READ ALSO: “ How to Build an Online Following from Scratch ”Īll the accomplished coaches seemed to be on the other side of the pond in North America. Again, nothing. Either there were no accomplished coaches in Europe I could learn from, or they weren’t active online I cast my net wider and Googled hockey strength coaches in Europe. I also wanted to speak to coaches who were developing athletes, not merely training established ones. Now I had to land an internship with an experienced strength coach who specialized in training hockey players. In the meantime, I read all the classic training books by accomplished strength coaches, watched DVDs, and attended seminars. When the day came, I wanted to know enough about training hockey players that my lack of athletic glory wouldn’t be viewed as a negative. READ ALSO: “ Do Trainers Need a College Degree to be Successful?”įor me, it would take much more than a phone call to an old teammate who (conveniently) happens to run the show at one of the biggest clubs in the country, and letting him know I’d be interested in a job, thank you very much. In the beginning, it’s not what you know, or how skilled you are as a coach it’s about who you know. You can’t overlook the benefit of being an insider and knowing the people who make hiring decisions.Īnd if you want to become a strength coach in a sport you didn’t play at a high level (like me), you have to work even harder to get a chance to prove yourself. I know for a fact that many hockey clubs hire ex-players as strength coaches these days. Step 1: Do your homeworkīreaking into any new industry without prior experience and/or the right connections is difficult. I also hoped that I could land an internship with an ice hockey strength coach who had experience working with college and professional players because that’s the clientele I hoped to train.ĭid I make it? Yes. I decided to find a mentor who was doing what I wanted to do and could show me the ropes. It’s a completely different world than working 1-on-1 with a client or running a 6 a.m. Most importantly, you need to have the organizational and leadership skills to run a weight room. The latter requires being well-versed in the science and practice of powerlifting, Olympic lifting, sprinting and jumping, conditioning, rehab, and anything else that goes into building stronger, faster, more resilient athletes. It sounds odd looking back now, but at the time I had serious doubts if I could make the jump from personal trainer to strength coach. Meanwhile, I would spend whatever free time I had reading books written by Poliquin, Boyle, DeFranco, Zatsiorsky, and other big names in the field.Īs much as those resources helped me learn theory, I knew I’d never train any athletes unless I made the conscious commitment to pursuing just that. Like most new trainers, I got my feet wet by training the general population in my hometown of Helsinki, Finland. A big part of my dream included helping elite athletes become-and remain-elite. Becoming a strength and conditioning coach had been a dream of mine ever since I got into the fitness industry a decade ago.
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