Should you get your CSCS to become a strength coach w/ Oregon State Kinesiology Student

What does it take to transition from a high school athlete to a successful personal trainer? Elijah, a determined kinesiology student from Oregon State University, shares his inspiring journey on this episode of the Show Up Fitness Podcast. With Show Up Fitness playing a pivotal role in his certification, Elijah discusses the broad spectrum of opportunities in kinesiology, from cardiopulmonary rehab to physical therapy. Listen as we illustrate the myriad paths available in the fitness and health industry, providing a wealth of insights for aspiring trainers and students alike.

Navigating the competitive world of strength coaching requires more than just passion—it demands qualifications, internships, and relentless ambition. We explore the critical necessity of the CSCS certification, especially with upcoming requirements for a degree in kinesiology. Drawing comparisons with NASM's PES, we outline why CSCS holds greater value. Furthermore, practical advice on making a lasting impression at top organizations like Exos is shared, emphasizing the importance of confidence, persistence, and a tireless work ethic. Real-life examples and expert insights paint a clear picture of what it takes to thrive in this field.

Career growth in strength and conditioning isn't just about certifications—it's about hard work, dedication, and seizing every opportunity. We discuss starting salaries, potential for high-earning roles, and the entrepreneurial prospects of owning a personal training business. Key strategies for success, such as internships and networking, are highlighted alongside the challenges of running a training facility. By sharing the stories of industry leaders like Eric Cressy and Erica Sutter, we illuminate the path to a rewarding career in strength and conditioning, underscoring the optimism surrounding future opportunities in college sports and personal training.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry, one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we are lucky to have Mr Elijah and he is a big hunk in Oregon and, if you know, one of my favorite books comes from Oregon Nike Shoe Dog. And we have a young, eager entrepreneur who's going through school right now, getting his degree in kinesiology reached out and wanted to interview me, ask some questions about the life of a trainer, strength coach, business owner, entrepreneur, and that's what we are going to do today. He is a beaver. He goes to Oregon state, so thank you for your time today, bud.

Speaker 2: 1:03

Of course dude.

Speaker 1: 1:04

So let's get into this. You got some questions you're going to ask me, but why don't you give everyone a little background on yourself real quickly how you came across, show Up Fitness and what we're going to accomplish on today's podcast?

Speaker 2: 1:15

For sure. So I was born and raised in Oregon. I was an athlete all throughout my life. I was an athlete all throughout my life and when I graduated high school I wanted to be a personal trainer. And I did the thing where I Googled how to be a personal trainer and there's the NASM CPT textbook and everything popped up and I didn't know how to study for it and I just looked up on YouTube and I found these found show up fitness and they helped me study for that test and I passed it. And here I am and I'm trying to further my career and now I'm currently a kinesiology student at Oregon State and I'm trying to figure out everything from there.

Speaker 1: 2:06

So I love this whole interaction because you're a bright young hunk, because you were able to really go through that process and go. You know what? I just passed this test. It's a textbook. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I have a piece of paper. It didn't really teach me anything about the trade skills, the business skills, the people skills. So you wanted to further your education and so you then enrolled to get your degree in kinesiology. You're going through the process. That's a cool thing about academia, my background being in kinesiology. I teach people to pass the CSCS and we have our own certification, obviously. But I love the whole academic world because it's a different phenomenon versus social media and in the academic world, most professors are familiar with NFCA, acsm, because they're nonprofit organizations that are backing science in the trenches and outside of that world. It really is the marketing companies like the NASM, the ASIS and ISSA, and so you have a class right now that you're going through. What is the kinesiology class?

Speaker 2: 3:12

It's called industry awareness, so basically just getting a lot of different perspectives from different people who are not only coaches, not only coaches or personal trainers, but also anything that's to do with kinesiology. We had cardio pulmonary rehab. Uh, people talk to us we've had what else got a lot more. We had a, we've had a nurses and we've had um trying to think of another interesting one that might be outside of the field. Cardiopulmonary rehab was pretty interesting, um like, but also like physical therapy, occupational therapy, athletic training, anything in that that you can do with kinesiology.

Speaker 1: 3:53

That's super cool because I think a lot of people when they get into training, they think you have to train people. And that is where you kind of hit a fork. Because you're young kids, you start working with people like, dude, I'm training a bunch of old people.

