Learn how to identify the risks to an athlete’s health and safety associated with overtraining, as well as how to help the athlete to return to normal when they have reached overtraining/fatigue. Bryan Mann, PhD, discusses recovery methods for the tactical athlete in this talk from the 2016 NSCA TSAC Annual Training.

This article will review available information about pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy and practical applications that could be adopted by strength and conditioning coaches.

Breathing for Performance & Recovery

When working with athletes who play team sports, your main goal as a strength and conditioning coach is to ensure that your athletes arrive at a competitive peak in a predictable way, Dave Hamilton says. No matter the athlete's level - college or elite - training loads impact the ability to perform. As coaches, we need to remove the subjectivity and use monitoring tools that are effective.

Brandon Marcello

This article aims to bring awareness to the importance of sleep and recovery for first responders, as well as providing strategies to optimize sleep specific to their occupational demands.

Recovery Nutrition: Practical Application for Maximizing Training Effect

From the 2024 NSCA’s Coaches Conference, Kelly Jones helps coaches with practical nutrition strategies to maximize physical and mental performance, as well as optimal recovery methods.

Deloading is a period of reduced training stress where training demand is intentionally reduced to mitigate physiological and psychological fatigue and promote recovery. A deload is commonly implemented to enhance readiness for subsequent training and occurs between or during training phases. During a deload, training is typically modified by reducing the intensity of effort, training volume, duration, or frequency. Adjustments in exercise selection are based on recovery goals and the specific demands of the athlete’s training. Deloads are commonly preplanned and implemented into the training program every 4–8 weeks based on the structure of the training cycle and recovery needs. Alternatively, deloads are sometimes applied reactively using an autoregulatory approach to accommodate unexpected fatigue or performance decrements. While deloading shares conceptual similarities with tapering and training cessation, it should be differentiated based on its objective, structure, and positionality with the overall training program. The purpose of this article is to describe the current research landscape, propose areas for future research, and to provide broad practical recommendations for implementing deloading within the strength and physique sports training program.

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.