Prevail Conditioning Internship Program

Prevail Conditioning offers an Internship Program designed to educate aspiring and experienced Personal Trainers and Strength and Performance professionals in both theoretical and applied sciences based on the latest research and empirical evidence. 

Our aim is to not only give you the tools to take your training to the next level, but also to provide you with the framework and system within which to effectively utilize that newfound knowledge and skill.

Intern Program Requirements:

  • Commitment: 10 weeks (16-20 hours per week)
  • What is included: Theory and Applied Sciences in Strength & Conditioning and Fitness.
  • Pre-requisites: Kinesiology Majors in 3rd or 4th year, graduates, and KNS minors. 

Topics that will be covered include:

  • Program Design
  • Assessment
  • Self-Myofascial Release
  • Corrective Exercises
  • Core, Power and Strength Training
  • Conditioning
  • Cueing and Coaching

Expectations:

  • Attend weekly meetings
  • Complete all required learning objectives.
  • Will be assigned weekly administrative and facility/maintenance tasks.

Internship schedule:

  • Spring Session dates are January 16 – April 7, 2023
  • Summer Session dates are June 5 – August 11, 2023
  • Application deadline: May 19

Please complete the following questionnaire, email your resume as an attachment, and provide 3 references to [email protected].

Begin Prevail Conditioning Internship Questionnaire

TESTIMONIALS

“I wanted to do the Prevail Internship while I was in college because I was interested in strength and conditioning, but was unsure of my career path at that point. I was studying kinesiology and had always been into fitness and weight lifting. Chris Ecklund had been my professor at one point and I really liked his philosophy on training and the way he went about it and I wanted to learn more. Coming from a rigorous academic background, but little practical application, the Prevail Internship was invaluable. I was able to learn a basic, reasonable system of program design, progressions and regressions, and observe, participate, and help lead training sessions. I gained confidence in my abilities as a coach and it helped solidify my desire to pursue a career as a strength coach. All of the trainers and staff at Prevail were incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. They were eager to help me learn and challenged me in ways that helped me grow. They also truly care about their clients, which was evident in each session that I was a part of. I recommend this internship to anyone who is serious about becoming a better coach and wants to know the why. Why they do the things the way that they do, why it works, and why they see results.”

– Alexis Anderson

“My name is Adrian Evarts, and I have worked as a personal trainer in Santa Barbara at a variety of different settings—big corporate gym, senior fitness at retirement homes, small private gym, and most recently Prevail Conditioning—from fall of 2012 through February of 2017. I am re-locating to start Physical Therapist Assistant school in Orange County and hope to continue working part time as a personal trainer in the near future.

While working as a PT Aide at Hayashida and Associates Physical Therapy I heard many great things about Prevail Conditioning. I had the opportunity to meet a patient at Hayashida PT who had worked as a strength coach for Prevail. I asked her about the internship and she quickly connected me with Chris Ecklund, which lead me to start the internship in January 2016.

I decided to pursue the internship because I felt that my knowledge and growth as a fitness professional had become stagnant. I was hoping that the internship would increase my knowledge of exercise science and teach me new skills I could use to provide better service to my clients.

The internship greatly exceeded my expectations. I was immediately impressed by Chris’s professionalism and the well-designed ten-week curriculum he created. Throughout the internship, I gained invaluable hands on experience in essential skills, such as initial assessments utilizing the Functional Movement Screen, self myofascial release techniques, program design, coaching cues, and so much more. The internship also required that we had to attend, observe, and eventually help coach some of the group exercises classes so that we could practice the skills we covered in our intern meetings.

Chris also taught us that to be a successful coach, you must know and understand exercise science, but more importantly you need to be able to develop good rapport with your clients. His insight on how to build good relationships with clients was another wonderful aspect of the internship.

I truly feel that in the short ten weeks as an intern at Prevail I learned as much as I did during my past three and a half years of work experience. Chris’s leadership and the expertise he shared during the internship program was inspirational to me. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to start working for Prevail Conditioning shortly after the internship. My internship combined with my work experience at Prevail Conditioning was the best experience I’ve had so far in the fitness industry and it will help me immensely as I transition into a career in physical therapy.

I would recommend this internship to anyone who either wants start working as fitness professional or who is committed to improving the service they currently provide to their clients. I would warn anyone who is considering the internship to be sure they have time to complete all the requirements of the internship in order to make the most out of it.

Prevail Conditioning’s Internship is unique. It is well organized and provides a great mixture of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Chris’s passion and dedication to the field really shows through in his internship program. He cares deeply about providing his interns with a valuable learning experience. Chris and the rest of his staff at Prevail Conditioning are doing amazing work for the community of Santa Barbara and I feel honored to have been apart of it.”

– Adrian Everts

“My name is Daniel Guzman and I really enjoy spending time with family in any capacity. Gathering for food, sporting events, game nights or just talking on the phone…Family is everything for me. I have been in the industry since 2012 coming straight off an internship with Prevail Conditioning. I started out training high school athletes, adult groups and some senior “experienced” individuals. This was a great starting point to see all different types of human movement.

I was not quite sure what I wanted to do in the realm of exercise science, but I had heard great things about Chris and his performance center in Santa Barbara. One of my close friends had recently finished the summer internship at Prevail and he said that the concepts we learned in class made so much more sense after seeing everything in a practical setting. After that, I was set on doing everything I could to be mentored by Chris.

The internship gave me a total encompassing view of what a performance system looks like. Chris connected exercise physiology, biomechanics, coaching science, nutrition physiology and shared all this in his methodology. It truly put me so far ahead in the industry because I now had a foundation in which I could apply other principles to and understands where it fits in a performance system. It is so important as a young coach to have some sort of system that you can rely on and fall back on when things get confusing. What I did not realize at the time was that I was learning one of the top methodologies in the industry.

If you have an interest in Strength and Conditioning and are willing to put in the work, this internship is for you. It will allow you to freely come in to the team and get full access to their performance system. BUT, if you are not willing to put the effort in, then do not sign up. With the amount of time and effort Chris and his staff put into their team, the most respectful response that can be given is 100% effort in return on your part to apply yourself to the process. What really sets this internship apart from others in the industry is the mentorship by Chris and his staff. There is a servant leadership attitude I experienced where the coaches WANT to teach their interns. They take pride in developing young coaches and this is not as common in other internships or businesses.”

– Daniel Guzman