Hello,
I am at a crossroads personally. Within the next 6 months I would like to decide where my professional life will take me. As for someone in the strength and conditioning/exercise world what options are there to have a steady income? I am thinking that IF I chose to stay in this business I should finish my masters in education so I can coach as well as teach physical education. For the run of the mill person (who isnât a self promotor on a Paul Chek scale) wanting to stay in the business without being a personal trainer what options are there that have stability? Also, how easy is it to find a job as a Physical Education teacher? Perhaps Football Coach can shed some light on the pros and cons of PE teaching.
Nightfly,
I went through teachers college well over 20 years ago and when I came out there were no jobs anywhere in Canada unless you wanted to go the the Far North. Southern Ontario is already too far north and too cold so I passed. When jobs eventually came available I was already established in my business otherwise I would have loved to have been a phys ed teacher and football coach.
I get by the high school down the street and help coach football a few days a week and stopped in this afternoon to help with the strength program. The kids are amazing. And they want to learn.
I think itâs a great career. If you show passion and you know how to coach the kids will love you. So will parents, the PTA and most principals. The rewards in addition to a good income and holidays is watching young kids learn to play their sports properly. Iâve been part of university national championships in football in Canada and this past fall the JR. high school team I help with won the City A Division for the first time since 1968 and the happiness on these kids faces was every bit as genuine as that of the university players.
If you want to make a difference in young boys and girls lives be a teacher and coach.
Football Coach
Football coach, great post, hopefully nightfly will see it i reminds me a post by Angella Coon few weeks ago and it was very inspirational (spelling?).
Thanks Pierre and your spelling is correct.
Nightfly,
Are you working with ahtletes at all right now? Or are you coming from a different industry all together?
I am coming out of the corporate fitness/personal training industry. Helping fat ladies who are lazy is not either a good career choice or rewarding to me. I was trained as an athletic trainer (BS Physical Education), decided to go into fitness and have painted myself into a corner I suppose. I have the worthless but needed cerifications from the NSCA. I envy Football Coach in being able to calll the shots. In the past I had to kiss ass of people who cared less about getting in shape than I do in getting myself a male companion. This is one of the few intelligent areas where I donât expect some kid being a prick behind his computer and I respect what people have to say here.
Hang in there! Dont loose your focus. I am not even in fitness. I got out of personal training because, to make money you had to be a really good BS artist. I could not deal with it back then. Now that I am older I have learned you have to be this way in all areas of life. Its just part of the gameâŚWith a degree in PE I would get into teaching and coaching. By the way there are some young kids in here but they know more than their own coachesâŚ
I donât know if this is feasible for you right now, but have you thought of trying to open your own gym? It would allow you to stay involved in strength and conditioning and call your own shots. In addition to setting up the weight room properly (which is rare in commercial gyms) you would be able to set up very effective training programs for your clientele that donât have to conform to worthless corporate policy outlines. Once you start producing great results with the average gym member, word will spread fast. To become more involved with competitive athletes, you could make special arrangements with various team programs for access to your facilities. Just an idea.
Sorry but that was too funny!
I feel your pain completely. I too hate the commercial personal training, it always seems like a good idea, but without fail, it sucks every time. Someone made a good point when they said that you have to be like that in all areas of your life. If you are not, it will drive you crazy :eek:. I too am going to get into the teacher/coach role. This seems to be the best route, and the most enjoyable too.
Another decient route would be to try to get on as a coach/ and or Strength Coach for a private high school. Most public schools cannot support that in the budget, but some private schools can. It just depends were you are.
I wouldnât recommend opening a place, as Iâve seen many with good intensions go under. This will fall right back into needing to be a good BSâer. My current idea is to coach and on my summers off try to slowly estabolish training at my house/backyard. This way, you are wasting no extra money and if the need keeps expanding, so can you. But this way, you wonât build it prior to actually having people paying to use it. All in all, teaching/coaching seems to be a great start where you can stay and/or build up a personal business and/or coach. Lots of options and lots of reward = lots of fun 
I believe that I may have just figured out an amazing way to make a steady living (i.e. actually a great living) working with athletes, while not putting in the crazy hours that college strength coaches do. I have to try it out though first. Iâll get back to you on it if it works.
The trick to enjoying personal training is finding the right clients and being sure that you value them as people, even if theyâre not Heisman Trophy candidates. Working with interesting and thoughtful people is what can keep YOU interesting and thoughtful!
TOUCHE (sp)! Very well stated, Charlie.
I have tried to contact the NFL teams to intern with themâŚany of them but I keep hitting a dead end. All I need is a chance to show my coaching skills are outstanding. I was thinking my coaching skills wasnât good? Well I kicked my own a$$ and realized I donât know anyone in the NFL coaching ranks to pull me in. I figured it out, a person can be the greatest coach in the world but to have a career in coaching, and itâs not what you know it who you know!
Yup. Or be a really good bullshitter. Look at John Davies. The man built his career on LIES!
nycjay01 âYup. Or be a really good bullshitter. Look at John Davies. The man built his career on LIES!â
what are you basing this on? i dont like the guy that much and i think the goes way too far with all of the balancing stuff, there is a guy that i train with who is all about him and if it isnt in his books then he doesnt care about it. so any chance i can get to shed some doubt on davies training methodology ill take.
Think money firstâŚor think results firstâŚnothing in between! Both will work.
Davies claims to have trained Ben Johnson. LIE
Davies claims to have trained Diego Maradono. LIE
Davies claims he has worked with the Green Bay Packers. LIE
Davies has ruined college teams seasons like Pitt.
Davies will endorse any flash in the pan training tool like XVest, Indo board
Davies is weak as a child.
Davies squats on a swiss ball.
Davies sell pink tank tops on his âRenegade Trainingâ website
Davies training methods are all unoriginal and he basically just takes a bunch of different popular methods (medballs, bodyweight GPP, box squats, kettlebells, olympic lift variations) and lumps them into one bigass workout with too much volume, basically guaranteeing overtraining
Look at the post below yours. You MUST be new to the site. We had a whole trial of davies on here. Real NFL conditioning coaches even posted about Davies âshananigansâ (not sure if I spelled that right).