Skills
Recreation and Fitness Professor Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in recreation and fitness professors, and how to build and show them.
Recreation and Fitness Professors need technical skills such as exercise physiology, biomechanics, and fitness testing, plus people skills like energy and motivation. They also use tools such as Metabolic carts and Force plates.
Technical (hard) skills
- Exercise physiology
- Biomechanics
- Fitness testing
- Research methods
- PE pedagogy
- Program management
People (soft) skills
- Energy
- Motivation
- Communication
- Mentoring
Tools, equipment and technology
- Metabolic carts
- Force plates
- Heart rate monitors
- Motion capture
- Statistical software
- Learning management systems
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how recreation and fitness professors put their skills to work:
- How to run a VO2 max lab for students
- How to teach a biomechanics video analysis
- How to place students in fitness internships
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Exercise physiology” and “Biomechanics.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “energy,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as Ph.D. in kinesiology near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our recreation and fitness professor glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Recreation and Fitness Professor training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.