Thursday, January 29, 2009

What does a strength coach need

Ashley Jones is a very good friend of mine and one of the best Athletic Development coaches I know. He presently works with the Crusaders Rugby organisation in NZ who are probably the best club rugby side in the World. (see earlier post where we did an interview with Ash) Anyway he regularly writes for a great site getstrength.com and here is an interesting article on what he thinks is required to work in this buisness


Written by Ashley Jones
Monday, 04 August 2008 16:13

I am not a sports scientist; I am a strength and conditioning coach. One man’s opinion. By Ashley Jones

No matter what else the person has if they can not communicate, empathise and organize then every other qualification they have is useless. Personally, I do not think you need a degree to do this job, it helps when things are not going right to have something to fall back upon to rationalize but it is not the be all and end all or the first thing I would look at if employing someone. I know of an excellent coach who has continually been discriminated against because he does not have formal tertiary qualifications, but he has studied his entire life, attending seminars done internships with Poliquin, Chek, Siff and Ian King. Conversely I have interviewed graduates who can not tell me the teaching points for a squat or who do not actually train themselves. What do I want to see, when I look at a resume?
1. Australian Strength & Conditioning Association (or equivalent) coaching qualifications
2. A recognized national weight lifting federation coaching qualification
3. A training history and even a competition or two under your belt, you do not have to be a world class athlete to know how to train and compete, “Time Under the Bar” (Dave Tate)
4. What do you read on a regular basis; just to highlight a few areas and examples: · Web sites; t-nation, elitefts, strength and conditioning, getstrength · Books; supertraining, The Encyclopaedia of Weightlifting, Science and Practice of Strength Training, Russian Training Manuals · Authors; Brooks Kubik, Bill Starr, Jim Smitz, Louie Simmons, Dave Tate, Lyn Jones, Bud Jefrries · Journals; Milo, Strength and Conditioning, Soviet Sports Training Review
5. A copy of your programs and then organizing a group in a practical session
6. Who have you trained previously, and I will ring and check and ask would you have this person train you again and why have they moved on
7. Formal tertiary qualifications, can you stick at something long enough to earn something
8. What is your personal philosophy in strength & conditioning, What do you Stand For! This are in no ranked order but they would be the areas I would consider when I would be short listing and then finalizing, obviously my own personal biases come through strongly in this listing, but as said at the commencement, just one man’s opinion.
Cheers, Ash

Sounds good to me and a may also add that your not frozen in your ways and you are open to change if it is required.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Books, i highly recommend Mark Rippetoe's & Lon Kilgore Starting Strenght 2nd edition and Practical Programming for Strenght Training.

The best books about strenght training and programming i have ever read.

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I think that it is great that he is marking the boundaries about his specialization. I should be like this for people to know about it.

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