BSc (Hons) in Strength and Conditioning

• Enjoy high-quality teaching in a friendly learning environment
  • Gain scientific knowledge, practical expertise and coaching experience
  • Excel in your studies and favourite sports at our cutting-edge sports and exercise facilities
  • Follow a programme syllabus aligned to UK Strength and Conditioning Association competency document
  • Approved and recognised program with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA)

This dynamic degree prepares you to flex your physical and intellectual muscles in a career in the fast-growing field of sports and fitness. Our course is a front-runner in its field and equips you with the graduate skills necessary to enter and positively contribute to the sports (strength and conditioning) and fitness (health and fitness) industries through evidence-based practice, as well as producing impactful research into these areas.

Centred around our state-of-the-art sport and exercise facilities, which include our own stadium complete with an eight-lane athletics track and a large sports hall on-campus, this innovative, science-based programme allows you to focus on the disciplines of whole-body system physical training, biomechanics and research methods within the field.

Expert teaching combined with bespoke amenities such as biomechanics and physiology laboratories ensures you have the knowledge base to critically evaluate and engage with contemporary sport and exercise research and practice.

By the end of this degree, you are able to undertake a comprehensive needs analysis for team sports, individual performers and individual exercisers. Using this information, you can plan and implement training programmes designed to elicit specific physiological adaptations and develop programmes to enhance broader health and well-being.

This course comprises three key strands:

• Strength, Conditioning and Fitness.  This strand develops your understanding of the applied practice and your ability to teach a range of specific activities designed to enhance strength, speed, power, mobility, and aerobic fitness. This strand specifically addresses whole-body system integration and looks at factors such as metabolism, nutrition, trainability and adaptation, as well as hormonal and cardiorespiratory responses.
• Sports and Exercise Biomechanics.  This strand centres on the mechanical analysis of human movement with a focus on reducing injuries and improving performance within both competitive sporting and recreational exercise settings. You study mechanical principles of motion, kinematic and kinetic concepts, develop anatomical knowledge as well as explore a range of quantitative measurement techniques.
• Research Methods.  This strand seeks to develop a familiarity with both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and apply these to various sporting and exercise contexts. The supervised dissertation then provides an opportunity to carry out an independent piece of research in an area you are particularly interested in.

Strength and Conditioning is a booming industry, providing work opportunities not just for elite athletes, but also for sports teams, the army, the police force and specialist groups. Graduates work as strength and conditioning practitioners, personal trainers, fitness instructors or sport and exercise scientists. Others enter careers in teaching, leisure, tourism, education, research and health.

Accreditation

This programme has become an approved and recognised program with the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) in the United States.

The University of Winchester empowers students to reach their full potential and make a difference in the world. Set in Winchester, a beautiful, quintessential English city with a rich heritage and vibrant contemporary culture, the university’s friendly and compact campuses give students the benefit of city and campus living. We are well situated with excellent transport links allowing you to reach London or the coast in an hour, and Southampton Airport is just a 10-minute train journey away.

The university offers a selection of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees that are taught across our five faculties:

• Faculty of Business and Digital Technologies: A modern, forward-thinking faculty offering a range of disciples including Accounting, Economics, Business Management, Computer Science and Marketing.
• Faculty of Education and the Arts: Has a long and established history of providing high-quality degrees, and is home to the Institute of Education, Department of Education and Childhood Studies, Department of Performing Arts, and School of Media and Film.
• Faculty of Health and Wellbeing: Outstanding degrees that are committed to progressing health and well-being for all life. The faculty includes Nursing, Physiotherapy, Social Work, Animal Welfare and Sports degrees.
• Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences: Passionate about what makes us human, we offer research-led teaching and outstanding support in Anthropology; Archaeology; History; Psychology; Social Sciences including Politics and Geography; Philosophy; English and Creative Writing.
• Faculty of Law, Crime and Justice: Bringing together the department of Law and the department of Policing, Criminology and Forensics, the faculty uses an interdisciplinary approach to offer a dynamic range of degrees that offer the use of specialist facilities.