This might be a bit of a niche question, but I’m wondering about triathlon coaching certifications, specifically as far as obtaining and using them to grow my business goes. I’m a third year triathlete and have been a personal trainer / group fitness instructor for 5 years, so it seems like the next logical step, career wise.
Looking at education/certification options and ITCA and USAT both are prevalent. Does anyone have any experience with them? The only info I can find so far has been a 7 year old Slowtwitch thread, so I’m sure a lot of that info is fairly dated.
I know ITCA provides a full 1.9 CEUs for my NASM re-certification, but outside of that I don’t know how valuable it is within the triathlon world compared to the USAT one
Honestly having success, knowing the sport, ect is way more important then some type of cash grab certificate that USAT or whomever offers. I know when I’m looking for a coach I’m looking for someone who has experience with the sport, who has studied training philosophies, and other aspects.
Someone who took a weekend class to get one of those certificates and really pushes that as their experience I move on from.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would want someone who at the very least demonstrated some level of accredidation in the field instead of just being self taught. I mean, yes obviously experience is a huge factor and if all they’re pushing is that they’re certified from a weekend course I would move on too, but I’ve just seen way too many terrible trainers pedaling junk science at this point to be weary of anyone who makes a career in this field being self taught.
Yeah but looking at Slowtwitch there are several coaches there who have done a whole lot and just rely on a USAT certificate. Being on that site for 10 years has giving me a lot of skepticism on those coaching certificates, but thats just me.
That’s fair, but I need CEUs to re-certify as a personal trainer anyway and since there’s a ton of avenues to go down I figured I might as well go down the one that’s my main passion.
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Having researched both for my fledgling coaching career, I intend to get the USAT cert and not bother with ITCA. Neither means a tremendous amount more than the other, but I thought there was a little more backbone to USAT, and the process was a bit more straightforward in terms of execution.
In the end, a coaching cert just promised some baseline knowledge was demonstrated by the individual and maintained over time. Someone could be a good coach without a cert entirely.
That said the higher level USAT certainly require you to actually have verifiable experience, probably have another USATF or USAC coaching license, and have attended in person clinics. There’s quite a bit more rigor to USAT than just attending a weekend class.
That seems to be what I’ve found too. Plus it seems USAT offers insurance and networking opportunities plus being listed as a coach on their site (for whatever that’s worth)
One thing I noted is that USAT requires a review to even get into their seminars. Proof of athletes coached, at what level, what other licenses you hold, etc. It seems like there’s a bit of quality control there looking for coaches who are serious about having a business or at least coaching athletes, rather than compiling certifications. So my plan starting out was to obtain my USAC and USATF entry level licenses. I’m planning to pursue USAC Level 2 as there’s a clinic about 15 minutes from my house this fall. I’d like to get my distance running coaching cert as well as that was my first sport. Then I’ll consider pursuing my USAT license if I decide to go that route.
I’ve coached a runner and a triathlete, both prior friends, and I really enjoy it. Their success has helped build my confidence that this is something I can not only do, but do well and enjoy. It’ll be a fun passion project, if nothing else.