Jack Strop
Well-Known Member
There are definitely distinct fields but they can and do overlap sometimes. Strength and conditioning coaches do sports specific training that incorporates skills training. Some do the sport specific training and take a more literal adaption. Others like me take it more general and focus on training the proper energy system, muscle types and so forth for the specific sport, which I think is better.
Sports performance coaches can work with people on drills and those things but the focus will be different. I take a lot of time working on specific movements from an athletes sport but I don't really focus on the skill I focus on the movement and do plyometric drills and other things to reenforce that motor patterning. For example with a football wide receiver I'll have them run routes over and over but we are working in the footwork and movement. Teaching them acceleration Sprint technique, max velocity Sprint technique, 1 step cuts, double cuts, etc. Its also a great time to look for weaknesses.
I don't think people really realize what the difference are between a lot of the coaches/jobs are. Head coach, Skills coach, strength and conditioning coach, sports performance coach, athletic trainer and so on are pretty different jobs. Although sports performance and strength and conditioning overlap and are sometimes interchangeable depending on the program.
Thanks, that's what I was getting at, although you explained it better.