Written by: Aubrey Landry

In a field where entry can have a difficult beginning through unpaid internships, volunteer positions to gain any experience possible, and more, I wanted to write about my journey to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel. To show that there is hope for the young aspiring coach questioning whether or not a career in this field is feasible. I’m currently the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Cape Breton University where I work with five varsity teams as well as the Cape Breton Eagles in the QMJHL. If you were to ask me a couple years ago where I thought I would be at age 23, I would have never have said a head coach at the USPORT level.

My strength and conditioning journey began as an as intern for Acadia Performance Training during my undergraduate degree. I started working with our youth and adult groups. As an introvert this was very out of my comfort zone, public speaking was not my thing. If I’m being honest, I didn’t love it at first, which I believe stemmed from a lack of confidence and not truly knowing what I was doing. During my second year was when the COVID-19 lockdown happened, and this was when I really found my passion for sports performance. Like most people at this time, I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I took this as an opportunity to learn. At first, I just followed as many strength & conditioning professionals that seemed trustworthy on social media, which then led to buying books and listening to podcasts. The time I spent learning more about the world of sports performance is when I truly realized that this was a career I wanted to pursue. How to improve sports performance was always interesting to me as I was also an athlete at the time, but this is when I truly found passion within all the details. Being aware of the barriers of entry I decided I needed to be doing more to separate myself from the rest if I wanted a job post-graduation.

With my third year of my undergraduate being mostly online school, I didn’t gain the experience that I would have otherwise. Because of this I reached out to some coaches at a private sector facility back home called Atlantic Sports Performance (ASP, now known as One Last Rep Strength) and asked if I could intern with them over the summer. They weren’t actively looking for interns, I just thought there was no harm in asking, and they took me on. The point in mentioning this, is to show sometimes you need to be the one asking. Not everyone has the opportunities to intern during their undergrad through their respective universities, and they won’t just fall on your lap, so you need to reach out and create opportunities for yourself. This internship provided me with unique experience that I would not have received otherwise if I had stuck to interning only through the university.

Working in the private sector primarily with middle/high school athletes created a completely unique environment for me. In addition, they utilized a lot of technology that I hadn’t yet been exposed to (e.g. force plates and velocity-based training tools). Having the chance to work with this younger population helped me with getting more coaching reps in (on the floor experience coaching athletes), allowing me to build more confidence going into my final year as an intern with Acadia. Interning for ASP also showed me new training philosophies which helped me build a more robust toolbox, because at the time I only really knew the methods of the coaches at Acadia. That same summer is when I became a certified personal trainer, so I was doing that on top of my internship with ASP to once again gain as many coaching reps as possible. As a personal trainer I wasn’t working with athletes at the time, however, this was my first true opportunity to run my own programs and learn from those mistakes. Working one-on-one with someone is also a great experience to work on your coaching cues, including the soft skills of coaching.

Entering my final year of my undergraduate degree I was able to take on extra responsibilities as a lead coach for our youth programs as well as the senior lead for a few varsity teams. These new roles allowed me to run sessions for larger groups, which really helped me accumulate more and more coaching reps. The current assistant at the time was moving on so upon graduating I was able to step into the assistant role. I would be lying if I said it was all smooth sailing from there, as I had a bit of a reality check as the gap from intern to assistant coaching role was a lot bigger than anticipated.

One of the first challenges I had was the realization I was no longer a student athlete and was transitioning into being a full-time working professional. This was a big switch in focus for me, with the grind of going to class and practice, then switching into a full-time coach. Although it may seem similar, since I was still in a sports environment, the realization I was no longer an athlete myself was hard. On top of that, as an intern I never really had to communicate with sport coaches regarding programing, scheduling, and periodization. So, this was a skill I quickly realized needed developing.

It took me a couple months to truly adapt into my new role. After some time, I started to build more confidence in my role and was starting to settle in nicely after completing my first season. A head coach position then became available and my boss at the time, Shawn Preston, told me I should apply. Not thinking I would ever get the role, with only my one year of experience working full-time, I figured I’d at least apply for the interview and networking experience. Sure enough, after a few rounds of interviews, I got the job.

Now this isn’t me trying to gloat about how lucky I am. The story I am trying to tell is to go hunting for opportunities, and whichever ones you get, treat it like your dream job. Did I feel 100% confidence in my capabilities going into some roles, of course not, but sometimes you need to be thrown into the fire to succeed. Pressure makes diamonds. Being put into uncomfortable positions that I didn’t feel ready for is how I grew into the coach I am today.

Author Bio

Aubrey Landry is the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Cape Breton University where he works with 5 varsity teams including men and women’s soccer, basketball and track & field. On top of his coaching with the university he coaches the Cape Breton Eagles QMJHL team as well as local youth Canadian Atlantic Sport athletes. Within these roles his objective is to best prepare the athletes for the demands of their sports, whether it be developing strength, speed, building resiliency or ensuring that they’re in the best shape possible to outlast their opponents. Aubrey is set to complete his Masters in Health Science majoring in Sports Performance this August from Rocky Mountain University, Provo Utah.