Over the past year, we’ve had the privilege of meeting many young, aspiring strength and conditioning coaches who’ve come through Westside Barbell. It’s always encouraging to see that kind of early enthusiasm and drive.

One thing we’ve noticed, though, is that more first-year students and even high school athletes are already building online training pages or offering programs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn money or get a head start, that initiative is admirable. But it also opens the door for an important conversation.

There is a meaningful difference between offering workouts online and stepping into the role of a Strength Coach. This profession demands an understanding of where our field came from, the principles that guide it, and the fundamentals that keep athletes progressing safely and effectively.

If you see this as your career, let’s take a moment to define what that job truly is, and what it requires, so you can build something real, lasting, and respected.

What a Strength Coach Is Not

To understand the job, we have to look at where the lines get blurred.

1. You are not a Physical Therapist This is the most common crossover I see. Physical Therapists trying to be coaches and coaches trying to be Physical Therapists. When you try to do both, you often fail at both because the philosophies of practice conflict. A good feedback loop with a therapist is excellent. You can have a healthy debate and land somewhere in the middle for the benefit of the athlete. But do not confuse the roles.

2. You are not a Personal Trainer A Personal Trainer often focuses on the session at hand and provides a service for that hour. A Strength Coach manages a process. We are looking at the macrocycle.

3. You are not a Fitness Influencer Content is part of the modern world. However, if your focus is on how you look doing the lift rather than how your athlete performs on the field, your priorities are skewed.

4. You are not the Athlete When you put on the Coach hat, your workout is no longer the priority. You are there to facilitate their success rather than yours.

The Art of Coaching and Developing The Eye

Many people think coaching is just writing a program and counting reps. That is administrative work, not coaching.

At Westside, my goal is to make the athlete self sufficient. I want them to be able to coach each other. If the athletes understand the standard, they can correct each other. This allows me to step back and analyze the bigger picture.

I do not believe in over cueing. If you give an athlete ten things to think about while they have a max load on their back, they will fail. I observe. I give feedback when it matters.

Real coaching is about adaptation. It is about observing the session and realizing you need to change the plan right now. That might mean manipulating volume, changing the exercise, or lowering the density. If you are just staring at your clipboard counting reps, you will miss the indicators that tell you what the athlete actually needs.

Handling the Internet Expert

We live in an age where athletes have access to endless information. You will inevitably have a young athlete challenge your programming because they saw something on TikTok.

When this happens, do not shut them down. That builds resentment rather than buy in.

Instead, I let them explain where they are coming from. I try to assess their level of critical thinking. Then I simply share our process. I point to the objective data of success we have had over the last 40 plus years. Trends come and go, but a robust system stands the test of time.

If you can explain why we do what we do, backed by four decades of world records, the TikTok video usually loses its argument.

Lineage and The Unsexy Work

I like to compare coaching to Martial Arts. Your lineage dictates your fundamentals. It shapes your perception of where and how you start.

If you try to learn from everyone, you often end up with no real foundation. You become a generalist with no master skill. You need a base.

At Westside, our lineage is clear. It traces directly back through Louie Simmons to the great Soviet sports scientists of the past. Louie saw that the Soviets were dominating world sport. He realized they were not guessing. They were using math and physics.

Louie studied their texts. He learned from the Dynamo Club. He took their system of periodization and adapted it to create the Conjugate Method. He taught us that you must know the history of strength. You must know the source material. We know exactly where our math comes from because our lineage is built on the results of the strongest lifters and smartest scientists in history.

When I first arrived at Westside to learn from Louie, I thought I knew a lot. The longer I stayed, the less I realized I knew.

It took me seven years before I felt I had developed a base of thinking and problem solving to truly start coaching at a high level and nearly 10 years before I thought I knew enough to write a blog.

That is the value of mentorship. It was not just about reading books. It was about loading plates, spotting, and watching the lifters. That was my PhD in weight room culture.

The real education often happened after the lifting. When the athletes would leave, the training ended for them. But for Louie, and luckily for me, the masterclass began. Being able to pick his brain in those quiet moments was where the real transfer of knowledge happened.

Area of Work

Finally, understand the sector you are entering.

The Professional or Collegiate Sector In this setting, mentorship is everything. If you are an assistant, your goal is to execute the direction of the Head Coach. You are there to gain experience and have healthy discussions, but ultimately you follow their plan. You must also learn logistics such as working with large numbers, specific timeframes, and red tape.

The Private Sector Here you have fewer rules but much more responsibility. You are responsible for everything from purchasing your own equipment to retaining your athletes.

There is much to learn from both sectors. The private sector can learn logistics from the pros, and the pros can learn adaptation from the private sector.

Moving Forward

Strength coaching is an extremely rewarding profession, but it takes time to develop your eye and your system.

My advice is to start with your education. Learn the history of the industry and find a system that is backed by results. Do not rely on theoretical education alone. Talk to other coaches. Travel to other places. Seek out differences of opinion.

If you are ready to start that education and want to learn the system directly from the source, we built the Westside Barbell Digital Internship for this exact purpose. It is the lineage, the thinking, and the culture, structured to give you the foundation you need.