Speaker 1: 4:07

I want to do some cool stuff and then you want to maybe work with some athletes. But when you're going through school I remember I did an internship with the cardiopulmonary stuff, I did some stuff with older people, I did some stuff with special populations and cancer and metabolic disease, and so you're kind of dabbing around to see what piques your interest and so right now we're we're getting you. You interviewed someone who was a strength coach or working with a team, and so now you have some questions that you want to ask me. So let's get into it. Shoot, I'm an open book.

Speaker 2: 4:35

Sure, Well, first I kind of wanted to get, uh, your background, um, how you got into I've you. So you were interned as cardiopulmonary rehab. I want to know where you got your kinesiology degree and how your student, your internships went and how your student life was and how you kind of balance your work and life. And we'll start with that. If you want to tell me your background, yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:05

So I had my first trainer when I was in fourth grade, rolling, and I liked it, I loved it. My dad military background and so I would have finished school and mom and dad would say you can either do homework or you can go to the gym. And so I would go to the gym and I just loved everything about working out. I ran track. I wanted to be an NBA basketball player, but I was always cursed with injuries, and so when I went to college, my intent was to get into physical therapy and become a DPT, but I sucked at physics. I failed that fucker three times. And when I went to University of Connecticut for an internship for a year and I was working under some of the top minds in the world, I was working alongside strength coaches who were working with Emeka Okafor, diana Tarazi, who's still in the WNBA. It was really cool just to see that environment and the studies and everything.

Speaker 1: 5:56

So then, what I did when I came back to Chico? I wanted to get into working with athletes, went to the Bay Area, worked there for a good three, four years, trained at a couple of different gyms. I wanted to go and get my master's. But they always tell you, if you quit school to work, you never go back, and that's exactly what happened. So I started making money. I worked with athletes, worked with general population, high-end gyms and then in 2009 is when the market crashed and I was working at Bank of America at the time because I had an opportunity. As you will learn with those people skills that you get as a trainer, you will meet a lot of really, really interesting people. So one of my clients offered me a job, worked at Bank of America, managed a book of $500 million in securities and all the school lines of credit and stuff. And market crashed and the teaching at a school called mpti and that was when I really got my understanding of what the industry was like, outside of getting your degree in kinesiology. I thought you had to get a degree in kinesiology to become a trainer. Little I know that's not the case, and so I got certified, learning about these other companies and said what, what the hell? When I talked to the elite professors out there, like Dr Kramer and Volick, those were the ones I had at UConn they've never heard of these marketing companies. So when you leave the academic circle and you get into the now, it's like the social media world it's prevalent. You hear NASA, ace, issa, these marketing companies, and so that really fascinated me.

Speaker 1: 7:27

On changing the landscape of becoming a trainer, because reading a textbook doesn't set you up for success. You need the hands-on learning. You need to be able to implement the stuff that you learned while you're going through school. And then I just worked at a school for a good five, six years, started my own company, show Up Fitness, started training trainers and really liked that. And next thing, you know, we have our own certification and it's 2024. And we have partnered with Lifetime. We have over 250 gyms that have partnered and accept our certification. We are nationally and internationally recognized and just excited about the future for changing the landscape of personal training but also strength coaches, and so that kind of answers the background part.

Speaker 1: 8:14

But then the second one, which is maybe a little more loaded but how do you find that balance? And the balance part is it's individual, because I have a lot of students and partners who are international and they make fun of American work ethic and I know trainers that will say they just want to work like 10 hours a week and that's fine. I know people who are working 50, 60 hours a week, and so it's really what drives you. In my book, how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer, I talk about passion and how passion is kind of stupid. It's because passion can be reckless if you don't have focus.

Speaker 1: 8:51

Ted Bundy was passionate about killing people, so should we all strive to be more passionate? No, you got to have focus on what you want, and for me, I want to change the industry, so that wakes me up every day and that is my focus. And long-term five years, 10 years from now that's what I'm still going to be doing, and so balance there's always going to be give and take from my family life to my training life, to running the business. It's about really just doing things that make you happy, and I've never been at a point owning Show Up Fitness where I've just completely hated it and I want to get away from it. So balance to me is doing what you love on a daily basis and wanting to continue to do that. Does that kind of answer? I know it's a long winded, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:34

Yeah, it is, it's a it's individual. I understand you're saying like for you, uh, you don't really need, like your job is what you want to be doing anyway, so you don't need, like you don't necessarily need that downtime of large amount of downtime, because you're already doing something that you feel natural doing. It's you feel relaxed, so that makes sense. Yeah, I just wanted to know the current standards of being a strength coach these days, like the certifications that you might need, along with, like, if the degree is necessary, like networking.

