STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING - WHAT IS IT AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING COACH ?

Strength and conditioning is a construct that is seldom understood. Many practitioners in this field claim to offer 'strength and conditioning' as a service, thereby labelling themselves as strength and conditioning coaches, only to then provide services that don't resemble strength and conditioning at all. The purpose of this article is to discuss what a strength and conditioning coach does and the educational requirements required to work at the top level. Additionally, this article will attempt to define strength and conditioning as a concept, and ultimately, the role of a strength and conditioning coach.

              A strength and conditioning coach (S&C coach) is a trainer who works with athletes. The level the athlete competes at is irrelevant – this ranges from youth to recreational to adult high-performance. Primarily, an S&C coach is responsible for preparing athletes for the season ahead, developing their proficiency with sport-specific movements, improving various performance-related physical components, e.g. strength, and ensuring the athlete is 'conditioned' for the physiological demands of their sport, e.g. energy system development. Additional responsibilities include injury prevention and rehabilitation efforts, wellness monitoring, and performance evaluation through physical performance testing. An S&C coach at the high-performance level is attached to their smart device, utilising applications for storing, managing and analysing client data regarding wellness to determine their readiness to train and compete.

              S&C coaches need to have a thorough understanding of not only the individuals they are working with and trying to improve, but the athlete's sport also. As a result, S&C coaches are forever learning, as they try to improve their understanding, and after that, perfect their craft. No familiarity with the challenges posed to the athlete will make it extremely difficult to improve their performance, and limit the potential for injury.  Some sports are more prone to particular injuries than others. As an example, football players are typically impacted by strains to the thigh, calf, groin and hamstring, and strains or ruptures of knee ligaments. In contrast baseball players, particularly pitchers, are prone to rotator cuff tears, ulnar collateral ligament tears, and elbow tendinitis. This information is invaluable in setting an athlete up for success and informing programming.

              Improving an athlete’s performance is paramount. Generally speaking, improvements in strength, power, agility, speed, technique, cardiovascular fitness and body composition are desirable. The focus depends on the demands of the sport, and other factors like playing position. The needs analysis is crucial and requires input from others, such as sports coaches, high-performance managers, physiotherapists, surgeons and team doctors. The programming is thus multifactorial. The S&C coach could train athletes individually or together in groups for some activities (fitness work). Scheduling demands can make it tricky. S&C coaches at the top level are more likely to facilitate primer sessions on game day or the day before, and recovery sessions the day after. The primer sessions allow the S&C coach to provide the athlete with an edge in competition.

In contrast, the recovery sessions help athletes to recuperate and adapt, often determining an athlete's health and wellness status as well, which is essential because it can highlight when daily or weekly volume and intensity fluctuations are required. You have to be adaptable as a result – things can change quickly in the world of high performance. Practises can be cancelled or moved, players can pick up injuries, require sports massage or physiotherapy, and they can subsequently miss gym-based sessions. In-season is particularly challenging, and maintenance of acquired physical qualities from the off-season and pre-season is usually the primary focus. The S&C coach often has input into travel requirements concerning hydration, nutrition and sleep. All these scheduling challenges and the many components of performance that require attention mean that the S&C coach must have a thorough understanding of the concepts of periodisation. What is hopefully clear at this point is that strength and conditioning is a specialist field. Consequently, there are academic requirements that must be acquired by anyone hoping to operate as an S&C coach.

              As detailed above, an S&C coach specialises in improving athletes’ physical prowess in pursuit of performance-related goals. By definition strength is the state or quality of being strong, but strength has many sub-types. You can be strong in the sense that you can resist fatigue, or as a result of the increased physiological or anatomical cross-sectional area of muscles. Additionally, you can be maximally strong due to neural adaptations like improved firing frequency, synchronisation and motor unit recruitment. We also know that most athletes need muscular power, which is the product of force and velocity. Our muscles’ force-producing capabilities, when improved, can lead to increases in muscular power. So, an S&C coach is not just someone who makes you stronger, despite the term strength being in their title. Strength can come in many forms.

              By definition, conditioning is the process of getting someone accustomed to behaving in a certain way, or under certain environmental or social conditions. The physical demands of a sport are the ecological conditions that an athlete must be prepared for; further, in team sports specifically, playing position sets out the parameters that define the characteristics the athlete must possess for their role within that environment. Tactical approaches and rules of the sport as determined by the sport's governing body, e.g. FIFA, NZRU etc. also dictate the environment. Because of these factors, every sporting environment in existence is chaotic to a degree. So, conditioning is not just being fit or getting someone fit. Conditioning refers to movement competencies, movement patterns, and degree of movement quality as well as being fit. It also refers to being fit specifically for the sport based on its physical demands. Therefore, being conditioned appropriately is paramount. If you are aerobically fit, but not proficient using anaerobic energy systems, and you compete in a 200 m sprint event; you are not conditioned for the event at hand, despite being superbly fit overall.

              Lastly, the science and the body of research provides a foundation on which the S&C coach can design training programmes to improve their athletes. We know what works and what does not work. However, scheduling demands, among other chaotic factors within a high-performance environment, make programming exponentially challenging. As a result, the S&C coach needs to be fluid and adaptable; perhaps they should be thought of as an artist. The many training variables and resources available are their colour palette. There is a point where science meets art. Only the genuinely artistic, those who can flow, bob and weave during the chaos, in an ever-changing environment, while still achieving success with their athletes, can be considered the best of the best. Strength and conditioning is, therefore, a multifactorial process involving the pursuit of performance improvement in athletes, and maintenance of health and wellness of athletes, within a fluid, ever-evolving environment.