Strength and Conditioning
Bluffton’s strength and conditioning major is an approved program through the National Strength and Conditioning Association Education Recognition Program.
Health, fitness & sport science
Bluffton’s HFS programs will prepare students for careers centered on people, activity, movement and performance. Whether you want to improve athletic performance, manage sport organizations, lead recreation programs or promote health and wellness, you’ll gain knowledge and hands-on experience to put your degree to work.
Meet Carson
For as long as he can remember, Carson Kindred ’24 has wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach. His internship at Findlay High School allowed him to do just that.
Meet Grace
Grace Fillinger ’23, a sport management major with a concentration in communication, served as a recruiting and marketing intern for Bluffton’s football team.
Majors in Health, Fitness and Sport Science can lead to careers directly supporting health such as strength and conditioning, athletic training, health rehabilitation; or to careers encouraging movement indirectly, such as athletic administration, sports broadcasting or health and physical education.
Majors
Explore how the human body responds and adapts to exercise while developing skills to assess fitness, prescribe exercise programs and promote health and performance. Exercise science provides a strong foundation for careers in health and fitness as well as graduate study programs.
Potential Career Pathways: Exercise physiology, fitness and personal training, cardiac rehabilitation, graduate health professions, wellness promotion.
Prepare to become a licensed-12 health and physical education teacher while gaining real-world teaching experience early in your college career. You’ll learn how to create meaningful movement experiences, promote lifelong health and wellness, and positively influence the next generation.
Potential Career Pathways: K-12 health education, physical education, school wellness, youth development, coaching.
Sport is more than what happens on the field. Learn the business, communication and organizational side of the industry while developing the skills needed to lead sport organizations, communicate with fans and communities, and create successful sport experiences.
Potential Career Pathways: Athletic administration, sport communication, sport marketing, sport organizations, event management.
CONCENTRATIONS
Sport communication:
Additional communication courses provide a foundation for a career in sports news
writing, news casting or as a sports information director.
Sport organization:
Additional business courses provide an introduction to the management side of sports.
Learn to lead programs, events and recreational experiences that get people moving, connected and engaged. From community recreation and outdoor adventure to sport facilities, camps and special events, you’ll develop the leadership and organizational skills to create experiences people remember.
Potential Career Pathways: Parks & Recreation, community programs, sport facilities, camps directors, outdoor recreation, events
This is a program that draws in hands-on leaners, athletes, and those with kinetic energy! Learn how to apply exercise science principles, coaching methods, and research-based program design techniques to enhance athletic performance. This program assures you graduate with a balance of scientific knowledge of human physiology, opportunities to practice assessment and program administration, and pairs you with professionals to guide your internship experiences.
Potential Career Pathways: Certified Strength and Conditioning coaches are employed in high schools, colleges, professional settings and in the private sector. This program will also prepare students for graduate level programs.
The Bluffton University Strength & Conditioning Program is recognized through the
NSCA Education Recognition Program.
Minors
Are you interested in health, fitness and sport science but leaning toward a major in another department? Consider a minor in coaching, wellness, exercise science or recreation management.
Persons other than exercise science majors may be interested in a minor in coaching. The minor requires a coaching internship.
Explore courses for a minor in coaching
Persons other than the food and nutrition majors (who have a wellness concentration) may be interested in a minor in wellness.
Explore courses for a minor in wellness
Are you interested in food, nutrition and health but planning to major in another discipline? A nutrition minor allows you to build knowledge in human nutrition while pursuing your primary field of study.
The nutrition minor is structured to include a coherent sequence of nutrition-focused courses that explore how food choices affect individual and community health. A nutrition minor can strengthen preparation for careers and graduate study in health care, public health, education, athletics, wellness, community health, social services and related fields.
Explore courses for a minor in nutrition and dietetics
The recreation management minor allows students to develop recreation skills and interests through a variety of avenues and to better understand the importance of leisure in our society.
Explore courses for a minor in recreation management
Persons looking to stay connected to sports may be interested in a minor in exercise science.
Explore courses for a minor in exercise science
HFSS faculty
Amanda Beard
Assistant professor of health, fitness and sport science; HFSS department chair
Tami Forbes
Associate professor of health, fitness and sport science
Evan Skilliter
Assistant professor of health, fitness and sport science
Strength and Conditioning
Bluffton’s strength and conditioning major is an approved program through the National Strength and Conditioning Association Education Recognition Program.