Mar 11, 2026How AI can help athletic trainers
AI, or Artificial Intelligence, has been around for a few years now and is becoming incorporated into our everyday lives. There are news reports every day on the ins and outs of AI and how it is used. As for use by athletic trainers, it is becoming necessary to use or at least become familiar with, but it should be approached with some caution due to the intellectual complexity of what it can generate. Like any technology, it has an upside and a downside.
Knowing how to use AI correctly is important, and it can help ATs in many ways. To learn more about AI, let’s start with some basic concepts of what AI is and progress to how athletic trainers can use it to our advantage. The focus of this article is to show how AI can assist ATs in their daily practice. Any use of AI for students, education, or research is beyond the scope of this article.
How can ATs use AI?
According to ChatGPT, “It can be used to automate repetitive tasks, analyze large datasets, make predictions, enhance decision-making, and improve customer experiences.” It must be used effectively to ensure it is done ethically and responsibly, aligning with human values and privacy standards. This is an ongoing challenge for AI.
Athletic trainers can use it to establish various rehab programs, acquire injury prevention suggestions, organize the best scheduling in any given field, and find out contraindications for different programs and procedures for any given injury.
As ATs, we are the medical professionals providing a service to athletes, and we should understand that AI is only a resource to be used to assist us in our professional decisions with athletes and their assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of sports injuries. It’s unlikely AI will replace ATs in the near future, but ATs do need to learn how and when to use AI for their own personal development and knowledge.
When using AI, we must review what it puts out and check to see that the words and concepts are correct and that it says what you want it to say. It is a known fact that sometimes AI can get information that may not be entirely accurate, as it pulls from many resources. At this point, AI has to be used cautiously.
I think practitioners need to be careful when using it to predict a diagnosis based on whatever input you include, and if you do this, check and recheck the facts of the case.
In addition, one key to using AI is how the question is prompted. The wording of the question or direction you are giving AI has to be precise about what you want. Do not be vague (i.e., “What is a good shoulder rehab program?”). A more appropriate direction would be: “Design a left shoulder rehab program for a 20-year-old collegiate football player two weeks post op from a Bankart procedure with no contraindications.”
The direction received is only as good as the prompt given to it. Since you don’t know exactly where the content of information you receive is coming from, you have to be very careful about how you perceive it.
Concerns/Precautions
It has been stated that AI can generate false data, so again, we have to be careful and thoroughly examine what it generates before using it. Remember that FERPA and HIPAA have to always be considered when using different athletes and their data — even when names are not used. Written permission from the individual is always a good idea, just for your protection. Think about your Policies and Procedures of your place of employment when using AI, as more employers are setting rules on how, when, and where to use AI.
Be careful if you are using your own ideas, original thoughts, or concepts in an article (like this one) or research, because AI may not give you credit when using the information. Remember, it pulls its information from many resources.
Conclusion
AI is here to stay in most aspects of our daily lives, and it can be a great asset for coaches and administrators. For coaches, AI can speed up most of the admin duties from practice schedules to position drills and reconditioning equipment. AI can help with efficiency, so coaches can put more time into game planning and essential meetings. Athletic directors can really benefit from AI with scheduling venues, games, staff, officials, breaks, and meetings with various entities.
AI is in junior high to professional sports and is involved in all parts of sports administration. ChatGPT can lay out specific practice plans and upgrade and change them often according to new information that comes out, so the most productive and time-efficient ones are used. Same with specific drills for all parts of sports conditioning and rehab programs. It can give suggestions on any part of sport training, conditioning, administration, and total season planning.
One thing to keep in mind is that it cannot replace the human factor and is considered to be a helpful tool to assist in many areas in sports, and will only continue to be more visible in the workplace. Use AI now and get comfortable with it — knowing it may replace some jobs in the future, but not all. Work to keep the human factor alive because the personal relationships developed and maintained throughout anyone’s career are valuable and should not be discounted. Keep AI in its place.
