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Coach Spotlight | Matt Green

Get to know Strength and Conditioning Coach Matt Green
When Matt Green came to GPS the summer of 2018 to fill the role of strength and conditioning coach, he brought with him an arsenal of experience in personal training, injury prevention, weightlifting, and athletic performance. After eight years of running his own personal training business, Green and his wife, Blaes Schmissrauter Green ’03, had a frank conversation about his making a change to a job with more stability and predictability. 
 
“UTC [University of Tennessee at Chattanooga] and GPS were the only places where I would consider working,” Green says. “My wife looked at the GPS website the next day, and there was a job opening [for a strength and conditioning coach] and so I applied. It was serendipity.”
 
Along with a wealth of experience, Coach Green currently holds certifications in weightlifting (USAW), Sportsmetrics, collegiate (SCCC) and national (CSCS) strength and conditioning, CPR/AED, first aid, and lifeguarding, along with degrees in history, athletic administration, and coaching. Prior to being a personal trainer, Green was a strength coach at UTC and James Madison University (Virginia).
 
Among Coach Green’s first goals after joining GPS: modernize the weight room, including outfitting it with equipment to best suit our athletes, and establish a high-level strength and conditioning program to reflect the trends of today’s competitive scholastic teams.
 
And the results of his efforts, along with Coach Beverly Blackwell’s (who helps implement Green’s programs), have been noticeable across the board. For every sport that tracks injuries, time lost due to injuries has decreased dramatically over the past two years. 
 
In an effort to keep the girls motivated and to inspire some healthy competition in the weight room, Coach Green keeps a board of those who reach milestones and reports these results in an impressive Instagram account (@GPS_Strength), where he also posts workout routines, instructional videos, nutrition advice, and Bruiser team accomplishments. 
 
“When you celebrate achievements—especially with female athletes—and design programs that are relevant to them, they will work hard to improve,” Green says.
 
Since the girls are typically on social media, Coach Green finds Instagram the perfect platform to inspire, motivate, and encourage girls to reach their goals. “It helps lay the framework to demonstrate what we do, do it safely, and have fun with it,” he says.
 
In addition to his strength and conditioning classes, Coach Green works with teams to design and supervise workouts and helps those who come to the weight room on their own for training.
 
“My goals now are to continue to build a culture at GPS where athletes want to do strength and conditioning on their own, not because it’s expected of them,” Green says. “I want them to see the value in staying fit and improving their performance. GPS athletics as a whole will reach a completely different level as more athletes buy into this concept over the duration of their time with us.”
 
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