Speaker 1: 10:12

We need to first, I would say, identify what we are calling a strength coach. Because if you're referencing a coach on a team at a division one or division two level and professional level, you have to have your CSCS. And of 2024, you just need you have to have your CSCS. And of 2024, you just need a college degree to get your CSCS. 2030, it's going to move into having a specific degree in kinesiology. And so if you want to work with, say, the beavers or the ducks or the horns, you have to have your CSCS. And I did a call with a strength coach out of Florida and he applied to, I think he said, 73 schools and he didn't have his CSCS, didn't get accepted at a single one, didn't get a call back. Once he got his CSCS, that's when he got the opportunities. And so if you want to work with those elite programs, you need your CSCS. And I was talking to a kid the other day. He's like well, what about NASM's PES? And I said, literally, it is a joke If you were to put that next to the CSCS you're laughed upon amongst true fitness and strength and conditioning experts. It is a textbook that you can take at home, open book. It's a fucking joke, and so don't try to compare the two. It's like looking at a car from the 1900s comparing to the new Tesla truck. It's literally night and day difference. So if you're considering either the strength and conditioning from the CSES or NASM's PES not even a thought in mind you should be getting a CSCS if you have that college degree. But if you want to just work with athletes, there's a company called D1, and that is a growing franchise similar to like an Orange Theory and so forth. You have to look at what they want, and so what I would do is go into the facility, dressed apart in a suit, with your resume, your clean cut, you shake their hand, you smile and you say I'm a strength coach and I'm looking at an opportunity to bring forth my skills to your amazing company. What can I do? And you say that with confidence, and so the hiring manager is going shit, you didn't just send in a blind resume. I can put a face to what this resume has and I can ask you some questions right now, and he could say, or she could say no, why don't we, we're not hiring right now. Come back in a couple months, challenge them and say what if I were to take you through a workout right now, and I blow your mind, would you consider me at least? And if you don't think this workout is amazing, I will pay you your hourly rate. What do you have to lose? That confidence right there is going to blow the hiring manager's mind and I would bet you they're going to give you an opportunity. And so that would be for the non D1, d2 aspect.

Speaker 1: 13:04

There's places like Exos. They're a very well-known company for Shagan. He worked a lot with the NFL Combine and he's made a huge name for himself. He typed in the book I think it's just called Core back in the Barnes and Noble, which is still around, just not as much as they used to be. Those books would be all over the cases and he's a very well-respected strength and conditioning expert and he is the founder of Exos. And so, in my opinion, if you want to stand out in this environment, in this space, you got to get your CSCS and get a good internship under your belt, buckle. And so what that means is find a strength coach at one of these schools If you have a connection at, you know, even if you're you're you're shadowing a lacrosse coach, it may not be the area you want, but just to put that on your resume, that's how you're going to stand out and this industry.

Speaker 1: 13:57

I did a great call with Dr Galpin. He's a very well-respected kinesiologist and he said the answer is always yes. As a new strength coach, you need to be there all the time and that's just the reality of it. We recently helped a tier X trainer at Equinox get his CSCS and he interviewed and interned at a school here in the greater LA area and he was just like right now, where I'm at with a family and I'm already making money, he's like this is not a realistic career choice and at that juncture, for that person, that's right, because you literally need to be there in the morning and you're leaving at night and so, being a young buck like you are, you have that opportunity.

Speaker 1: 14:42

And so you have to understand the lens of the other applicants. They're going to have that victim mentality and so you have to understand the lens of the other applicants. They're going to have that victim mentality and so they're not going to want to get there at 5 AM, they're not going to want to stay until 10. They're going to want to take every single holiday off. So you will put yourself at the front of the list and get the opportunities. The difference between luck and just getting into the right position at the right time. Sorry, that's what luck is is getting into the right position at the right time, you will get a ton of opportunities and you'll be able to work with the athletes you want.

Speaker 2: 15:14

You try to work for a sports team and, for whatever reason, it's not working out. Can you use that CSCS and do like not? Can you be like a personal trainer or do you need like something separate to be?

Speaker 1: 15:29

I don't know. The pecking order. Cscs is the top of the top. You don't need anything else. You can get hired at. Equinox is in the in the best gyms internationally as well, because it is a very, very well known strength and conditioning certification. Now you did mention other certifications the USA power lifting one or Olympic lifting one. That's a huge one. I wouldn't suggest looking into exos If you want to get into the rehab side of things. Barbell rehab has a great certification as well, but that's that's what you need to get to work with athletes.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Um, what is like an expected salary for? Maybe, like, give me a entry level Like you just got you just got started working at a small, a smaller business and then give me a like a broader range up until, like, you are owning your own strength and conditioning or personal training business.

