NSCA has a network of volunteer leaders who direct NSCA’s efforts at the state level. NSCA’s Southwest Regional Coordinator provides oversight and training to local state directors. Members in the Southwest Region can connect at local and regional events as well as on Facebook to others in this area.

Are you a young professional looking to broaden your knowledge and career horizons by working with a professional strength and conditioning coach? Apply for the NSCA Foundation Assistantship!

Congratulations to the NSCA's 2026 awardees for their dedication and contributions to the NSCA and the field of strength and conditioning.

Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialists® (CSCS®) are professionals who apply scientific knowledge to train athletes for the primary goal of improving athletic performance. Learn more about becoming a strength and conditioning coach with the NSCA certification! Visit NSCA.com for more information on strength and conditioning jobs, strength and conditioning internships, continuing education and CEUs.

To become an NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer®, candidates must sit for an exam that will test their knowledge of Client Consultation/Fitness Assessment, Program Planning, Exercise Techniques, and Safety/Emergency Issues. Exams are hosted in testing centers around the world. Read on to learn more about how the NSCA-CPT® exam is structured.

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.

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.

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