Podcast
NSCA’s Coaching Podcast
Hosted by NSCA · EN
This is the NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, where strength and conditioning coaches share their experience, lessons learned, and advice about how to thrive in a highly competitive profession. Published by the National Strength and Conditioning Association, www.nsca.com.
12episodes
Episodes
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Morgan Smith | Gaining Applied Experience Through Education
Feb 13Tap to summarizeYour career can accelerate when you ask, offer, and say yes. For Morgan Smith, that approach led to a postdoctoral fellowship with the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at Stanford University. Smith recalls how coaching sparked her interest in the science behind performance. Working across academic and practical settings, she encountered challenges with research feasibility firsthand. Today, she focuses on blending coaching with sport science. At Stanford, she began by building relationships and trust within the athletic department. She describes collaborating with coaches and staff to identify research interests, gaps, and low-burden contributions. Smith also highlights opportunities to support club sports, campus recreation centers, and community programs. These roles can help fund education while building your resume, network, and practical skills. She reinforces the value of education as a time to maximize experience and explore interests. Discover how to gain applied experience early, drive cross-department buy-in, and cultivate relationships that move your career forward. Reach out to Morgan on Instagram: @goldenmo_ and LinkedIn: @morgan-smith-sportsscientist | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs | Learn more about the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at: humanperformancealliance.org. Interested in bridging coaching and sport science? The Certified Performance and Sport Scientist® (CPSS®) credential can help you expand your qualifications, open new career paths, and strengthen organizational collaboration.Show Notes“My biggest tip would be to put yourself out there and to say yes. Especially as an undergrad, if there's something that pops up and it's like, hey, we have an opportunity for a four week internship, or there's an opportunity to shadow this performance center or this coach, or if anything pops up related to what you may be interested in, say yes as much as you can, because those experiences not only are going to help you build skills, but it's going to help you meet people and network, especially when you have such a positive experience. Your name and your face will be in their minds.” 15:50“Especially as an undergrad, if there's something that pops up and it's like, hey, we have an opportunity for a four week internship, or there's an opportunity to shadow this performance center or this coach, or if anything pops up related to what you may be interested in, say yes as much as you can, because those experiences not only are going to help you build skills, but it's going to help you meet people and network, especially when you have such a positive experience. Your name and your face will be in their minds.” 16:10“You never know what's going to happen. And especially if it's something that maybe it's an experience or it's a job that you don't necessarily have the experience for, still apply, especially when you're in undergrad or in grad school. I always tell people when you're a student, it's the best time to explore.” 25:20
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NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, Episode 107: Carmen Colomer
Aug 13, 2021Tap to summarizeCarmen Colomer, Director of Sport Science for the Philadelphia 76ers National Basketball Association (NBA) team, talks to the NSCA Coaching and Sport Science Program Manager, Eric McMahon, about translating numbers into actions. Topics under discussion include periodizing athlete’s recovery in the NBA and how learning to code can help with data analysis and application. Find Carmen on Twitter: @CarmenColomer1 | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscsShow Notes“So I collect a lot of the data. I analyze it and then interpret it. So there's always the terms of inferences, like am I appropriately analyzing the data instead of understanding if there has been a meaningful change there as well? So I think that's where sports science comes in. Rather than just looking at, say, a percentage change, we can actually look at a few more high level statistics and understand when a change has occurred.” 5:20 “I think broadly speaking, with my role, it's translating the numbers into the actions. So it's sort of asking yourself, OK, well, what can this coach do with this information? So I think how you can get certain messages across probably becomes one of the most important parts of the job.” 7:27 “I think the last point is that in most sports or most of the literature you'd hear them talking about having 72 hours to recover post games, but unfortunately, we don't have that luxury. So I think we just sort of capitalize on, I guess, finely tuning things. If there's any low-hanging fruit, that's where we migrate towards first.” 12:00 “And there's no point of doing that and just collecting data for the sake of collecting data. And I think, in any organization, when you first come in, you need to be careful that you're not just trying 100 things at once. It's typically an iterative process. Implement one thing and maybe fine tune that for a little while before implementing more.” 20:27 “I don't think anyone in sports science is ever right. I think you just become less wrong.” 22:42
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