Speaker 1: 16:24

That answer. Is it always? It depends. The nice thing about being a strength coach is that you will get a salary. If you were to go to a lifetime as a trainer, they're going to pay you minimum wage, 32 hours per week. I'd be making two grand, maybe 2,400. Equinox they're going to give you like 15 hours, so it's going to be half that maybe. If you go to an LA fitness, a EOS, you're getting pretty much nine to 18 bucks per session and those are 30 minute sessions. So don't expect to be making much at all at a corporation like that. As a strength coach, your starting salary could be anywhere from 45, 55, 65. Just depends on the position that you're going to be getting. The more experience you have with internships, it's is going to move you up to the top of that list. So if you were to be an assistant versus a head strength coach and there's so many opportunities out there to be in the right position at the right time I interviewed a guy who left the East Coast, had his degree, got a CSCS, applied to a head strength and conditioning position at La Jolla, which is Bishop's high school.

Speaker 1: 17:32

He got that. He built up the gym, the strength conditioning facility, from nothing into having their own facility and he makes a pretty good salary because it is a private school and the average kid that goes there the tuition is $45, I think, per year. Okay, yeah, dang, and so the sky is really the limit. I interviewed Coach Ram from the Kansas Jayhawks and he has a PhD. He worked for a couple of NBA teams I believe Sacramento, and that salary for a strength coach one of those big time schools you'd probably be looking at entry like 100, but it can go up to definitely 200, plus the head strength coach for Alabama. He's the highest paid strength coach. He makes over a million. But again, it just depends on where you're at and the potential is endless. Because of social media today, that can be used as a stream of revenue to mentor other people. We help people pass the CSCS and that's a stream of revenue that we have coming in regularly. So that's money that comes into my pocket without actually doing work, because we have a study guide that'll help people pass it.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Now, if you own your own facility, obviously you got to look at the five P's of marketing, as I call it. You have the promotion, product place, price and then parking, and so if you have your own spot, you're going to have to put all your finances into buying the equipment, the flooring. It's hard. We have a small place here in Santa Monica. It's barely 1,500 square feet and it would be challenging to train a bunch of athletes in here. So you would need a decent area. A lot of it's usually industrial.

Speaker 1: 19:11

Look at what Eric Cressy has done in Florida and also Boston. I would go to 10 clinics and ask to intern or shadow for a day or two. Bring him some coffee, bring him some whiskey, some donuts and just be a fly on the wall and then ask him some good business questions. When were you first profitable? What can I expect if I want to open up my own facility? If you could do it all over again, what would you do? Those great questions are going to pique that owner's interest and they will kind of take you under their wing.

Speaker 2: 19:44

So what do you think is the uh like biggest challenge in becoming a strength coach or getting a job, or getting your degree?

Speaker 1: 19:54

The degree is just checking the boxes, yeah, and you get your degree in kinesiology. They teach you a lot from the CSCS textbook, and so passing that, in my opinion, is pretty easy. It should take you less than 60 days you get your degree in kinesiology. That's something that'll stick with you for life. That's great. If you want to truly be successful in any career, you have to do what the masses aren't, and the masses today are very borderline, entitled I don't know what the word that you want to use with being politically correct, soft, some people will say. But we don't want to put in the work, and as a new person in this profession, you need to stand out, and so how you would stand out would be I tell you to get there at 5 am. You get there at 4.30, and you're reading a book about periodization. The coach comes in, you have a cup of coffee for him and you do that for a solid year. You're going to impress that individual. You will start getting those opportunities, because what will happen is, out of that intern class of, say, five or 10, they're going to start falling off because they're entitled. They're not going to like something the coach is doing and they'll start talking shit about him behind his back and they're going to take that victim mentality and they're going to quit and they're going to become a real estate agent. They're out of mind, out of sight. If you stick around and you learn from this individual and you're constantly in the books doing what everyone else is not willing to do, so young 20-year-olds on the weekend they're out getting fucked up and they take Friday, saturday, sunday off and then start back on work on Monday half-assed and then they're really peaking their mental cognition on Tuesday. They do that for a couple of days and they do it for six months and they're frustrated.

