HOW TO GET A JOB AS A STRENGTH COACH

What you need to get a job as a strength coach.

So, you really want a strength and conditioning job.

This means:

  • long hours

  • low pay

  • poor job security

  • low overall autonomy in major decisions.

These shortcomings don’t dissuade you though because you look at becoming a strength coach as a calling. You accept them as a necessary evil to doing something you love. 

Great, now what do you need to get a job?

You Need Two things: experience and a network.

 Are all experiences created equal? Are all networks the same?

The obvious answer is no. The next question is,

“ how do you as a coach, evaluate if  an experience is worthwhile and will better connect you to the right network.”

As we dive into this, we need to acknowledge that there is a natural conflict in the coaching field.

A higher-profile organization or program might provide the opportunity for a better network, but could be lacking in experience that you need to adequately develop the skills to coach at a high level.

Conversely, you can go to a lower profile organization or program get all the experience you could ever want, and still get nothing because there is no one you can use as a reference. 

So where do you start?

appraise your strengths and weaknesses. Follow with a premortem.

An appraisal of your Strength and Weaknesses is not an inventory of your good lifts.

At this stage, your personal accomplishments of training is anecdotal and not an indicator of your ability to coach someone else effectively. 

Knowledge:

  • Level of Education in Exercise Science/Exercise Physiology/Kinesiology

  • Certifications combination of Governing Body and Specific Skills

  • Resources: Seminars, Books, Articles

Experience:

  • Internships in related situations

  • Playing and Training Experiences

  • Jobs that give valuable skills

Network:

  • People in place capable of hiring you directly that you can email

  • People that know those people

  • People that will be willing to speak positively on your behalf

Intangibles:

  • Humility - willingness to do any job

  • Earnestness - follow through on all jobs

  • Intuition - see where you can bring value without being told

  • Personality - ability to engage

  • Selflessness - the ability to others first

  • Friendliness - generally a nice person

Self-evaluation is difficult.

Another way to do it is to find a coach, or any person for that matter, that you most want to replicate, and inventory the things they are doing better than you. 

Next is setting up a premortem. The goal of a premortem is the zero in limiting factors and create a strategy to eliminate them.

Once you have done a self-evaluation and premortem, what’s next?

You need to plug in experiences or connection a network that will address the things you identified.

The experiences you choose should be determined by what you lacked in your self-evaluation and premortem.

Randomly applying to anywhere that may potentially take you is not an efficient strategy.

Patience is a virtue here.

Most professions require years of apprenticeship before they can be certified (Plumbers take upwards to 5 years).

To put things in perspective, you are working with dynamic living things, there are so many things that could go wrong on any given day with any given person; it takes time to truly have an idea what is happening, and to function on a high-level consistently.

Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

Getting your first job is an opportunity.

Your preparation to that point is how you get lucky. 

If you only intern at places that never have job openings or take so many interns that they cannot even remember your name, you will never have an opportunity.

 If you only take internships that have you set up, breakdown, and clean you will never be adequately prepared.

You need both. Enter Allegiate.

At Allegiate we take great pride in job placement. 

We have been fortunate to help people evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and provide them with the opportunities and preparation to succeed.

We accomplish through: 

-an advanced curriculum that will challenge your knowledge.   

- on the job training that you will be up in front groups multiple times per day. 

 - implementing and participating in a program that is not simple in structure.

-demanding you to have incredible understanding of how to implement any program in any setting at a high level. 

*If interested in interning with us, click https://www.allegiategym.com/about-index and scroll down to put your information in to apply and then be interviewed.



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