The purpose of this article was to conduct a process evaluation of a six-week recruit strength and conditioning programming for rural structural firefighter recruits.

As a Strength and Conditioning Coach with the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), Jared Siegmund prepares athletes for the apex of achievement and perseverance. Siegmund shares that, contrary to public belief, the Olympic competition cycle is not every four years — Team USA athletes face fierce competition in World Series events along the way to qualify. He also speaks to the creativity required to coach Paralympic athletes, where missing limbs create unique biomechanics and hearing or visual impairments impact cueing. Siegmund touches on his principles-based programming architecture, sample adaptations, and USOPC’s interdisciplinary support team. Additionally, Siegmund and McMahon discuss the new generation of modern athletes who are more in tune with data and can control their preparation experience. The discussion concludes with the importance of a growth mindset and getting out of your comfort zone, as well as opportunities to enter elite sport. Connect with Jared on Instagram at: @jaredsiegmund_ or LinkedIn: @jared-siegmund | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

The NSCA is committed to providing its members with new resources. Here, NSCA Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Scott Caulfield provides his review of the Volt© Athletics web-based platform.

This article provides the personal trainer with sample exercise progressions for teaching resistance training movement patterns along with practical strategies for instruction and reinforcement of proper technique.

For emerging athletes to move properly and develop athletic skills, they must first develop proficiency in fundamental motor skills. The ABCs of athleticism, therefore, must reflect the development of fundamental motor skills first, and specific athletic skills second.

Respected strength coaches Mike Stone and Meg Stone spoke about periodization and programming for strength power sports at the 2012 NSCA Coaches Conference.

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.

The High School Strength and Conditioning Coach of the Year Award is awarded to a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist® (CSCS) who has demonstrated excellence the field of high school strength and conditioning.

The purpose of this article is to make the case for implementing non-traditional sports into training programs that prepare youth for participation in traditional American sports and bridge the gap between pedagogy of physical education and strength and conditioning youth coaching.

In the second of this two part series, this article will discuss program design with an emphasis on integrating lower limb plyometric training into soccer training to enhance power actions, as well as, consider high school athletes’ biological characteristics and long-term athletic development (LTAD).