"You can't beat it," he crowed. "It hits your pecs and glutes and activates your core."
Annaccone, 28, an assistant athletic trainer at Clarion University, in Western Pennsylvania, was in town for the annual meeting of the National Athletic Trainers' Association, which ends today. The event has drawn a record turnout - 7,200 trainers, or ATCs, from all over, including schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, the armed forces, pro sports teams, cultural organizations (ballet corps, the Rockettes, to name a few), private industry, and orthopedic practices.
If you were unlucky enough to sprain an ankle or throw out a shoulder, the Convention Center was the place to be.
But while Annaccone runs five days a week and lifts weights on alternate days, many of his colleagues didn't sport a chiseled look. After all, this was not a convention of personal trainers, the cut and buff Adonises and Valkyries whose vocation is to help their clients beautify and perfect their bodies.
Athletic trainers take pains to draw that distinction. To call one of them merely "a trainer" is to cast an insult and poke a sore.
Athletic trainers are bachelor's- and master's-degreed providers of sports medicine who try to prevent, diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate injuries. They must pass a rigorous examination before winning the ATC credential.
"A personal trainer handles conditioning and nutrition," said convention attendee Al Green, 59, an athletic trainer at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla. "An athletic trainer takes care of the total health of an athlete."
The nature of modern athletic training is suggested by some of the topics of the convention sessions: "Ulnar Collateral Rehab in the Throwing Athlete"; "ACL Repair: One Bundle vs. Two Bundle Technique"; "Is It the Hip or Athletic Pubalgia."
