Strength and Conditioning

In the strength and conditioning concentration, you assess athletes’ physical function and develop and implement programs to enhance strength, power, speed and endurance to improve sports performance across the lifespan. You will understand how the body responds and adapts to exercise through foundational courses in exercise physiology, biomechanics, neuromuscular control, and sport and exercise psychology. This knowledge will be enhanced with an array of strength and conditioning-specific coursework. You graduate prepared to be certified as a strength and conditioning specialist and to pursue related career opportunities.

At Ithaca College, we pride ourselves on providing you with the theoretical knowledge to guide decision making, the space to practice and become proficient at the skills required to work in the field as an applied practitioner, and the opportunity to execute these skills in a real-world environment. You become proficient at:

• Fitness Testing - You learn to implement tests to identify athlete's strengths and weaknesses.

• Program Design - You learn to develop programs that help athletes peak at key stages of their competitive calendars.

• Coaching - You learn to perform, teach, and coach resistance and Olympic weightlifting exercises.

• Advanced Strength and Conditioning – This course introduces you to more advanced concepts relating to fitness testing and program design. You learn to devise periodized training programs. Practical content exposes you to up-to-date technologies used to monitor athletes. You also discuss considerations for working with special populations (e.g. Paralympic athletes).

• Applied Practice in Strength and Conditioning – You apply your skills while working with IC’s varsity athletes in the Strength and Conditioning Department.

• Practicums in Strength and Conditioning– Provides you with the space to develop your practical skills in areas of fitness testing, teaching and coaching of resistance exercises and Olympic weightlifting techniques as well as field-based conditioning modes (e.g. speed, agility and endurance training).

• Strength and Conditioning Internship – This semester-long internship, places you in a strength and conditioning department at one of our affiliated institutions. You work alongside other strength and conditioning professionals and apply your skills to help improve athlete's performance.

Our graduates typically work as strength and conditioning specialists and coaches at high schools, colleges, universities, within the military, and at private training facilities. They also work as personal trainers (campus recreation, corporate wellness, health clubs) or are entrepreneurial business owners. According to the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NCSA), average salaries for strength and conditioning professionals range from between $49,000 - $76,000.  Some of our students opt to enter graduate and professional schools. Examples of the pathways of our recent graduates include:

The Exercise Science Athletic Training (ESAT) department's Strength and Conditioning for Performance and Wellness concentration is seeking accreditation from the Council on Accreditation of Strength and Conditioning Education (CASCE). As part of this ongoing process, we are collecting the following data and will update as the information becomes available.