Category: News & Information
Humans of Health Sciences: Jillian Seamon, HS12
"Weightlifting is mentally and emotionally taxing. I think with my background as a javelin thrower, I've always been pretty good at handling that because it's an individual sport. You have to stay really engaged and you can't let there be distractions, but at the same time, you can't be so tense and hyper-focused that there's almost too much intensity because they're both technical movements that you have to have some level of finesse. At UD, it was just me and two other girls on the throwing team, and then a whole bunch of these monstrous guys, so I was just folded into that, and that’s where I really fell in love with the weight room.
I think it’s important to send the message out to girls that lifting is going to help you be better in sports, stay injury-free, empower you to be a better person and have more confidence in life. After I graduated from UD, it's like you've been an athlete your whole life - now what? In my very first interview with Dr. Tom Kaminski, I said that I wanted to be an athletic trainer at the Olympics. My dream in life is to go to the Olympics at some point, some way, in some form. I went on to grad school at the University of Georgia and East Stroudsburg University, and now I'm working on my doctorate of athletic training at Moravian College. Dr. K kind of nudged me, inspired me to this direction.
I work at St. Luke's University Health Network as lead athletic trainer but I’m more of a think tank, as my boss would call me. We’re in charge of developing new programs and running new initiatives, specifically with me using my career as a weightlifter. The big program is called 'Empower with Power.' It’s a women’s weightlifting program for girls from 7th through 12th grade. We get them in the weight room because there’s such a stigma that the weight room is for guys. It’s macho, the loud weights clanging around - girls get intimidated - so I wanted to provide something where girls can get strong because I saw how much better it made my career and how much stronger you will get.
I was selected as one of 12 women from across the country to go to Brazil for a week in March 2020 for a coaching exchange program. It was way more fulfilling than just seeing where the Olympics were. We were going into the favelas, into what we equated to a Boys and Girls Club, where it was such an outlet for children to come play sports, get help with homework and learn home ec type things.
We did leadership sessions, gender equality sessions. The gender inequality in Brazil is so much greater than it is here. Girls are brought up to be homemakers and that's it. Little boys are given a soccer ball right out of the womb and girls have to help clean and cook. At these places that we visited, they're like, no - these girls can grow up to be strong women and we're going to give them a soccer ball. It was really enlightening. I met a lot of cool people, got a lot of good ideas, and then it was kind of unfortunate that we came home and were quarantined for three months because it felt like all those good ideas couldn't be put to use yet.
When I was in grad school, I listened to the Simon Sinek talk, 'Find Your Why,' and I decided my ‘why’ is I want to inspire others to live their best, happiest, healthiest lives, and I found that through my platform of lifting. I was lucky to find strength training as an outlet to express my athleticism and competitiveness, and also gain confidence for life."
- Jillian Seamon, UD alumna, Lead Athletic Trainer at St. Luke's University Health Network
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