Throughout my four years of high school, I was a student-athlete. During the fall semester, I was a member of the football team. My hard work and dedication paid off when I was assigned the starting quarterback position my junior year. Lacrosse was my other passion. I represented my school at multiple all-league games. Resistance training was part of the reason I was a successful athlete but I didn’t understand why. My curiosity about my body's strength and power lead me to explore an exercise science education. 

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I took my first exercise science class spring semester of my freshman year, Exercise Science 101. I knew I wanted to learn about why I had to train so much throughout my sports career. Reflecting after my first class, I learned that there is much more to exercise than going on a run or lifting weights in the gym. Exercise is a numbers game. It is also mechanical. This introduction class only scratched the surface of exercise science but I knew I was hooked. 

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I was a little nervous going into my sophomore year. Anatomy, physiology and biomechanics were apart of my course load. I had heard horror stories about all of these classes, but I decided to go in with a positive attitude. I knew these classes were an important part of the exercise science curriculum. I was excited to learn more about how different parts of the body interact. 

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During anatomy, I learned that the body is a complex system and contains many different organs, and mechanisms in order to function correctly. Fun fact, there are more muscles in your arm than the biceps and triceps.  Although I thought I was in over my head, I learned about muscle groups that I did not know existed and could relate it to the resistance training experience from high school. 

Physiology was a good addition to anatomy because after learning where the muscles, organs, blood vessels, and nerves are in the body, I was able to learn how they all function together. How the body sends messages to the muscles and the breakdown of nutrients are just a few of topics I learned about. This information is important to know in strength and conditioning because you want your athletes diet to help their muscle recovery and energy levels.

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Although Biomechanics sounds like a biology class, it actually contained more physics curriculum than I expected. Relearning formulas and concepts that I learned briefly freshman year of high school was challenging, but interesting. During our lab, we performed multiple studies throughout the semester as a class. Then we were able to create and perform our own studies. My group decided to study broad jump performances with two conditions, no warm-up and a dynamic warm-up. Although we looked at the overall performances of the athletes, we also analyzed the hip, knee, and ankle bend of each trial to see if the angles changed between each condition. This lab exercise inspired me to perform a similar study the following year. 

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My junior year I took exercise physiology, which included information from previous exercise science classes. I learned about how the body uses energy, the difference between fats and carbohydrates, and the process of muscle protein synthesis. I started to connect some dots between my physiology and  exercise physiology class. Everything was starting to make a little more sense. 

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After learning about the science behind exercise science, I finally realized that I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach, specifically for a college football team. It combines two of my favorite activities, football and resistance training. My final exercise science class, Exercise Testing and Prescription included resistance training and endurance topics, which I was familiar with from an academic and personal stand point. This class was something I was looking forward to during my college experience. I was excited to learn about what goes into testing and prescribing workouts to athletes. 

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Throughout this class, we learned how to perform multiple different types of exercise tests, from maximal strength tests to a maximum VO2 tests. At the end of testing, I was able to prescribe an exercise routine for my subject based on their performance on the tests, their personal goals, and their likes and dislikes for exercises. Now I know what goes into running a professional lab and testing subjects.

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Throughout my four years at Elon University, I gained a vast amount of knowledge on exercising. From learning basic muscle groups to improving muscular function with specific exercises. Each year, I gained new knowledge to achieve my goal of becoming a college strength and conditioning coach. I am studying for the CSCS test which will allow me to run a weight room, test athletes, prescribe workouts, and work with injured athletes. Elon University has prepared me for my next step in life and I am looking forward to using these new educational tools throughout my career.