Speaker 1: 21:40

I like the mentality where, if you spend the first 10 years of your career learning, you're going to be very, very successful. Those next 10 years you're going to earn a boat load and then the last 10 is when you can start giving back, doing your philanthropical aspects of being a great human. I forget who came up with that 10, 10, 10 rule First 10, you learn. Second 10, you earn. Third 10, you return. But if you take that mentality, you're not going to be disappointed. Where most people today, as a strength coach, are going to say I want to be training LeBron James and in the first couple of weeks they don't have a celebrity or a superstar. So they get frustrated and they quit that immediate return. It's the glorification of Instagram. They want that like now. But if you just realize it's like growing a giant bamboo farm takes time. The first five, six years don't expect much, but after that it will take off all right.

Speaker 2: 22:38

So just being willing to not only put in more work but also standing out in some way, would you say, uh, finding a niche is a good way to put that is. Is that something you have, I think, in the beginning?

Speaker 1: 22:56

you need to be open to any opportunity. And so when we opened up our gym in Santa Monica, I reached out to all the high schools and the only one that returned an email was Santa Monica High and they're a public high school. And I reached out to the athletic director, got a meeting with him, took him to coffee, then got a meeting with the president principal sorry and he connected us with an email to the whole entire athletic department and they said we have a strength coach in Santa Monica who's willing to work with any team. Well, knowing the industry and how coaches are, most big coaches are kind of dipshits in the sense that their way is the right way. So just cross out football, basketball, baseball, track, wrestling. They don't want anything to do with a strength coach because they're too good.

Speaker 1: 23:44

So I got an email back from the cheer not cheerleader, but the cheer coach and said can you help our team? And I said absolutely, showed up, met with her, went over the sport, started training them, which transitioned into working with lacrosse, which worked into working with basketball and football. So it's like you have to take any opportunity and show how great you are, exceed those expectations, be super, super professional. I was working with high school kids. You're not going to show up in a tank top saying fuck this, fuck that, and saying all this weird, inappropriate things. You're looking the part, you're talking the part. Be super professional and you're going to stand out.

Speaker 2: 24:24

I heard you say some names brought up. Some of them I might've heard before, some of them I have no clue. Is there like? Who are these days? Who are like the major leaders in the strength and conditioning field?

Speaker 1: 24:37

It's a loaded question because strength and conditioning is so close with training and great coaches, but also physical therapists, and so I would say a combination of a strength coach. I like therapists who have their CSCS, because they understand the rehab, prehab side of it, and then they also have the programming side. Most physical therapists are fucking terrible at programming for athletes. They take a very unstable approach because that works with injuries. That's that whole phenomenon. You see today People balancing on BOSU balls, doing weird shit, and or they have an athlete because they're a buddy and people associate that person's success because of the coach. It doesn't work like that. So you want to find people who have a proven track record. That's your Eric Cressy. He is now the head strength coach for the USA baseball team. He works with the Yankees. He is a pioneer in the industry because he is a smart dude. He linked up with Mike Reinhold. There's a great physical therapy therapist. Tony Gentilcore helped start that company. We work closely with Tony. That's someone who I really would put up there as a pioneer when it comes to strength and conditioning for baseball. Now, when it comes to soccer, I interviewed Erica Sutter. She's a great individual to follow when it comes to women's soccer. I don't know much about swimming. I don't know much about track and field minus.

Speaker 1: 26:12

I will say Duncan French, who was my one of my professors at university of Connecticut. He's the head of the UFC strength and conditioning. He's done a great podcast with Uberman and numerous other people. Duncan has some great research that's going out there. Joel Jameson works with the UFC. Fred Duncan is someone on Instagram you can follow. He challenges a lot of the ladder drills and speed stuff. Because of Charlie Francis and some people that he's worked with under that umbrella, I can tell you easily who a great strength coach is. I can also tell you a shitty strength coach, because if you have someone who's just doing a bunch of lightweight Instagram worthy stuff that's for likes and clicks those are some names that come to mind. I'm missing tons of them.

Speaker 2: 27:04

For sure, yeah, I just need. I appreciate you giving me a. Those are some good names all to look into. They write books or anything.

Speaker 1: 27:12

Joel Jamison has some great stuff, and if you want to work with golf, you have TPI. They have some great stuff as well. That is a golfing certification.

Speaker 2: 27:22

Got it All right. So the future for strength conditioning slash personal training, I guess I'll start with, I guess, a little bit of the past. How did COVID affect business?

