Meet Your 2021 Directors – Trevor Cottrell, PhD, CSCS
Dr. Trevor Cottrell has been a professor of Kinesiology and Health Promotion at Sheridan College for the past 15 years. His education includes an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo, a Masters degree in Exercise Science from Northern Arizona University, a doctoral degree in Physiology from the University of Arizona, and postdoctoral work at Queen’s University. His expertise spans human physiology from cellular biochemistry to applied human performance with a current research focus on optimizing training interventions for maximal power performance. He has developed extensive curriculum in human performance coaching and developed coach education programs in Canada and the United States.
Dr. Cottrell has competed at the regional, national, and world level in five different strength sports, including; Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman, highland games, and tug-of-war. Having been a competitive strength athlete and coach for over 30 years, he is able to apply advances in human performance research with competitive athletes from a variety of backgrounds. As a strength coach at Northern Arizona University he oversaw programming of eight different varsity sports and was the lead physiologist at the High Altitude Sports Training Complex. He has served as a strength and conditioning service provider for the Canadian Sports Institutes and Wrestling Canada overseeing Olympic athlete development, and spent two years in Texas working in performance development programs for professional and amateur athletes. In addition, he is a cofounder of the Canadian Strength and Conditioning Association. Dr. Cottrell specializes in power development in athletes and has specific skill in youth athlete strength and power development.
As an Olympic weightlifting athlete he started competing in 1994 and won his first provincial championship in 1995. Having moved to Arizona for graduate work he competed for 6 additional years, winning state titles and medaling at collegiate nationals on multiple occasions. As a weightlifting coach he led athletes to National and International competitions and built his teams to win state titles and medaling as a team at collegiate nationals. Unfortunately, Dr. Cottrell’s competition experience ended with a knee injury in 2001. Since then he has built several competition teams and is now the head coach of the Vault Barbell Olympic Weightlifting Club.