Trainers Who Want To Be Just What The Doctor Ordered
By: Catherine St. Louis
http://www.nytimes.com
An internist at first detected nothing, said Ms. Griscom, who said her goal is to “create a team between the person, their body, their doctor and me.” But when his pain persisted, Ms. Griscom urged him to go back, realizing that the degree of his suffering was not normal. She said his internist found an abdominal aneurysm, a potentially life-threatening condition.
In another case, she said, a young woman who was months away from marrying kept complaining of dizziness and nausea, even when she wasn’t exerting herself that hard. Ms. Griscom, who has a master’s in biomechanics, advised her to seek medical help, and after blood work, she was found to have diabetes.
Some trainers are afraid to send their clients to a doctor, fearing they will lose their business.
Others — the more dangerous kind — take it on themselves to diagnose their clients’ injuries. That problem is so pervasive that one type of continuing-education certification available to trainers — medical exercise specialist — teaches them to assess when a potential client’s needs are beyond their expertise. Nearly 8,000 people worldwide have been certified by the academy of fitness and rehabilitation professionals, up from 37 in 1994.
But once an injured client has been treated by a medical professional, there is often a role for the trainer, especially for certain kinds of back and neck problems.