NSCA Strength & Conditioning Professional Standards & Guidelines Project
The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) is campaigning to athletic directors at high schools across the U.S. The purpose of this campaign is to encourage high school athletic directors to hire Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialists ® (CSCS ®) to work in their training facilities or get their current staff members to acquire the CSCS credential.
According to the NSCA, there are more than 26,000 high schools in the United States, but only 260 CSCS certified individuals currently identify themselves as working in a high school environment. That’s out of a population of more than 22,000 people who have earned the CSCS credential to date. Most schools hire a coach or teacher who may or may not be qualified to monitor their training facilities, while others have no one responsible for this very important function.
High school athletic directors can experience many advantages by hiring certified professionals. These specialists can improve the competitiveness of the school's athletic teams by providing better programming, instruction and motivation. They can improve the function of the training facilities through better scheduling, layout and maintenance. They also have the ability to reduce the number of injuries to student athletes and avoid any resulting legal action that may follow such incidents.
You can help the NSCA spread the word about the value of the CSCS credential by bringing this topic up to your local high school athletic directors and other administrators. Also a great resource to get in their hands is the Industry Standards and Guidelines, which clearly spells out the need for a certified coach in all athletic strength and conditioning environments. This resource is easily available through the NSCA website. The following is the preface of the document:
“The Strength & Conditioning profession is at a crossroads. It involves the combined competencies of sport/exercise science, administration, management, teaching and coaching. Its practitioners must also comply with various laws and regulations while responding to instances of potential injury, and related claims and suits. This creates remarkable challenges, and requires substantial experience, expertise and other resources to effectively address them—especially in multi-sport (e.g., collegiate and scholastic) settings.
Ample resources are available in some of these settings. In many others, however, they are not. Budgets, equipment, facilities and staff are often limited (or lacking altogether), with a resulting mismatch between the athletes’ demand for safe and effective programs and services, and the institution’s provision of them. It is important for Strength & Conditioning practitioners and their employers to understand that this standard of care is a shared duty; the institution and individual are thus jointly responsible for fulfilling it. Collectively, these issues are the driving forces behind this project.
The purpose of the NSCA Strength & Conditioning Professional Standards & Guidelines project is to help identify areas of liability exposure, increase safety and decrease the likelihood of injuries that might lead to legal claims and suits, and ultimately improve the standard of care being offered. This document is intended to be neither rigid nor static. On the contrary, the need for discretion and insight is a fundamental theme throughout; and the information presented here will be revised periodically as the profession continues to evolve. It is hoped that Strength & Conditioning practitioners and the institutions employing them will mutually benefit from applying this information, and in turn significantly enhance the quality of services and programs provided to their athletes.”
To read more about the NSCA Strength & Conditioning Professional Standards & Guidelines Project, please click on the link below.
https://www.nsca-lift.org/Publications/standards.shtml
References
National Strength and Conditioning Association Certification Commission Website
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