From the 2022 NSCA’s Coaches Conference, Head of Combat Sports at the Star, Matt Crawley, discusses the importance of sleep in athletes, examines some high performance case studies involving sleep tracking, and provides sleep health resources for strength and conditioning coaches.

From the 2022 NSCA Tactical Annual Training, discuss trauma and the nervous system of tactical personnel and how coaches can be trauma-informed in the weight room

A common obstacle to achieving recommended physical activity and desired training goals is time. This is true for recreationally trained adults and athletes, particularly at the collegiate level, where greater restrictions on practice time and training are in place. One possible solution is to implement time-saving and time efficient training routines and methods that may limit the amount of time needed to attain desired physiological adaptations—by decreasing the time needed to train and/or by increasing the frequency with which brief workouts are completed throughout the week (e.g., “microdosing”). To provide the most optimal training stimulus, the correct method must be used. Unfortunately, numerous terms describe routines and methods discussed in the current body of available literature, many of which may seem similar and lead to confusion. The purpose of this article is to outline the similarities and differences of the numerous timesaving and time-efficient training routines and methods. Ultimately, this article synthesizes the current research into practical recommendations as programming options for strength and conditioning coaches and personal trainers. The information provided may also serve as a foundation for future research opportunities in time-saving and time-efficient training.

From the 2022 Personal Trainer Virtual Conference, Robert Linkul outlines the devastating effects of sarcopenia and how detrimental it is to the aging body. He offers guidance about programming that will specifically assist older adults in gaining or maintaining muscle mass as they age, and highlight the most effective and efficient resistance training exercises that will help older adults get strong quickly.

Resistance training or strength training has become one of the most popular forms of exercise, because it is the only method capable of improving physical fitness and increasing muscle mass simultaneously. Among the variables of training, the relationship between intensity and volume has been extensively addressed to enhance exercise induced muscular hypertrophy. For many, mechanical stress is seen as a factor of greater relevance and, because high loads promote greater mechanical tension and high intensities are traditionally used to increase muscle mass. However, evidence has shown greater safety and similar results through training based on lower intensities and increased training volume. Thus, this narrative review aimed to search the current literature for evidence on using different training loads to promote muscle hypertrophy. An extensive nonsystematic literature review was conducted in the PubMed, Google Scholar and Scielo databases. It was possible to conclude that the use of high and low intensity promotes similar results in muscle hypertrophy in all groups, leading to the belief that there is greater safety and adherence to the use of lower intensities compared with close effort to concentric failure.

Eccentric resistance training has been shown to elicit beneficial effects on performance and injury prevention in sports because of its specific muscular and neural adaptations. Within the different methods used to generate eccentric overload, flywheel eccentric training has gained interest in recent years because of its advantages over other methods such as its portability, the ample exercise variety it allows and its accommodated resistance. Only a limited number of studies that use flywheel devices provide enough evidence to support the presence of eccentric overload. There is limited guidance on the practical implementation of flywheel eccentric training in the current literature. In this article, we provide literature to support the use of flywheel eccentric training and present practical guidelines to develop exercises that allow eccentric overload.

This course is an introduction to force plates and performance testing. This course covers the basics of setup and calibration of force plates, and then walks through several fundamental performance tests including squat jumps, countermovement jumps, drop jumps and loaded jumps. Two versions of the isometric mid-thigh pull as well as an isometric squat are also covered in the course. Real-time data collection from the software is also shown as the athletes are performing the tests. A module on data analysis rounds out the course, which includes five metrics collected from the force plate, as well as calculations from this data, including relative strength index - modified, and dynamic strength index.

Completion of the following assessment will renew your current status within the NSCA Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach (RSCC) Program

Velocity-based training (VBT) is an increasingly popular programming strategy used by strength and conditioning professionals to develop their athlete’s ability to express force rapidly. To implement the varying forms of VBT effectively within their training regimes, strength and conditioning professionals need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of strategies, such as predicting 1 repetition maximum using the load-velocity profile, modulating training loads using the load-velocity profile, and controlling training volume using the magnitude of velocity-loss. The aim of this review was to highlight these strengths and weaknesses and then provide practical examples of when each programming strategy may be most effectively implemented.

Mike Israetel discusses where strength training overlaps with hypertrophy training, and how you can get the best of both training methods.