Brent Alvar, PhD, CSCS,*D, RSCC*D, spoke at the NSCA's 2013 Personal Trainer conference on the evidence supporting resistance training for older adults.

Join Loren Landow as he talks about barefoot training during the NSCA's 2014 National Conference. Drawing on his personal experience with fascial injury, Landow demonstrates mobility and activation exercises designed to help build ankle and foot strength.

Neural adaptations help mediate growth-related processes and the early increase in strength is attributable mainly to improved neural function. Along with neural changes, various aspects of the protein metabolism in the muscle are changing in the early phases of training.

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 article will demonstrate why personal trainers should consider the use of blood flow restriction (BFR) and BFR technology for appropriate medically-screened clients that provides an objective way to apply pressure, whether that is through manual or automated cuffs.

The innovative technology found in portable BFR training systems can help tactical personnel achieve greater strength and hypertrophic gains, as well as optimize training programs and overall performance.

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.

This article will present a sample program that was implemented successfully by a group of older women in competition, and discuss the general exercise principles utilized to increase BMD in postmenopausal women.

Through a well-designed resistance training program, firefighter recruits can gain the movement skills, confidence to exercise, and foundational strength/physiological adaptations that they need for a long and healthy career.

The following article provides a simple guide to ruck training for the aging population.