Article on NCAA Strength & Conditioning

[hreed]

Somewhat lengthy article on the Wild West that is collegiate strength & conditioning. This shouldn't surprise those of us who have read / discussed this in the past, bit it's nice to see it receiving more mainstream coverage. The unregulated world of strength coaches and college football?s killing season - CBSSports.com

[Mark Rippetoe]

Just so you'll know who "industry experts" are:

“Are you going to get a 21-hour class to practice law or medicine?” said Jay Hoffman, University of Central Florida sport and exercise science professor. “It’s a four-year degree. For most strength coaches, it’s four years plus a two-year master’s program that provides the [necessary] experience.”

This is pretty damned funny. And here's the Money Shot:

The NCAA bylaw itself is less than two years old, and it’s watered down, according to some industry experts. The NSCA and CSCCA sent a joint statement to the NCAA in 2015 demanding “higher professional guidelines.”

Frustrated at the lack of response, the two bodies sent the NCAA a joint letter on March 3 that calls on college sports’ governing body to require every strength coach to have a NCCA-accredited strength and conditioning certification. The NCCA is the organization the NSCA and CSCCA use, but it’s not the one that oversaw Oderinde’s certification at Oregon.

The NSCA and CSCCA propose that NCAA strength coaches without a bachelor’s degree be allowed up to four years to obtain an accredited certification. They also suggest that new hires from a specified date must hold an accredited certification.

The NSCA and the CSCCA want the NCAA to mandate that strength coaches hold "accredited certifications." Like those provided by the NSCA and the CSCCA.

And you have to love this:

Said Caulfield, the NSCA strength coach: “To my immediate knowledge, we have never revoked a certification due to disciplinary action.”
How is it possible that no certifications have been revoked by the NSCA or CSCCA? Hainline, the NCAA’s chief medical officer, danced around that question and said the NSCA and CSCCA must come together to decide how standards will move in the same direction.

This is really an entertaining piece.

[MBasic]

Please don't kill our college atheletes and/or put them in the hospital...

Never mind making them better athletes at their respective sports.

[Mark Rippetoe]

These idiots lack the ability to improve any athlete's ability, because they don't understand either their capabilities or their limitations to do so. But you're right, it would be great if they didn't kill them in the process of not making them better.

[hreed]

This is really an entertaining piece.

You pointed out some of the important parts. I personally chuckled at the following, "To become a master [ Strength and Conditioning Coach ], there's no actual mastery involved. Basically your master is not getting fired. After you've been a strength coach for 12 years, you become a master strength coach."

Has anyone here seen or taken the CSCCA test? I admit to being a little curious how difficult it is - 70+% pass rate seems like a typical weedout freshman class.

[TommyGun]

Holy cow. I wish I had not read that. I would rather not know how screwed up these college programs are. Seems almost criminally negligent by these athletic departments to put these people in positions of responsibility with athletes.

Nice reporting by CBS Sports. Stop the killing season

[Mark Rippetoe]

CBS Sports believed everything they were told. Some important points in here:

Big Brother is Watching You Squat | T Nation

Specifically:

You should realize that neither ANSI nor NCCA actually examine the content of the curricula of the educational organizations they accredit. They are almost exclusively concerned with office procedures and bureaucratic detail.

Our organization, the Aasgaard Company, has had some experience with this process in an attempt to obtain accreditation for our Starting Strength Seminar.

After a couple of years, we decided to just let our seminar attendees, our coaches, and their clients decide for themselves how good a job we're doing.

Here's the most important detail:

At no point during the process were we asked about full squats – or anything having to do with exercise, training, safety, equipment, science, biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology, physical education, or any other aspect of any activity in which our credentialed professionals are actually engaged. Nothing.

Not one question or request for documentation regarding what we actually do professionally, just lots of questions about how we run the office and who keeps the keys.

[Scaldrew]

B-but RIP! These are all coaches at the head of the most successful, most athletic, most awesomest sports teams in the world! Ergo, they must know what they're doing. You're just a fraud. Giggle giggle, point and laugh while I can't even bench what you press or pull what you squat. But others are producing results while you're producing obese lifters who drink gallons of milk every day until they die. I know whom I trust.

How do you deal with stupid arguments like these, though? My response would be to say "having successful athletes doesn't make you a valid coach; a proper understanding and application of experience and knowledge makes you a valid coach" along with the fact that genetically gifted individuals shouldn't be deadlifting 315x12 on a trap bar or squatting 405 1 foot high and considered "strong" in doing so. I know some people just will not listen, but I understand how arrogant (though correct) I sound when I say that a lot of the "strength" coaches are idiots and I, in comparison, am only half an idiot. Other than "the truth", what can I say?

Maybe nothing or "fuck off" to people that won't listen, but then what about the ignorant members of the audience that want to know why you're right? What about the open-minded parents of the talented kids?

[Mark Rippetoe]

How do you deal with stupid arguments like these, though?

It's been very difficult. Most people don't understand logical analysis, they do not understand that strength is the production of force, that strength is a critical component of performance, and they cannot differentiate between the fact that high-level athletes play on D1 and pro teams because that's who they hired, and the fact that since this is by definition true, the strength coach of that team most likely has nothing to do with their performance level, especially if he utilizes methodology that cannot possibly increase force production. Most people find the correlation between what the best athletes in any particular sport are doing in the weight room and their performance on the field to be sufficiently compelling that it makes sense to them to dismiss the fat guy in Texas.

As I have mentioned many times, we are narrowcasting. It is not likely that this method of strength training will ever replace the current conventional wisdom in any of the sports featured on ESPN, because it is boring, it doesn't look like Baseball, MMA, or Golf, and it requires the coach to have actually learned something and accomplished something personally under the bar. Their way is much easier.

[JohnnytheGeek]

It's been very difficult. Most people don't understand logical analysis, they do not understand that strength is the production of force, that strength is a critical component of performance, and they cannot differentiate between the fact that high-level athletes play on D1 and pro teams because that's who they hired, and the fact that since this is by definition true, the strength coach of that team most likely has nothing to do with their performance level, especially if he utilizes methodology that cannot possibly increase force production. Most people find the correlation between what the best athletes in any particular sport are doing in the weight room and their performance on the field to be sufficiently compelling that it makes sense to them to dismiss the fat guy in Texas.

As I have mentioned many times, we are narrowcasting. It is not likely that this method of strength training will ever replace the current conventional wisdom in any of the sports featured on ESPN, because it is boring, it doesn't look like Baseball, MMA, or Golf, and it requires the coach to have actually learned something and accomplished something personally under the bar. Their way is much easier.

Plus, the SS method doesn't use fun new toys like magic headphones or Kaatsu pressure bands that were featured in ESPN video of Yoenis Cepedes' intense workouts.