From theory to practice

What do you need for a successful career in strength and conditioning?

More and more exercise science students seek to follow a strength and conditioning career. For example, students in our concentration. They are eager to go out there and become successful strength and conditioning specialists for competitive athletes. Have you ever wondered what it takes? Our staff and others believe that you need:

  • Sound background in exercise science.
  • Okay, your professors are great, but you need to find a good mentor out in the market as well.
  • Find a lower level position to start with. You don’t need to be the head specialist in the beginning of your career.
  • Get a Master’s degree in “Strength and Conditioning” to be able to bridge the gap between science and practice effectively. It’s a good idea to get in a Masters program that offers intern position at competitive places of the industry.
  • You must always choose to work with great and well-known professors in the Univeristy (Bachelors or Masters) or mentors in the field to provide them as a reference.
  • Go to conferences, seminars, symposia to interact with other professionals and grow you public relations skills. Make contacts.
  • Stay tuned with current knowledge. It doesn’t stop at the University. Never stop reading from valid resources. Become an expert in your area of interest. Don’t fall behind.
  • And of course, write a great CV and make sure you can back it up.

What do you think?

17 thoughts on “From theory to practice”

  1. Wide background knowledge, critical thinking and continuous evaluation , all the practical experience you can get and love for your craft.

  2. 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.

    1. 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.

  3. 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.

    1. 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.

  4. 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.

    1. I see that many of you guys give emphasis in nutrition. Yes, I agree. Bad nutritional habits could throw off all your training.

  5. ‘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.

  6. 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

    1. I agree with you. Nutrition is very important. That’s why we have two nutrition courses in our undergraduate program.

  7. 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!

    1. 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.

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