Degree Info
Hey MFT, I was wondering if you can tell me what masters degree should I focus more on and that would help me in my career. What degrees would benefit me from gaining me more knowledge in personal training, athletic training and nutrition, and etc. M.S. in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition, Exercise Science or Sports Medicine and Injury Studies.I'm interested in becoming an athletic trainer, personal trainer and sports nutritionist; from the three degrees which one help me gain me more expertise and knowlege in my field. If i I wanted to get a PH.D, which degree would be best in athletic training, sports medicine, nutrition and etc.I'm also interested in these careers listed below
Athletic Trainer *
Biomechanics
Cardiac/Pulmonary Rehabilitation Specialist
Exercise Physiology *
Fitness Instructor/Personal Trainer *
Kinesiology *
Massage Therapist/Sport Massage *
Nutritionist/Sport Dietitian *
Occupational Therapist *
Orthopedics
Physical Therapist *
Podiatrist
Researcher
Sport Physician/Medical Doctor *
Sport Psychology
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Bachelor's Degree??
What is your bachelor's degree in?? This will help determine your Master's studies...
B
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
My bachelors degree would be
My bachelors degree would be in athletic training or exercise science(Bachelor of Science in Athletic Training) or (Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science), to become an athletic trainer , what degree would gain me more knowledge and expertise, most likely I think it would be getting a bachelors degree in athletic training right.
Whoa!!!
I missed that hefty list you put forth in your first email...LOL
The degree you get really depends on what you want to do, and you listed almost every health-related profession there is...including physician.
When you're an athletic trainer, you deal primarily with injury prevention, treatment and rehab to a degree. A physical therapist, which Will is studying to be, gets much more in-depth into the rehab aspect of injuries and chronic conditions. Personal trainers generally work with folks one-on-one, while strength and conditioning coaches typically work with athletes in a team setting. Sports dietitians (like myself) obviously focus on the nutrition and supplementation end of things.
People often get an undergrad degree in one discipline and then another degree in a different discipline so they can have dual roles, but you generally do have a primary area of practice. This is probably what you need to do..narrow down your primary and secondary areas to focus on and then get corresponding degrees in those specific disciplines.
Let me know when you figure it out...I can give you some more insight at that point, since I know folks that are in all the disciplines you mentioned.
B
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
I see, well basically I just
I see, well basically I just want to help athletes get back back in shape, get them healed, give them treatment, help people achieve their eating habits, get in shape, do some massage therapy, give athletes and other people exercise routines, programs and etc to stay in shape, being healthy, fit, toned, ripped, and so on. Well , the primary goals I want to be is an athletic trainer, personal trainer and sports nutritionist. Secondary goals would be massage therapist, occupational therapist,physical therapist,fitness model and etc.
I see...
I guess the only problem is that there simply isn't enough time in the day to do everything. All of the careers you listed take their own specific training and schooling, and though many of the prerequisites are similar, the actual areas of study are quite different. Unless you want to be in school for the rest of your life (I know a few like this), you probably have to pick ONE or TWO areas of interest and focus your attention on those. If you want to be an athletic trainer, that's great, but you will be spending lots of time in the training room taping and getting athletes ready for competition. This doesn't leave much time to do personal training, massage therapy, sports nutrition, physical therapy and everything else you mentioned.
First of all, you need to decide if you want to focus on injury prevention and rehab or on improving health and performance through fitness. Some of the disciplines you mentioned focus on the former and some on the latter...
I think you need to research each career and narrow your focus a bit...unless you've done this already. Once you have a primary career, then you can pick up top-level certs for personal training and extra schooling for massage etc.
What is more important to you...healing folks, training folks, massaging folks or making sure they eat the right things???
B
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
Ya I know what you mean,
Ya I know what you mean, lol, to narrow them down to one is very difficult.Healing people, training people and making them eat healthy is important to me. Massaging people is somewhat important but healing and training people to be in shape is best in my opinion. So the two areas I would focus more on is becoming an athletic trainer and personal trainer to get my degrees. I would probaby get a certificate , license or something to be a certified sports nutrtitionist.Do you know if there is any great certificates, programs, organizations and etc that I can do to become a sports nutritionist?
you sound just like me bro.
im almost complete with my studies as far as prerequisites go fora number of different bachelors.
im no longer 100% sure i want to do DPT (doctorate physical therapy).... but i know that i am going to ifnalize my Bachelors in either Athletic Training... or Exercise Physiology.... im preetty sure the college doesnt offer an Exercise Phys. degree in partciular..so my second option might be SPorts Medicine.. so one of those. but i know that the 2 more year si'll spend doing that... will hlep me figure out what i REALLY want to do as my career.
im more interested in the training aspect of it all. to personally train people and help them to better health. its just not feasable to try to TRAIN people, and at the same time heal them with physical therapy all at once like brian said. so we'll see which i feel is more geared towards what i want.
time is on your side.
hope that helps
a.k.a. Ry_i_am
I see what u mean, yeah it
I see what u mean, yeah it is very difficult to decide what you want to do in your career cuz you might have so many choices, options and things you want to do but you can't do them all, it would be very stressful, alot of work, so many research to do and etc. I have an idea what I want to do in my life but then sometimes I just want to push myself to do more and more.I hope you find what ur looking for, but these are the degrees that the college I am going to transfer to offers. It doesn't have no doctorate programs in kinesiology.
