Strength Coach Death of the First Generation Strength Coach

Michael Boyle http://bit.ly/StrengthCoachD

We are seeing the future and in some cases it's not pretty. On one hand we are seeing the highest salaries ever paid in the field of strength and conditioning. On the other hand we are seeing the same trend we see in many industries, older employees being replaced by younger employees.

Unfortunately many strength and conditioning coaches have not planned for the inevitable and the inevitable is that you may not go out on your own terms.

Many of us started in this profession 30 plus years ago and never thought about the end game.  Retirement? We'd coach forever, die with our boots on like in the old western's.

Sadly, that's not happening. Suddenly strength coaches are finding themselves in their fifties with no pensions, not enough money saved and sometimes no job.

My advice? Start planning now. As with many professions, you will age out even if you never planned to.

I was talking about this to another veteran strength and conditioning coach, Bob Alejo, and he had a great observation;

“ have you ever been to a retirement party for a strength coach?'

Now think about the flip side. Have you seen a strength coach in his fifties suddenly get let go, reassigned etc?

Check out this advice from Bob - Four Words: Four-Oh-One-Kay

My first big job was at UCLA in August of 1984. And, as I was receiving what I thought was a million dollars ($11,500 full-time), I didn't put a nickel in my 410k…not a cent! I was saying to myself, why wouldn't I take the entire paycheck and use it all! Twenty-seven years old and a Wall Street savant I was not. Big mistake. At the same time there was really no tutoring on the subject either. Had I known you didn't have to invest butt-loads of money to gain on a working-lifetime investment, it made no sense to me. Since, I've certainly learned my lesson but like some of you will, I learned too late.

Certainly this is not a financial lesson here, but the simple construct of a 401k is tax deferred money, compounding interest (look it up), in many instances institutions/organizations will match your contribution to the account (ex., you contribute $1.00, they contribute $.50) and surprisingly, automatic deposit (taken as a deduction from your paycheck) can be chosen which has been proven to be much more effective and committal to saving money or any kind. Join StrengCoach.com today to read the full article and more.... http://bit.ly/StrengthCoachD