Speaker 1: 27:37

Don't quote me on this one. You can just type in gym closures during COVID. I want to say 38 to 44% of them shut down. Got it If you didn't have streams of revenue? So it got you to think bigger, be more innovative.

Speaker 1: 27:53

At show fitness, we have something we call the swift analysis. You look at your strengths, your weaknesses, things that you can improve, implement, innovate. What are your fears, what is your trajectory and what are your threats. So that swift analysis should be constantly going through your mind as the business owner. And if you only have one stream of revenue and you don't have six months of rent saved up, you're going to get screwed.

Speaker 1: 28:14

So I think, ultimately, what COVID taught coaches and trainers in general is to have better partnerships and team members one, but also have those streams of revenue. So if something were to shut down, you have a stream that's coming in, that's paying for your rent. As show fitness, I always say you should have a 60, 30, 10 revenue split. Your main revenue source should be coming from what you really enjoy. The second one 30% that should be able to cover your rent or your mortgage. So in this case, as a business owner, you should have a second stream of revenue that's covering your rent. So if shit does hit the fan, you get sick, something bad happens that second stream of revenue will be covering your rent, so you can at least get by 60, 30, 10.

Speaker 2: 28:52

All right, so you mentioned earlier the differences between having a kinesiology degree or being certified 20 years ago versus what it will be like in 2030. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Speaker 1: 29:06

The strength and conditioning world, nsca, the National Strength and Conditioning Association. They are the leader when it comes to giving the individual that qualification of the CSCS. The individual that qualification of the CSCS, and right now it is open to anyone with a college degree. You have to have a college degree in the United States If you want to get the CSCS. In 2030, you have to have a degree in kinesiology. So that's what's going to change in the next six years.

Speaker 2: 29:36

And uh, why do you say that? What? What is pointing, what's pointing you in that direction?

Speaker 1: 29:42

That's just what they said. So they have said that they came out and said we are going to change it. And now you have a degree in fine arts, you can get a CSCS, but in 2030, you have to have a degree in kinesiology, and I think that's just going to it's. It's going to do two things. It's going to level up the qualified strength coaches one. The second thing is it's going to really allow for even more shitty coaches to get into the game, because they're going to find other ways and you're going to lose other companies, the NASMs and the ISSAs. They're going to come up with their own variation that they're going to say is just as good, but you don't have a college degree. So you're going to get this designation and now you're going to try to be practicing as a strength coach. But the actual legitimate experts when it comes to strength and conditioning, from 230 on, will have that CSCS designation will have that CSCS designation?

Speaker 2: 30:39

Do you think that the other, besides CSCS and ACSM, do you think that the other, like NASM and ACE, do you think they're going to lose credibility when that time comes around?

Speaker 1: 30:50

When it comes to strength and conditioning, yeah, but they've done a great job of owning the market with personal training, so they'll still be prevalent, but just the respect of the individual with that CSCS designation will be there.

Speaker 2: 31:02

What do you think? This might be way too broad of a question, but what are some like interesting things that you might see happening in the world of strength conditioning and personal training that are in the near future?

Speaker 1: 31:17

More technological advances. When I was in school, we didn't have the devices that you see now regularly, like the speed devices that are putting on bars looking at velocity, and more studies looking at muscle activation and optimization of training. Technology is going to change that significantly. Thank you for your time today, Mr Elijah. Do you have any questions for me outside of the ones you have for school? Before we call it a day, I do not think so.

Speaker 2: 31:47

If I do, I'll send you a DM.

Speaker 1: 31:49

All right, my man. Well, I appreciate your time. This was great. Go Beavers. Are you guys in the baseball bracket or did you not make?

Speaker 2: 31:57

it. I think we got eliminated, yeah, you got In the baseball bracket or did you not make it. I think we got eliminated.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Yeah, unfortunately you got next year right and next year what?

Speaker 2: 32:03

Next year is our year. Yeah, what's up.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Are you going to be in the Big 12 next year?

Speaker 2: 32:09

We are in baseball, we are staying independent. That's what's going to happen. Everything else is kind of like Mountain West and we'll be all over the place with other sports. It kind of like a mountain West and we'll be all over the place with other sports.

Speaker 1: 32:22

It's kind of just depends on how good we are. Well, I appreciate your time today. My man, make sure to let your professor. Any students know if they want to become a qualified personal trainer, check out shelf in a CPT. We have a two week free trial. We can help not only students but aspiring trainers become qualified One great trainer time. So I appreciate you taking your time and we'll be seeing you later.