10 Things Strength Coaches Need To Consider Before Getting Their PhD

I get asked this question A LOT. My answer is always the same - what is your end goal? If you just want to be a S&C coach then no, don't spend the money. Use that money instead to go travel and visit other coaches. Problem is you can't get loans from the bank to visit coaches - but you can for a PhD (side story and side rant for another day).

As far as the X's and O's of being a S&C coach there is a 95% chance you will NOT learn this from your PhD studies. For me personally, in 2019 I was finisihing my last class, and starting my dissertation. My former co-worker Joe Alexander told me about SCN since he was a member. I watched a webinar and became hooked. I also got mad. How could the best X's and O's info on being a S&C coach come from this website and NOT from my PhD studies. Fast forward 6 years and I bought the company from Keir and have watched all 180 webinars on the site plus both courses.

So, if you want to be a better S&C coach get a membership to SCN (you will be able to get CEUs for your recertification) and then spend the rest of money on visiting coaches and watch them coach. If your answer is you want to become a professor, researcher or admin later in your career - then a PhD might be good for you. Here is what you need to consider.

1. What do you want to research? If you know this your classes will be SO much easier. They will help you structure your dissertation (especially the lit review).

2. Are you going in person or online? This matters because of added time for travel to classes if in person. If online find out if it is classes that start at a certain time or you can do the work on your own pace.

3. How will you pay for it? You taking out a loan - whats the interest rate? You paying out of pocket? See if your organization will pay for it.

4. Are you ok with no personal life for 3-5 years? This matters. Your early morning, late night, and weekends will be gone. Make sure you talk with your family about this new time commitment

5. Where will you conduct the research? Seriously, sounds easy now, but you will need to conduct research with real people. Real people don't like inconveniences - so the research location better be connivence for them.

6. Who do you know that can help you along the way? You will need to make a dissertation committee. Who will be the chair? Will that person be in person or online? You might want at least one person on your committee to be in person so you can talk with him/her about life and progress on the study.

7. Pay attention in stats class. Seriously, this will matter with effect size, how many subjects you need, and relevance of your research.

8. Pay attention in boring classes like program design. Just like the above statement, pay attention. and this program design is not about sets/reps/percentages/exercises. This program design is how to make a research study - so recruitment of participants, how they get put into the control/intervention groups, IRB, etc...And often these things can slow you down.

9. Save your passion project for later. You need to have something that is researchable with LOTS of references. You need about 1 reference per page you write.. So thats 150-200 references. You can't do that on something with no prior research on it. Find something that you can research, fill the gap in, and then put out later research on your passion.

10. Will you ACTUALLY be paid more for this extra education? Ask yourself this and be honest. When I finished my PhD Towson was not waiting to give me more money. They could care less. Sure, it helped them recruit better football players cuz of my education but I did not see another dime. Another coach who was on the CMW said he went back to his his PhD cuz he would make a lot more money at his school. So do the research and see if your time, money, and effort will be rewarded.

In the end, I am glad I got mine because it helps me in the private sector charge more money per session. It was hard for me because at first I did not know what topic I wanted to write my dissertation on. So I wasted all that time and effort in class writing projects for "no reason" when I could have been working on my dissertation.

Hope this helps. If you want more help on any topic in S&C and you want to save money on re-certification, be sure to join SCN as a premium member. 

-Justin