Do You Have to Be Certified to Be a Strength and Conditioning Coach?

Requirements can vary for each fitness professional role. Learning the necessary qualifications for your desired position can help you better prepare. If you want to become a strength and conditioning coach, one of your top questions may be whether you need your certification.

Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut answer—and we’ll soon explain why. Before we do, let’s talk about what a strength and conditioning coach does. This can help clarify if this is the right career path for you.

An Overview of the Strength and Conditioning Coach Role

One of the primary duties of a strength and conditioning coach is to help clients improve their athletic performance. How they do this depends on the individual athlete. It also changes based on the athlete’s training goals.

Some athletes want to increase their speed. Others want to boost their strength. Additional factors impacting human performance include:

• mobility

• agility

• endurance

• power 

It’s up to the coach to develop strength training and conditioning programs to improve these elements. This is followed by implementing the training to get the client the desired results.

An athlete’s ability to achieve peak performance can impact their sports career. For some, it can mean the difference between their career ending in the minors or continuing to the pros.

Research also supports strength and conditioning coaching for injury prevention (1). With the proper knowledge and strategies, the coach can help create a more resilient, injury-free athlete. This is critical since a major sports injury can put an elite athlete’s career on hold. It may even end it altogether. And certain types of players are at risk for specific injuries. 

For example, one study reports that the most common injuries in basketball are to the ankles and knees (2). A strength and conditioning coach who works with basketball players then would want to develop a strength and conditioning program that targets these areas.

Do You Have to Be Certified to Be a Strength and Conditioning Coach?

Now the big question and the reason you are here. Do you need a strength and conditioning certification to work in this role?

Technically, there is no state or national certification mandate to work as a strength and conditioning coach. In this aspect, it is similar to personal trainer qualifications. 

Strength and Conditioning Coach vs. Personal Trainer

In case you’re unclear, there are differences between a personal trainer and a strength and conditioning coach. One of the most notable is that a personal trainer often works with the general public. Conversely, a strength and conditioning coach works with athletes and performance-based clients. Plus, a personal trainer can focus on a variety of fitness goals, from weight loss to rehabilitation. As discussed, a strength and conditioning coach has two main purposes: to improve athletic performance and prevent injuries.

If you want to work with lower-level athletes and teams, certification may also not be required. Maybe your local high school has a wrestling or baseball team. If you’d like to work with them, they may not care whether you have your certification.

That said, if you want to work for a high-level sports team, they will likely require you to be a certified strength and conditioning coach. They may even dictate the certification they want you to have.

By only hiring a certified strength and conditioning coach, these teams and their players are assured that you have a certain level of knowledge and skills. This provides greater comfort with your ability to devise a safe and effective training program. With some athletes being worth millions, they only want the best training staff.

Reasons to Earn a Strength and Conditioning Certification

There are several benefits of becoming a strength and conditioning coach. You get to play an active role in athletic development while, oftentimes, working in a sport that you enjoy. But there are more benefits to taking the additional step of earning your coach certification—even in cases where it isn’t required.

One is that you gain more knowledge to help athlete clients. Athletes often have different fitness goals than non-athletes, and many of these goals involve improved performance. Having your certification tells them that you can help them reach these specific goals.

Being a certified strength coach also differentiates you from trainers who lack this credential. This puts you in a more compelling position with prospective clients. You can more easily become their trainer of choice.

Another reason to pursue certification as a strength and conditioning coach, even if you don’t need to, is that it can increase your credibility with others in positions of authority within the sports field. This includes the head sport coach, assistant coach, and athletic trainer. When they have more trust in you, you become part of their team.

Earning your certification may even increase your income. Salary.com reports that the average strength and conditioning coach earns $47,855 per year. This is based on a range of $40,867 to $55,280 annually (3). Yet, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that one factor that impacts pay is a person’s credentials (4). This includes certification. So, having a fitness certification can enable you to earn more, improving your ability to hit your financial goals.

How to Become a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach

If you’re ready to earn your certification as a strength and conditioning specialist, the next step is to choose a coach training program. Typically, this type of program can be completed in under three months. However, if you choose an online training course, you will often get to set the pace. This enables you to earn your certification in a way that works with your schedule and needs.

When selecting a certification program, look at the curriculum. Topics covered in a comprehensive strength and conditioning certification course include:

• exercise science and/or sports science

• exercise physiology

• human kinetics

• best strength training techniques

• top conditioning methods

• injury identification and prevention (including injuries caused by overtraining)

• mental aspects of training athletes

Learning all these topic areas helps prepare you for the certification exam. This exam not only tests your level of knowledge but also your ability to apply what you’ve learned. This application becomes important when working directly with clients. 

You might understand the benefits of a specific exercise, for example. As a coach, you must also be able to explain these benefits to your client. Physical education is a big part of being a fitness trainer. One reason is that it helps motivate clients if they understand how what they’re doing helps them reach their desired goals. 

Educating clients can also help them perform an exercise properly. If they know that a squat targets the quads, for instance, they should feel it in their upper thigh when performing this exercise. If they don’t, they may be doing it incorrectly. By them recognizing this fact, it helps improve their training when you’re not with them.

Once you pass the exam, you are a certified strength and conditioning coach. This helps position you for a training position in various levels of sport. All you have to do next is decide where you want to work!

Get Certified as a Strength and Conditioning Coach

ISSA offers online Strength and Conditioning Certification. This course includes unlimited educational support. It also comes with access to an online student forum where you can receive guidance and learn from both ISSA Master Trainers and other ISSA members around the world. 

References

1. Talpey, S. W., & Siesmaa, E. J. (2017). Sports injury prevention: The role of the strength and conditioning coach. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 39(3), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.1519/ssc.0000000000000301 

2. Andreoli, C. V., Chiaramonti, B. C., Biruel, E., Pochini, A. de, Ejnisman, B., & Cohen, M. (2018). Epidemiology of sports injuries in Basketball: Integrative Systematic Review. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000468 

3. Salary.com. (2023, July 25). Strength and conditioning coach salary. Salary.com. https://www.salary.com/research/salary/recruiting/strength-and-conditioning-coach-salary 

4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2015, May). Same occupation, different pay: How wages vary: Career outlook. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2015/article/wage-differences.html