High Performance Coaching Certificate

The field of High Performance Coaching is a relatively new profession in the United States that is quickly gaining popularity and creating new employment opportunities. Collegiate and professional teams are hiring High Performance Coaches to optimize athlete development. The role of the High Performance Coach is to collaborate with other team specialists to enhance the performance of the athlete. Traditionally, athletes consulted with Nutritionists, Sport Psychologists, Sports Medicine personnel, and Strength and Conditioning Coaches independently. Contemporarily, it has become the role of the High Performance Coach to collaborate with these professionals, collect additional physiological data and integrate this information to enhance athletes’ performance.

The aim of the curriculum is to provide a foundation in current behavior change theories/models, motivational interviewing, as well as understanding of current health issues. Students may complete the certificate as a complement to a graduate disciplinary degree program or as a stand-alone curriculum. Students who are currently enrolled as a graduate student in a department at the University of Kentucky are encouraged to apply for the Health Coaching Graduate Certificate program early in their graduate studies. Students who are enrolled in the M.S. in Health Promotion program are eligible to count up to 9 credit hours from their program, requiring them to take 6 additional credit hours (on top of their M.S. curriculum) to complete the graduate certificate.

Requirements

• Students are required to take four core KHP classes as requirements for the Certificate, as well as one elective course.
• In order to remain in good standing, the Graduate School requires that a student must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 in the set of courses required in order to be awarded the certificate.
• Courses taken within two years prior to admission to the certificate can be used in the certificate.
• Certificates will only be awarded to students who have completed a four-year bachelor’s degree.
• The Director approves the individual certificate curriculum for each student and informs the Registrar when the certificate is complete and may be awarded.

The Graduate Certificate in High Performance Coaching requires 15 credit hours as follows: