In the first of a two part series, this article will briefly highlight the main components of a needs analysis and apply it to the context of soccer.

In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 Personal Trainers Conference, Vance Ferrigno teaches how the body moves in spherical three dimensional space and how to apply fun and innovative speed, agility, and quickness drills to enhance total movement quality.

This article seeks to provide insight on a training method based around prescribing small amounts of training to achieve a large amount of physical improvements.

For many athletes, being agile is the end goal of physical performance training. It represents their capacity to change velocity and direction in response to the actions of their opponent and the opportunities and constraints of their environment. The aim of this article was to describe the pitch-based development of agility, focusing on 60–1808 turns. This ensures all turns have the demand of deceleration, turning, and reacceleration, requiring both outside leg turns (608) and inside leg turns (1808). To enable the effective coaching of these, coaches must understand movement mechanics and thus the fundamental principles that underpin good technique. Within agility training, a detailed appreciation of how the center of mass and base of support interact to affect the direction of force is fundamental to this. This understanding and the ensuing technical models ensure athletes have the best chance of executing the task optimally and ensure coaches can effectively instruct athletes and adapt drills accordingly.

University of Florida’s Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for baseball and softball, Paul Chandler, speaks about warm-up and mobility patterns used for his athletes.

This article contains examples of how to periodize training programs to help aerobic endurance athletes reach their peak condition at the appropriate time of the year.

This article explores strength training and conditioning programs designed to improve Physical Fitness Test (PFT) scores, strength, endurance, power, and combat readiness. Visit NSCA online to learn more about tactical athletes and strength.

Understanding how the body adapts to the overload of aerobic exercise is critical to designing effective exercise training programs, monitoring exercise responses and progress, and assessing training outcomes.

This article presents information about assessing speed and agility in a controlled environment with a test that is similar to the actual demands of a specific sport.

This article shares various options for integrating mental skills training into existing strength and conditioning programs. Such simultaneous, dual-training approaches may better prepare officers for the realities of occupational performance.