The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) strength & conditioning staff has increased with the addition of Alex Houston as an assistant coach. He will work with a variety of RPI's 23 intercollegiate sports under the tutelage of head strength & conditioning coachÂ
Jordan Baum.
A Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Houston will be responsible for writing and implementing appropriate programs for a variety of women's and men's sports, while also assisting with several others. He will also aid with scheduling and managing the 4,600-foot facility in the East Campus Athletic Village, maintaining the equipment, and guiding student employees.
Before joining Rensselaer's staff, Houston was a graduate assistant at Ithaca College, where he completed a Master of Science in Sport and Exercise Sciences in May. His hands-on experience included organizing and leading all strength & conditioning sessions for women's track & field, men's lacrosse, women's cross country, and field hockey, along with assisting football and various other sports.
He developed comprehensive annual training plans that focused on improving the physical and psychological preparation of the student-athletes through principle-based training, each adapted to the specific needs of the team. He developed and interpreted comprehensive athletic performance and wellness monitoring dashboards that helped inform training-related decisions for track & field and he assisted with scheduling and administrative responsibilities.
Houston, who also worked with the Jenison School District in Michigan for two months while attending Ithaca, previously interned at Sacramento State University, where he helped direct student-athletes through weight room and field training sessions, including plyometric, agility, speed mechanics, and movement preparation warm-ups. He assisted the full-time strength staff with daily operations such as weight room and fieldwork preparation, and data collection (body weight, injury status, and exercise testing protocols). Among the teams with which he worked were football, men's and women's soccer, and men's basketball.
A native of Auburn, Calif., Houston attended the College of Idaho out of Placer High School and was a two-year member of the football team as an offensive lineman. A Frontier Conference All-Academic Team honoree before retiring due to injury, he also held positions as a student research assistant, teaching assistant, and athletic training intern.
Houston began his strength & conditioning career as an undergraduate, working with football student-athletes. He developed pre-activity warm-ups that were implemented prior to training sessions, practices, and games; assisted in the organization and leadership of full strength & conditioning sessions with groups of 40-100 athletes; and oversaw all data collection, monitoring, and tracking for various performance metrics.
In addition to having his CSCS, Houston is also certified in USA Weightlifting Level 1 and Reflexive Performance Reset Level 1.
