Christopher Rodriguez

Responsibilities

Create and build workouts for different sports that include aspects of progression, overload, specificity, etc. Coach athletes through different exercises and workouts. Demonstrate and explain workouts and exercises. Critique form and technique to help keep athletes safe. Develop and build relationships with athletes.

Accomplishments

One other coach and I worked with girls basketball all summer. The team was not highly motivated in the weight room and had virtually no leadership coming into the summer. They also did not have great form coming into the summer. Throughout the summer, we worked with them on both their training but also on their focus, teamwork, and leadership skills. By the end of the summer, the team had much more drive and was able to get in solid workouts with proper form.

Learning experience

I think the greatest lesson that I learned is that you have to really put yourself out there and advocate for yourself. When working with many other coaches who had all been there for years, it was really hard for me to put my ideas out there, but once I did, we were able to work together much better and come up with better workouts.

What advice would you give?

Go into an internship where you will learn something and actually get to do what you hope to do in the future. Working at a big gym just cleaning things may not be the best internship. Getting thrown into the program was the best thing that could have happened to me and it forced me to learn quickly and I got a ton of experience building workouts and working with athletes, which is what I really wanted.