Meet the 2026 NSCA Tactical Award winners honored at NSCA Tactical Annual Training for advancing tactical strength and conditioning, readiness, and resilience.

Emily Zaler, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the National Football League (NFL) Denver Broncos, talks to the NSCA Coaching and Sport Science Program Manager, Eric McMahon, about the benefits of being persistent and proactively seeking out opportunities in the field. Topics under discussion include working with professional athletes, facing adversity head on, and how no task is too small to show how you can add value to a program. Find Emily on Instagram: @ezaler or Twitter: @EZaler | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscs

For many coaches, there comes a point when coaching can become less about proving yourself and more about serving others. Loren Landow, Director of Football Performance at the University of Notre Dame, shares how that shift informs his approach to training, hiring, and leading in elite football. Landow distinguishes workouts from training; every block has a targeted goal, and every off-season is a chance to build brotherhood, uphold standards, and compete in everything they do. Landow also reflects on his path from cardiopulmonary rehabilitation to the private sector, the National Football League (NFL), and the University of Notre Dame. For him, when you can “weather the storm,” no career step is wasted. On the technical side, he argues that movement is his largest key performance indicator (KPI). Landow explains that deceleration is trainable, and athletes need movement literacy before reactive work. Listen to help solidify your standards, coach movement with intent, and adapt a service-first lens to last in the profession. Connect with Loren on Instagram: @lorenlandow or by email: LLandow@nd.edu | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs Join the NSCA Football Special Interest Group (SIG) on LinkedIn to connect with other coaches and stay current on football strength and conditioning best practices.

This NSCA Coach article examines strength and conditioning strategies for collegiate distance runners to build performance for outdoor competition. Visit NSCA online to read about sport science.

Athletes engage in training programs that develop physical and physiological attributes to improve performance over time. However, ensuring athletes are optimally prepared just before competition is also of utmost importance. Indeed, such approaches may often adopt 1 or more strategies in the days, hours, and minutes preceding competition, including exercise priming, active warmup, and/or postactivation performance enhancing (PAPE) activities. Despite a plethora of discrete research, such information seems poorly synthesized, making it difficult for coaches and athletes to implement optimal evidence based physical preparation approaches in many sporting contexts. This article aims to provide a scoping overview of evidence, facilitate discussion, and where possible, propose practical exercise based recommendations that may be useful leading up to (~48 hours–~1 minute) tasks with a short or prolonged endurance component or requiring repeated intermittent efforts (e.g., team based field sports). Well-timed and –designed activities can facilitate several aspects of physical performance, potentially improve athletes’ psychological state(s) and mental preparedness. The benefits of a warm-up are most well documented, but priming and PAPE strategies also warrant consideration. It is intended that the evidence and suggestions presented will be useful for strength and conditioning professionals preparing athletes for competition.

In today's National Football League (NFL) world, teams are always on the lookout for the best talent. That is why strength and conditioning coaches are crucial in optimizing a prospect's value. This special episode of the NSCA Coaching Podcast features NFL Combine expert, Bryan McCall, sharing details of coaching process leading up to the event. The conversation includes co-hosts Eric McMahon, the NSCA Coaching Program Manager, and Gatorade Team Sports Manager, Jon Jost. You will hear Coach McCall credit Coach Jost as an early career mentor and emphasize the importance of mentorship for all coaches. Learn how to make a successful year-round business of strength and conditioning and advance your coaching career with an entrepreneurial mindset. You can reach Coach McCall on Instagram: @justbmac_ or Twitter: @just_BryanM | Email Jon at: jonathan.jost@pepsico.com | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscs To learn more and join the Gatorade Performance Partner Community, visit GatoradePerformancePartner.com.

Dietary fat has both long-term and short-term effects on an athlete and athletic performance. “Fat loading” as a strategy to improve athletic performance remains unproven.

This column from TSAC Report 76, examines the performance benefits of supplementing creatine monohydrate for tactical athletes. Visit NSCA online to learn about nutrition, and performance fitness.

At the United States Air Force Academy, time is a commodity. Now entering his 20th season coaching the Falcons, Matt McGettigan explains how he works within the constraints of Division I football at one of the sport’s most distinctive programs. He talks through the reality of the Air Force Academy, where class schedules, military requirements, and sleep routines influence training decisions. A teacher by trade, McGettigan breaks down how the Air Force Academy aligns its performance team and why movement is a separator in its system. He also explains what it means to be the program’s “standard bearer.” McGettigan then walks through a typical day with the team, restorative water-based recovery, and maximizing pre- and post-competition 72-hr windows. Along the way, he reflects on family, mentorship, and preparing athletes for service and life beyond the Academy. Listen for hard-earned lessons to manage cumulative stress, build competition-week readiness, and keep the growth mindset that sustains a long coaching career. Reach Matt by email at Matthew.McGettigan.ctr@afacademy.af.edu | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs Join the NSCA Football Special Interest Group (SIG) on LinkedIn to connect with other coaches and stay current on football strength and conditioning best practices.