Article reposted from KIVI-TV 6
Author: Dan Hawk
The Bronco Gymnastics team has shown that they are a force to be reckoned with on the floor. The ladies finished the regular season with an undefeated record and won back to back MRGC Titles. With this success, the Bronco athletes need time with a trainer to stay in Tip-Top shape to compete.
Keita Shimada joined Boise State’s Sports Medicine program as a full-time assistant athletic trainer in 2010. Shimada works with gymnasts and the men’s and women’s golf team. He has become a catalyst to the bronco program. Athletes have come to rely on Shimada for all of their injuries and ailments.
“We can have about seven or eight people going all at once so my heads always on a swivel, so I’m always monitoring for injuries; and also in between practices, if someone needs some type of medical attention, I’m there to do that,” said, Boise State Assistant Athletic Trainer Keita Shimada.
Shimada is the first person in the building and the last one to leave. He has become the go-to guy for the past 6 years for Boise State.
“It starts with treatments in the morning, depending on the gymnast’s class schedule. We start from 7 to 7:30 in the morning, and we go to probably 11 to 11:30 for rehab treatments. Once that’s done, I start changing and getting ready for practice,” said Shimada.
His knowledge of the sport has extended a helping hand to Co-head coach Neil Resnick of the gymnastics program. Neil identifies injury prevention and clinical diagnosis.
“He virtually knows the mechanics of our skills, what’s going to be necessary for them to stay healthy, to do those skills, and he’s continually on those facets of their fitness,” said Co-Head Coach of Boise State’s Women’s Gymnastics Team Neil Resnick.
Shimada is native to Tokyo, Japan. He moved to New York when he was five years old and was always fascinated by the idea of helping athletes. In Japan, though, athletic training is not as available between high schools and college institutions; and for Shimada, his goal is to bring that knowledge back to his country.
“Hopefully, by then when I’m fifty and old, I would like to be able to do that and take it back home and help continue to develop what they got going on right now,” Said Shimada.
Keita Shimada will continue working with the Boise State’s Sports Medicine program, and hopes to one day be the head of sports medicine at a school in the future.