Wide background knowledge, critical thinking and continuous evaluation , all the practical experience you can get and love for your craft. Reply
Sales! What a trainer needs today to be successful, other than knowledge in the field, is knowing how to sell himself. From my academic and professional experience, knowing how the body works ( physiology) is useless if you can’t use (sell) that knowledge. Practice without knowledge, is to sail an uncharted sea. Knowledge without practice, is not to set sail at all. Reply
This is correct. I am trying to find a specialist in this are for my students. How to sell yourself is important. And how to organize your personal training business is also significant. Reply
Remain hungry for knowledge. Find an area you want to learn more about, research it, and publish an article on it or give a presentation about it. It’s a great learning tool. Reply
So true, but so awkward for the mentality of Greek professionals I think. I know a few guys who do that. It makes them search the literature and update their knoweldge. I really enjoyed the book published on small sided games by Cristos Mourikis. Excellent fitness coach and excellent scientist in his field. Reply
A coach except solid coaching skills must develop his mental and mind skills. He needs to have a clear thought and compromise his knowledge with logical thinking in the field. Also strength and conditioning coaches should learn basic and advanced nutritional skills and other factor above training. A trainee even with the best training protocols will never afford the best possible results if other factors like nutrition is not well planned too. Reply
I see that many of you guys give emphasis in nutrition. Yes, I agree. Bad nutritional habits could throw off all your training. Reply
‘Know thyself’! Find out what is your best attribute or biggest talent. Strive to be an interdisciplinarian and multidisciplinarian; do not overspecialize in one narrow area but rather consider pursuing and cultivating skillsets and proficiencies while drawing from other ‘sister’ disciplines or sub-disciplines of your field. Reply
Complete knowledge of exercise science as well as nutrition In Greece we may separate these two aspects but in the rest of the world S&C coaches are learning both Furthermore they need to step on the field every single day to train for themselves as well as on everyday reading Continuing education from established associations is the key Reply
I agree with you. Nutrition is very important. That’s why we have two nutrition courses in our undergraduate program. Reply
Learn about Human behaviour and psychology, because we have to do with people needs, emotions, fears and perspectives. And of course based on all the above, learn about the effective communication. I think it would be great, if our universities could implement courses on that subject! Reply
Spiro, I see that many faulks believe that behavior and psychology are important. I will try to incorporate more topics in this area in our curriculum. Reply
Empty every day your mind so you can fill it with new things,new ideas, new techniques from people who knose something more than us. Reply