This column will explore specific investigations that evaluate the impact of PA and fitness on mental and physical health outcomes among firefighters and law enforcement officers.

This article reviews the recommended exercise prescription the author uses when training special populations.

This article discusses overtraining risk factors in endurance athletes and provides strategies for optimizing effective programming. Visit NSCA online to learn more about athletic performance.

Early sport specialization involves physically immature children participating in intensive year-round training and/or competition for a single sport. The lack of sport exposure and diversification during the developmental years may underlie the increased risk of overuse injuries, blunting of motor skill development, psychosocial issues, overtraining syndrome, burnout, and potential dropout from sport. With increasing number of youth choosing, or being encouraged, to specialize at an early age, we aim to provide evidence based recommendations for the integration of strength and conditioning into the development programs of young athletes who participate in sports with a culture of early specialization. In addition to the principles of programming, strategies are provided relative to monitoring of growth, maturation, and training load to illustrate the potential complexities of attempting to optimize long-term athletic development in early specializing athletes.

The goal of this article is to promote professional dialogue and broaden the knowledge of ways to use nutrition and recovery techniques to work with the physiological changes that come throughout the menstrual cycle.

There is no argument that periodization is successful, and that different models can be applied with success in different fashions. The question of how shift work really affects a periodized program—more specifically firefighter shift work—is less clear.

This article serves to educate people about the menstrual cycle in the tactical female population. It provides a framework for how to work through the phases of menstruation to increase training response, and thus, overall success in military training.

The purpose of this article is to show athletes and coaches how plantar fasciitis is diagnosed, treated, and transitioned back to athletic training for the athlete.

Body composition is an important physical characteristic to consider for football players and their performance. Tyler Bosch goes over the various methods of measuring body composition, what the numbers really mean, and how they can be used to develop a player's training.