This past Friday, we had 6 student trainers participate at the 2023 Alamo Area Athletic Trainers Association Student Trainer Workshop, which was the first time in this program's history to attend! We were part of the biggest size of student trainers in attendance of almost 700 with 40 school districts present! They also got to meet up vendors that I use to order medical supplies/equipment and got experience on how I look for the newest tech in the sports medicine industry to bring to Lytle. They also met some colleges (UIW, UTSA, Howard College, & TLU) that were offering Kinesiology Program information and Athletic Training Programs as well!
Their morning consisted of learning about the knee via live dissection, stages of rehab, handling common injuries in sports, & common knee injuries. Some of our very own student trainers participated in the ankle taping contest, which was a great experience for them to see different variations of taping styles.
In the afternoon, we put our skills to the test at the Student Trainer Olympics. We weren't prepared for the high-level competition there, so my kids are excited about competing next year and practice! They competed in:
- Cooler Lid Discus
- "Ice Bag" Shot Put
- 50 yd Crutch Dash (Annabella Lopez did a heck of a job!)
- Underhand Tape Toss (Klarissa Martinez and Alyssa Scored some big points for us!)
- We didn't compete in the Obstacle Course due to #'s but our goal next year is set for that event!
Overall, it was a great experience for them and motivation to excel their mind and skill set in our program. They also announced that a student trainer program can get recognized each month so that is their mindset to get one of those while competing against the big SA student trainer programs!
This was a great event leading up to the last week of National Athletic Trainers Month, in which AT's and Student Trainers have a month dedicated to the hard work they do for their programs. As the motto on my logo is: "Calm the Storm, Steady the Ship", which means when the storm hits (injuries, getting kids back to play) we are there to calm it down with our best AT skillsets and steady the ship (athletic program) to the end result of a successful season!
BONUS
News 4 covered the event and some of our trainers were in some clips! (we wore our white camo training shirts!)