As a high school strength coach, you’re not just shaping athletes; you’re actively expanding your professional knowledge, investing in personal growth, and seeking the thrill that comes from leaving a legacy of health and wellness for as many student-athletes as you can reach. Whether you are driven by a thirst for deeper understanding, a desire to climb your district’s pay scale, or the inherent satisfaction derived from lifelong learning, you have more options today than ever before to evolve personally and professionally.
Tom Zheng, Ph.Dc, MS — founder of Adapt Health and Performance, former San Francisco 49ers performance therapist, and a graduate of Concordia University Chicago — believes a major step in any high school strength coach’s career is obtaining a master’s degree.
Zheng is a fervent advocate for continuing education and lifelong learning. In the evolving landscape of sports science and strength coaching, an advanced degree doesn’t just symbolize a coach’s commitment to the profession, it equips him or her with an ever more valuable skill set and a widely connected understanding of the field. Even for a seasoned coach, a graduate degree offers fresh perspectives and a better grasp of the latest scientific discoveries in the realm of athletic performance coaching.
“I can break it down,” says Zheng. “Even if you’ve been a coach for 10 years, experience is phenomenal, right? You understand training models, you understand the semantics of interaction with student-athletes. You understand what it takes to basically help an athlete build for specific sports. Experience on the field is invaluable, and no one disputes that.
However, experience alone cannot help a coach keep up with the best in a profession where data, technology and bioinformatics have staked a sizable and growing claim. Decades of work can equip a coach with extensive knowledge of training models and the intricacies of athlete interactions and development. Yet, a graduate degree goes further. It provides access to a trove of the latest research findings, meaning peer-reviewed studies that shed light on the efficacy of specific training methods, the long-term adaptation of tissues to certain exercises, and the broad and nuanced impacts of various approaches to athlete performance training.
“There’s relevant research that comes out monthly,” says Zheng. “There are substantial amounts of peer-reviewed articles that deal with tissue adaptation to specific exercises, the efficacy of specific training models and paradigms through a yearly cycle, the macros and the micros of what certain things affect athletes. Now, I’m not saying that if you don’t go for a higher degree or higher education, you can’t sift through that and continually learn and continually grow your own skillset. But from personal experience, I can say that compared to my undergrad degree, my graduate-level education has prepared me a lot more to understand, dissect and apply peer-reviewed research.”
The Concordia University Chicago Advantage: Embracing Flexibility & Practical Learning
In a field where the quest for knowledge is relentless, finding the right learning environment can be a critical factor. For many high school strength coaches, an advanced degree might seem like an elusive goal due to full-time job commitments, family constraints, or budgetary limitations. However, Concordia University Chicago’s online Master of Science in Applied Exercise Science offers a valuable alternative to attending in-person classes.
According to Zheng, one of the most notable benefits of the program is its flexibility. This master’s degree program is primarily conducted online, offering the freedom to learn at a measured pace and endlessly flexible schedule. For those juggling the demands of an intensive coaching role, this approach is a game-changer, allowing you to expand your knowledge without the need to sacrifice your professional responsibilities or personal obligations.
“I think one of the biggest things — and I’m just gonna speak bluntly here — is the program’s flexibility and the ability to obtain a degree while working full-time,” says Zheng. “It’s online and that allows you to basically work at your leisure. Having been in that field — as a high school S&C coach — you’re working tremendous hours. It would be really hard to attend time-specific lectures.”
Moreover, the program doesn’t just impart knowledge; it connects conceptual learning with practical, real-world application. From case studies to detailed dissertations, Concordia University Chicago’s Master of Science in Applied Exercise Science fosters a practical learning environment where coaches analyze relevant research and draw valuable, usable conclusions. As Zheng discovered, this aspect made it easy for him to immediately apply new knowledge to his day-to-day tasks, enhancing his professional competence in real time.
“As you’re going through the coursework, a lot of it is actually pointed toward professional experience and application, which I thought was extremely beneficial,” he says. “For example, many of the case studies have you sifting through relevant research and drawing certain types of conclusions, certain types of assertions, things like that. So the knowledge came ready to apply to my day-to-day as I was going through that process.”
The nature of online coursework also means coaches can preserve any established professional networks they’ve long been cultivating. In many cases, pursuing an in-person degree means uprooting your life, breaking away from your current network, and building new connections from scratch. In contrast, Concordia University Chicago’s online program allows coaches to bypass these challenges, gaining the advantage of an advanced degree while maintaining established relationships and networks.
Zheng says his own advanced degree from Concordia University Chicago enriched his understanding of sports science far beyond his undergraduate studies, honing his expertise in a way that directly translated to his professional success. It’s an edge that could make all the difference for any high school strength coach eyeing the next step in his or her career. It could be the key that unlocks a more profound understanding of athletic performance, empowers more effective relationship building with athletes, and provides literal and figurative returns on your investment greater than the sum of their parts.
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Why Pursue a Strength and Conditioning Degree?
The Strength and Conditioning concentration, designed for practitioners, aspiring coaches, personal trainers, and athletic performance coaches, offers a comprehensive program that goes beyond the standard National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) certification requirements and prepares students for advanced certifications.
Students will explore advanced strength and conditioning theories, acquire skills to create their own philosophy, and prepare for the NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist® (CSCS®) certification exam and advanced certifications by applying principles and refining programming techniques.
Our Strength and Conditioning program is recognized by the NSCA. The NSCA Education Recognition Program (ERP) recognizes and distinguishes schools with standardized, approved strength and conditioning or personal training curricula in undergraduate and graduate settings designed to prepare students for the NSCA CSCS certification.
Exercise Science Career Outlook
Concordia University Chicago's Master of Science in Exercise Science offers five concentrations, each aligned with a specific industry certification.
• Exercise Physiology - ACSM-CEP
• Human Movement Science - NASM-CES
• Sports Nutrition - CISSN
• Sports Performance Training - NASM-PES
• Strength & Conditioning - NSCA-CSCS
Students can pursue four graduate certificates or a PhD in Exercise Science to further their careers.
