Luther senior Gilbertson assists strength coaches at UW-Madison

Working with both student and professional athletes, Luther senior Amanda Gilbertson of Osseo, Wisconsin, assisted hockey and basketball strength coaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this summer.

Gilbertson, daughter of Gregory and Tammy Gilbertson, is a 2014 graduate of Osseo-Fairchild High School. In spring 2018, she plans to graduate from Luther with majors in exercise physiology and health and fitness promotion.

The Badger men and women’s hockey and basketball teams at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are Division I athletic programs which require strength and conditioning coaches to assist with extensive athletic training year-round. As an intern, Gilbertson assisted the coaches with a comprehensive injury prevention and performance-enhancing training program. In addition to preparing and maintaining the environment for each session, she would often participate in the training to help individual athletes with exercises specific to them.

Observing the coaching styles of the strength coaches led Gilbertson to examine her own strengths and weaknesses and further develop her own methods of instruction and encouragement. Gilbertson recognizes the unique opportunity she was given, explaining that she wanted to “take complete advantage of my resources at hand.” Confirming her passion for strength and conditioning training, Gilbertson also made relationships with coaches on campus who can attest to her skills and further her hopes for a career.

“As a young and aspiring strength coach, being given this opportunity to intern with a Division I Program is huge because it opens up more doors for me” and let “[me] learn from some of the best strength coaches in the field,” Gilbertson said. Having experienced the daily work of a strength coach, she is enthusiastic to continue learning about the field.

Approximately 10 percent of Luther students take an internship for academic credit each academic year. The Luther College Career Center assists students with their internship search through resume preparation, networking, online internship searches, career fairs, on-campus interviewing, and connecting the student to alumni through the college’s Alumni Internship Program. Students also meet with a faculty adviser prior to the internship to create an internship learning plan that includes learning goals and assessment benchmarks. An internship work supervisor assists in the process by writing an evaluation of the student at the end of the internship. Students also complete a self-reflection form to help finalize the learning experience.

A national liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,050, Luther offers an academic curriculum that leads to the Bachelor of Arts degree in more than 60 majors and pre-professional programs. For more information about Luther visit the college’s website: http://www.luther.edu.