If you’re a footballer, your coaches may have told you to hire a personal trainer. However, the best investment you can make is in hiring a strength and conditioning coach. An experienced strength & conditioning coach will help increase speed, power, agility, and jumping ability and prevent injuries during training sessions. It’s time to take your game from good to great!
What is a Personal Trainer?
First and foremost, what exactly is a personal trainer? Most gyms need you to have a Level 3 certificate in Personal Training to train the general public in one-on-one sessions. This assures you have all of the essential abilities to comprehend the anatomy of training and construct basic programs for customers. The PT market is quickly expanding, and Level 3 courses can vary significantly in content and delivery, so if this is a path you want to take, make sure you choose a company with a solid industry reputation, positive student feedback, and CIMSPA accreditation.
Personal trainers may work out of gyms and other athletic facilities, within a hospital or clinic, or as freelance private trainers. These professionals design exercise programs to help individuals improve their health, well-being, fitness, and physiques. Other personal trainers may work in public gyms, fitness centers, or retirement homes, motivating groups of people to exercise, eat right and get into shape. Some personal trainers earn ancillary certifications in specialized fitness areas such as yoga or Zumba. However, during private or small group sessions, they mostly use traditional cardiovascular, strength-training, and flexibility techniques.
Job responsibilities of a personal trainer include:
- Design individualized fitness plans for clients
- Monitor progress using tools such as BMI, body fat percentage, and measurements
- Adjust fitness plans to meet evolving client needs
- Maintain a safe environment for clients at all times
What is a Strength and Conditioning Coach?
A university degree in Exercise and Sport Science is required to work as a strength and conditioning coach. Strength and conditioning coaches, like the ones at Prepare Like a Pro, work with athletes to help them prepare their bodies so that they can compete at their best. It’s simply a matter of periodizing the training plan according to the athlete’s competition year to provide sufficient training and rest. The strength and conditioning coach must work with the athlete based on their sport and, more precisely, their position. A winger’s long-term training strategy will differ from that of a key forward. When it comes to becoming a successful strength and conditioning coach, education, experience, and science play essential roles.
In the last few decades, athletic teams have increasingly hired strength and conditioning coaches to help elevate the physical performance of their athletes. A strength and conditioning coach analyzes the sport, positions, and players to develop individualized training plans to increase strength, speed, stamina, agility, etc. Strength and conditioning coaches design workout schedules, demonstrate exercises, and coach athletes through workouts. Injury prevention is a significant part of the programs they design, as athletic injuries can be devastating for the player and team. They may work with special populations, particularly rehabilitating athletes, though they may also work with other medical patients under a physician’s supervision and recommendation.
Job responsibilities of a strength and conditioning coach include:
- Conduct tests for agility, strength, endurance, and power
- Interpret and analyze sports, players, and positions
- Design seasonal training programs for multiple positions and teams
- Monitor the performance progress of athletes
- Provide nutritional and recovery guidance
- Lead and educate during training sessions
Reasons Why You Should Hire a Strength and Conditioning Coach and Not a Personal Trainer
1) They Know Your Sport
This is crucial to your success. Olympic sprinters and marathon runners have different training needs, as do basketball players and tennis players. If you play football, hire a strength and conditioning coach who understands what it takes to become a better football player. Remember that you are hiring a professional for their knowledge and experience, not their ability to coach you through an exercise.
2) They Can Help with Injury Prevention
Strength training is crucial for injury prevention. If your trainer has no knowledge or experience in strength and conditioning, they cannot prescribe proper exercises that reduce your risk of injury. A good strength and conditioning coach knows the balance between workout intensity and recovery time. This is something that the coaches at Prepare Like a Pro are adept at. They can decide how hard to train each muscle for optimal strength without compromising your tendons, joints, or ligaments.
Not only does a strength and conditioning coach have experience in training athletes who are vulnerable to injury due to their sport, but they also know when to push an athlete so that his performance doesn’t suffer and when to back off so that he doesn’t get hurt.
3) They Know How to Train You Properly
Being an athlete is about becoming stronger than you were yesterday. A good strength and conditioning coach will know just how much weight/resistance to prescribe at the perfect time in your training cycle. They will also have an in-depth knowledge of when to add weight, which is crucial to avoiding injury.
4) They Know the Best Exercises for You
A personal trainer can be a jack of all trades, able to perform every exercise in the gym with expertise. However, this doesn’t mean that they will know which exercises are best suited for you. A strength and conditioning coach, such as those over at Prepare Like A Pro, knows exactly what needs to be strengthened to provide maximum benefits, depending on your sport. They will combine the most effective exercises into a workout plan that will help you reach your goals.
5) They Know How to Get You ResultsÂ
Getting the right results doesn’t just mean
building muscle and shedding fat we must focus all our energy on improving game day performance! Personal trainers may not know how to achieve this goal for you effectively if they don’t understand your sport and goals. A strength and conditioning coach will know exactly what combination of exercises is necessary for you to see performance benefits!
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