Join the 2026 NSCA Power Sports Performance Summit in Plainfield, IN, Sept. 26. Build explosive qualities with cueing, loading, + sport transfer. Earn 0.8 CEUs

The purpose of the NSCA L.I.F.T. Mentorship Program is to prepare and position students and professional members from underrepresented groups for participation in NSCA volunteer activities that will lead to increased retention, service and leadership opportunities.

This is the NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, where strength and conditioning coaches share their experience, lessons learned, and advice about how to thrive in a highly competitive profession.

In the last several decades in the United States, university athletic departments and professional sport teams began hiring sport scientists to support team operations. Many variations in sport science–related job titles and a variety of duties are apparent across the industry internationally. Therefore, the aims of this article were to (a) define sport scientist roles because they may be positioned in U.S. sport organizations, (b) demonstrate potential levels of application, (c) demonstrate how a sport science program helps establish a standard of care for the athlete, and (d) highlight overseas practices that establish professional competency for those in sport scientist roles. This discussion may be used to optimize organizational structures, enhance organizational dynamics within sport organizations, leagues, and systems, and used to develop, refine, or support certification and training programs in the United States. In addition to the discussion in this article, several job descriptions are provided as Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww. com/SCJ/A347. These resources may help decision makers construct job descriptions for their organizations.

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Agility is a key and complex concept within team sports performance. Because of its multidimensional nature, agility benefits from perceptual and cognitive skills as well as physical capacity (e.g., ability to exert acceleration, deceleration, and changes of direction). Agility should be integrated in different and complementary ways in team sports training. From more analytical to more ecological tasks, there is a need to comprehend the respective adaptations and identify how to integrate such a spectrum and, eventually, combine them in the training process and manage it accordingly to the player’s needs. Based on this premise, the purpose of this article is to present alternative methods and recommendations that may help to develop agility in field-based invasion sports. The main concepts pertaining to agility and associated capacities will be explored. Afterward, a proposal for a more analytical approach based on the use of cones and ladders will be introduced, as well as approaches based on small-sided games. Finally, an integration of agility training and a combination of approaches will be presented using soccer as an example.

Developing safe and effective exercise training programs requires the application of abundant training variables and the implementation of appropriate progression for each variable. Importantly, the outcomes of each training program are the product of these variables and their progression, so practitioners are keen to select methodologies and overload strategies that effectively support their target training outcomes. One such training variable is mechanical loading, which describes the forces of gravity, resistance, and muscle contraction and how these forces affect musculoskeletal adaptations. Numerous research articles and texts have been published regarding mechanical loading and its effects on exercise adaptations; however, these findings can be arduous to organize, which requires additional time investment by professionals. Developing a succinct system is critical because practitioners face clients and patients with a wide range of physical skills and challenges, and having an easily referenced loading guide may assist them in designing appropriate strength and conditioning or rehabilitation programs. Thus, the purpose of this review is to define and describe the mechanical loading continuum and its individual components to better assist the practitioner in identifying appropriate exercise modes and progression strategies.

Learn, participate and network with colleagues at (location) while earning CEUs. Hosted by the state, provincial and regional directors, this local event brings cutting-edge research and application to your backyard.