Elite sport often gets more attention, but youth training gives strength and conditioning coaches an earlier chance to build athletes’ competence and confidence. Kelli Brightwell specializes in youth development and brings more than a decade of sports training experience, including four years at Michael Johnson Performance. Brightwell defines peak height velocity as the period during which height increases fastest. She then explains why its timing can differ among teammates of the same age. So what should strength coaches test, and what do the results mean? The answer changes with each athlete’s maturity and training experience. Brightwell addresses the growth-spurt “awkward phase,” when familiar movement patterns can break down as an athlete adjusts to a changing body. She also considers how sport sampling can expand children’s range of physical skills and help them discover what they enjoy. Learn how maturation can affect movement, testing, and programming — and why young athletes need foundations before specialization.

Static and dynamic conditioning of the core musculature is important in activities of daily living and in sport. This book excerpt includes sample static exercises to strengthen the core muscles responsible for stabilization against, or movement through, the four basic movement patterns.

In this session from the 2014 NSCA Personal Trainers Conference, Barton Bishop explains how to utilize the body’s natural way of learning movement. This will help athletes become more efficient at movement for improvements in exercise and athletic performance, and help in preventing future injuries.

This Personal Training Quarterly article discusses how myofascial techniques can reduce pain, improve mobility, and enhance quality of life for women in breast cancer recovery. Visit NSCA online to read more on recovery, health and fitness.

This TSAC Report article discusses why female firefighters need sex-specific training to improve biomechanics, reduce injury risk, and support career sustainability. Visit NSCA online to read more about exercise science and occupational readiness.

This article presents the shoulder taps, which could serve as a more time-efficient screening tool for tactical operators. Although this article will present the shoulder taps as an assessment modality, it may be expanded upon and prescribed as an exercise for the purpose of improving trunk, hip, and shoulder stability.

This article is a personal perspective on utilizing the Functional Movement System (FMS) as a tool to identify potential problems and function efficiently on a large group scale to reduce the risk of injuries.

Jason Masek talks about how to implement and properly execute push, pull, and propulsion movement patterns and variations into athlete programming.

Vernon Griffith teaches how to identify compensation patterns associated with tactical populations and how to design proactive movement protocols for tactical athletes, in this session from the NSCA’s 2018 TSAC Annual Training.

Tactical facilitators need to understand the movement patterns that first responders encounter because they can have a profound effect on underlying biomechanics and may contribute to excessive tissue loads.