The problem with exercise science.

I talk to lots of kids who are interested in becoming strength coaches.

I get an email about this every week.

We talk about it with people who attend our seminars every month.

Most are in school for an exercise science degree,

either at the undergraduate of the master's level.

I have two important observations.

First, the university level programs are so uniformly bad

that everyone who comes prepared to pass our barbell training and coaching course

has done so by themselves.

They've done the preparation themselves with no help whatsoever from their coursework at school.

As far as I know, there are so few college-level programs that actually equip their graduates to function beyond the commercial gym pin-setter level,

that I cannot tell you the name of a single school that does the job adequately.

Second, these people come to our starting strength seminar, and the most frequent comment from them is something to the effect that I learned more in your 25-hour course than I learned in the past four years of my exercise science program at my school.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

I understand that people don't go to college to learn how to lift weights.

Okay? I know that Brooks and Fahey must be read and understood

that some approach to understanding

cardiopulmonary topics must be taught and that testing and measurements are sometimes

important if quantification is necessary for the physical therapists. But I also know

that any college-level program that calls itself exercise science,

or biomechanics, or exercise physiology, or any other trendy permutation of PE

...