(Undergraduate Degree Programs)
Bachelor of Arts in Kinesiology (Physical Education K-12)
Adapted Physical Education
Elementary School Physical Education
Secondary School Physical Education
Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology
Athletic Training *
Exercise Science
Fitness
Kinesiotherapy *
Sport Psychology and Coaching
(Graduate Degree Programs)
Master of Arts Programs (30-36 Units)
Adapted Physical Education
Coaching and Student Athlete Development
Pedagogical Studies
Sport Management
Individualized Studies
Master of Science Programs (34-39 Units)
Exercise Science
Exercise Physiology and Nutrition
Sport and Exercise Psychology
Sports Medicine and Injury Studies
You hit a nerve...
You hit a nerve with the sports nutritionist stuff.
It seems like everyone wants to work in nutrition or sports nutrition, but not many want to put in the work. You must remember that most states have licensure laws, meaning you need to be either a registered dietitian or have a Master's degree in nutrition to give out anything more than common knowledge. Unfortunately many personal trainers and other wellness professionals take fly-by-night certification exams and start dishing out meal plans, supplement recs all kinds of other information.
If you really want to "practice" nutrition (especially in the area of sports), then you should get at least one nutrition degree, get an internship (required for an RD), take the national exam and then sit for the board certification exam(CSSD) after being a dietitian for two years. Professional sports teams, colleges and Olympic teams are starting to require this CSSD. Otherwise, the ONLY other reputable cert is the one from the International Society of Sports Nutrition...this is designed for trainers and other fitness professionals who have not obtained an RD. I am a member of the organization and their advisory board is made up of almost all the big researchers in sports nutrition (Kreider, Ziegenfuss, Antonio, Almada, Katch brothers, Williams etc etc). Unfortunately, even a cert such as this doesn't provide you with a clinical foundation, so if you have athletes or exercisers with Crohn's disease, celiac disease, diabetes and other medical concerns (which you will), you'll have to refer to a dietitian anyway, so there are still drawbacks.
Sounds like your best plan might be to get your undergrad in athletic training or ex phys and then get a Master's in nutrition (I'm biased) or the same discipline as your bachelor's. Then you can add all the other ancillary stuff you want (massage training, personal training or strength and conditioning certs etc), but you're still probably going to have problems with that whole time factor....it's just too difficult to be everything all at once!!!!
Take care my friend,
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
Owner/Sports Nutrition Consultant
Fueling Performance, LLC
Woodbury, Minnesota
612-242-1391
www.fuelingperformance.com
Sports Nutrition Consultant
Detroit Tigers Baseball
Milwaukee Bucks Basketball
Independent NHL and NFL Consultant
Health/Nutrition/Fitness Writer
lol, thanks for all the
lol, thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it.So your saying I should get a bachelors in athletic training and a masters in exercise physiology and nutrition.Is it true that athletic trainers get overworked occasionally and sometimes get underpaid and they are all stressed and still not getting a decent salary?
Unfortunately yes...
Athletic trainers are VERY often overworked and underpaid...my sister-in-law has her Master's in athletic training and she is no longer in athletic training. It can be rewarding, but you work long hours and weekends, and even travel quite a bit for notoriously poor wages (at least for high school and college folks).
Your best bet might be to combine ex phys with nutrition...then do your other stuff on the side, unless you are truly passionate about injury prevention, healing and rehab.
B
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
awww, that sucks, now I
awww, that sucks, now I don't want to become an athletic trainer anymore lol. I'm not really into healing and rehab, I thought athletic trainers get good money, only the ones that heal professional teams get the big money. I guess I'll focus on personal training and nutrition.So forget the bachelors in athletic training right. I should get the bachelors degree in Exercise Science right.
Athletic training
Do you know what an athletic trainer does...and how it's different from personal training? Jus curious, since you say you're not into healing and rehab...
B
Brian Zehetner MS,RD,CSSD,CSCS
yes I do, an athletic
yes I do, an athletic trainer helps prepare athletes for teams, they bandage the athletes if they get hurt, they do rehab,they work with healcare professional, to be an athletic trainer you need at least a bachelors degree, you have to pass an exam to become certified from the state. A personal trainer is someone who gets people in shape by giving them workout programs, diet plans, getting them ripped, weight loss, toned, they customize their own workouts and use their knowledge to fit their clients needs because every client is different., one client might just want to just loose weight and another wants to have muscle definition and etc. So ya a personal trainers job is to fit the clients goals and to motivate them to be in shape.Also personal trainer do not necessarily need a degree, but that would benefit them, only a high school diploma certificate is required and 2-4 years of experience and you have to be at least 18 years old.Personal trainers work in health clubs, gyms,fitness facitlities and etc. Athletic trainers work in schools, hospitals, clinics, colleges and etc.