3 Considerations for Early Career Success in Strength and Conditioning

Still thinking of myself as being at the beginning of my own path, I hope that my past four years of experience and learnings can help provide value to those who are in the stage of just starting out. Here are some lessons I’ve picked up along the way, and wish I would've known earlier.

1. Seek Experience, and Get Your Hands Dirty

Strength and Conditioning is something I knew I’ve wanted to do from a very early age. In high school, I would spend a large amount of time consuming as much information as I could - reading everything I could relating to the field. I assumed that the more information I could consume, the better I would be as a future strength coach. Having no context to apply what I was learning only led to a nonstop cycle of consuming yet not using - thus as a result, the temporarily acquired information was in one ear and oftentimes out the other. 

Therefore my advice for aspiring coaches is to seek out deliberate coaching opportunities, often done through shadowing or internship roles. If you can get this role paid for, then great. However in this field, the reality is that you are probably going to invest your time for experience. 

I have completed 4 different unpaid internships amongst the collegiate and private levels. As a result of such experiences, I have been exposed to various environments, athlete populations, programming methodologies, coaching styles, and staff dynamics - all of which making me a better coach going forward.

When starting out, it is important to seek out an opportunity which will allow you to grow as a coach, not be a passive spectator. A good tip is to reach out to past or current interns and ask targeted questions to get a better idea on the role. 

The take home message for this point is that real growth is achieved through doing, so go ahead and seek out a deliberate experience which allows you to put some skin in the game. Your future self will thank you.

2. Attack Your Craft with Vengeance, Yet Realize the Long Game

To be the best coach you can be, it requires persistent learning. There is an abundance of topics to master, and it can be extremely overwhelming as a young coach. Trust me, I have spent my time being overwhelmed by the never ending topics of sports performance. 

An important step is to apply what you are learning actively. If I could go back in time and tell myself something - it would be this. Here are some different practices which have helped me: make a presentation on what you are learning and teach it to someone (teaching is the highest form of learning), actively ingrain what you are learning into your own training, or find other ways to make something complex more simple (synthesize it down in your own terms).

Pro Tip: Seek out Dr. Ramsey Nijem’s Applied Performance Coach Certification if you are looking to expedite your understanding on the field of sports performance.

3. Understand that the X’s and O’x are Only a Part of Success 

There is so much to unpack for this topic, however real success in most fields comes down to communication. In the context of coaching, improved communication can range from being more articulate with your words to provoke the necessary change in movement strategy, more success in commanding a room of over 40 athletes, better clarity of other support staff’s ideas for athlete management, or ultimately having a more impactful relationships with the people you work with. Simply put, better communication abilities equate to better career outcomes. 

The best programming techniques in the world will never matter if you cannot get an athlete to buy in and do it. Getting better in this area requires deliberate reps and experience as a coach. While every coach wishes they could skip ahead to the part where they are a master communicator, the reality is that this is a never ending process, and requires real experience and efforts to improve. In addition to obtaining actual coaching reps, there are certainly other resources which can help assist the process of improvement. A great list of supplemental resources on communication include: Dale Carnige’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, Michael Stanier’s “The Coaching Habit”, and Brett Bartholowmew’s “Conscious Coaching”. Remember that steps cannot be skipped, and experience is the ultimate teacher here. 

Summary

Writing this article definitely promoted a degree of imposter syndrome, I hope these insights through my journey can help provide some clarity for those thinking about getting in the field.

To summarize, a young strength and conditioning coach should seek out real-world experience through internships and shadowing opportunities, actively apply what they are learning, and prioritize establishing communication skills early on. Standing out in the early years of the field is not easy, and as a result you will have to bet on yourself early and deliberately seek out opportunities as they present themselves. Realize that this process will never be a linear path, as there will be obstacles to overcome, positions that you may miss out on, mistakes that you will make, etc. At the end of the day, it is critical to keep moving forward and making progress despite these unavoidable difficulties. The role as a strength and conditioning coach offers such a unique opportunity to make a real world impact, providing the chance to develop impactful relationships, develop winning habits in athletes, and provide value in a competitive environment. Always remember the bigger purpose, and let your drive to create impact in the world lead you.