whether they are on the playing field or in an industrial work setting Athletic Trainers are in place to help active people prevent injuries and stay healthy. As such, athletic trainers may work in a variety of settings which can include: secondary schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, sports medicine clinics, or other athletic healthcare settings. Related career titles for Athletic Training majors can be: High School\College\University Athletic Trainer, Team Physician, Fitness Consultant, Exercise Physiologist, Aerobics Instructor, Personal Trainer, Teacher, Massage Therapist, Sports Physical Therapist, Fitness Instructor, Sports Dietician, and many others. However, several of these careers may require education beyond a bachelor's degree.

 Many public and private secondary schools offer abundant job  opportunities for Athletic Trainers. Parents and faculty are discovering the benefits a Certified Athletic Trainer can offer in preventing and caring for injuries. Athletic Trainers care for athletes for multiple team sports, as well as cheerleading and other spirit groups. Many Athletic Trainers also teach classes at the high school level.

Certified Athletic Training jobs in Colleges and Universities generally fall in two categories: athletic department staff assignment and combination teacher/athletic trainer.

An Athletic Trainer can also find himself/herself working for a Professional Sport Organization. In this settings, Athletic Trainers are responsible for only one sport, such as football, basketball, baseball, hockey, or soccer. Although teams operate only a few months per year, Athletic Trainers work year-round conditioning and rehabilitating athletes. Fewer jobs are available in this practice setting due to the limited number of teams.

Employment in Sports Medicine Clinics is a growing setting that provides Certified Athletic Trainers the opportunity to work with a number of different health care professionals and a diverse patient population in providing rehabilitation for athletic injuries.

Scientific data & Athletic Training

Scientific data is important in any academic or career area. And one of these areas is also Athletic Training. To improve the health conditions, treatment, as well as prevention of injuries, scientific data is increasingly important as a means of scientific communication and progress in the health care industry. For example, the Center for Disease Control provides scientific data on injury-related mortality data and nonfatal injury data which is useful for research and for making informed public health decisions. Other kinds of scientific data would be researches on different and new types of medications that could improve one's health, treatment and rehabilitation of sport injuries, as well as one's athletic performance, like for example Creatine. There have been many researches done on Creatine to check if it is dangerous to the body and what are possible short and long term side effects.

The importance of the ethical use of data to this area is as important as it is to any other area. Using the data ethical can help practitioners make better use of the information already available and therefore help patients and improve the health care system throughout the world. However, an unethical use of the data can lead to harmful effects. For example, prescribing a large dose of a drug when it is not needed, for personal benefits such as money, can lead to a very bad health condition or in more dramatic cases even to death. Another use of unethical data would be telling someone that his/her injury or disease is not as bad as is it actually is in order for them to not be hurt and scared. In some cases, especially injuries, it is important for the patients to know how serious the injury is so that they can help together with the Athletic Trainer in treating the injury and taking special care of that specific injured part of the body.

Athletic Training & Chemistry

There is definitely a clear connection between these two fields of study: Athletic Training and Chemistry. As an allied health care career Athletic Training involves prescription of medications. Medications are made out of chemicals and therefore the connection between Athletic Training and Chemistry. An Athletic Trainer needs two have some basic knowledge of chemistry to know the difference between certain drugs, what kind of chemicals the drugs contain, and what kind of chemicals can have a positive or negative influence on the body. For example it is important to know what kind of chemical Magnesium is, what is its importance to the human body, and what could happen to the human body if it does not have the necessary amount of Magnesium needed.

Most athletes, at one time or another, have toyed with the idea of supplementing with Creatine. Creatine is used in muscle cells to store energy for sprinting and explosive exercise. Athletes can increase the amount of Creatine in muscle by taking Creatine supplements. Creatine is a compound that can be made in our bodies or taken as a dietary supplement. The chemical name for Creatine is methyl guanidine-acetic acid. Creatine is made up of three amino acids - Arginine, Glycine and Methionine.

Our liver has the ability to combine these three amino acids and make Creatine. The other way we get Creatine is from our diet. It is known that by taking supplements of Creatine a person can provide additional energy for his\hers muscles, increase the volume of the muscles, help buffer lactic acid that builds-up in the muscles during exercise, and enhance Protein Synthesis.

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