🙇🏼‍♂️CSCS Prep that helped me📚

Hey Coaches,

Sorry it's taken some time to pull this together. But, here we go....

The exam (w/o going into specific questions)

As far as I could tell, they didn't slip any questions from the Essentials Fifth Edition. It's coming up though, I think later this summer.

Definitely know Chapter 21. Memorize table 21.2. This just takes repetition but you'll be glad you did. Write it out over and over again. When you get your two pieces of paper or dry-erase board when taking the exam, just sketch out the table quickly at the beginning. You will refer to it several times during the exam.

The videos and pictures used to assess technique were mostly obvious. There was one weird exercise where the athlete was doing downward leg chops while stepping forward. I couldn't find the name of the exercise afterward, so I'm not sure if I accurately noted whether they were performing the exercise correctly or not. (BTW, I would never ask an athlete to perform it, just sayin').

The nutrition calculations were not overly challenging. Just know how to do them.

Everything else is just as Dr. Goodin says.

Preparation

I created an Excel spreadsheet to guide my preparation. One tab was the tracker and schedule for reviewing the lectures and quizzes. This way I never accidentally skipped over any of the lectures. For planning purposes, I noted the dates I planned to review each chapter. Of course, I was always changing the dates, but it helped me stay more on track than I would have without tracking them. Same with quizzes and the section tests.

The other tab was where I noted the concepts I wanted to revisit. This served the purpose of focusing me on those most important concepts I would need to keep coming back to after reviewing 24 chapters of material and so I could solidify the important and challenging concepts. My biggest challenge was retaining all of the material from chapter to chapter. So instead of trying to retain all of the material, my "Concepts to Revisit" list was a huge help.

On a personal note on a side topic. Because I haven't been working in the coaching field for years like some of you awesome studs and studettes, there was even more for me to learn as I was preparing. In fact, in many ways, it was like learning a foreign language because well, you are. I would know because the Army sent me to California to learn Russian for a year. So, just like Russian, I immersed myself in the language of coaching and started using it every day. Even going out of my way to find opportunities to use some terms sometimes.

As I was listening to Dr. Goodin's lectures, I would stay actively engaged during the lecture. As Dr. Goodin was lecturing, I would try to predict what it was that he was going to say. This isn't because Dr. Goodin is predictable. It's because the material is. It all ties together. Explaining a topic frequently required re-explaining a related topic previously covered. Every time Dr. Goodin said, "When you hear this you should be thinking" or "When you hear this you should be asking yourself" I would pause the recorded lecture and try to answer the question I was asking myself. After a while, it started clicking. But only if you are actively engaged in the lectures and not using them as background noise.

I wish Dr. Goodin's flash cards were ready before I took the exam but I just made my own. You should use flashcards, they're a great way to refresh on material across chapters quickly.

I read the DCO a couple times each week. This too helped me stay vigilant on all of the topics to prepare for throughout the long study process.

As I completed the quizzes, I kept two lists. One list was the questions I got wrong and then what the right answer was. The other list was the questions that I answered correctly but I was not confident in the answer.

Okay, I'm going to geek out here... Like I said there were a lot of concepts that were new to me. Sometimes they were complex and sometimes I was trying to better understand the importance of them. Here's where Claude was a huge help. I had all of Dr. Goodin's lecture and prep material saved in my personal drive as well as a personal digital copy of the Essentials book. I created a Project in Claude (I have the $20/month version) that allowed me to ask a question about a concept and Claude would refer to only the material I knew to be credible to answer the question. But I took this one step further. Well, five actually. I stated that for each response I wanted:

What is the best answer.
A detailed explanation about the concept. Use diagrams, images, charts, and any other graphic or visual to help explain the concept in full and complete detail.
What are the sources for the answers you are providing me.
Tell me if there appears to be conflicting information that may make the responses you are providing me less certain. If this happens, give me the best response you can but tell me what other answers may be correct and why.
A bottom line for the exam that summarizes what I need to know to get questions related to the concept I'm asking about correct.

I ended up using this Project about seven times for questions I had. But, don't worry @Dr. Goodin, I'm saving a few for the next Q&A session I can join. In the meantime, hit me up if anyone needs help setting this up in your Claude environment. You'll need the paid version tho.

That's it for now. If I think of anything else, I'll add it. Let me know how I can help. And remember: You've got this!

Chris

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