This article applies LTAD principles to guide the process of generating an athletic profile (part 1) and sample program design (part 2) for a middle school athlete and a high school athlete.
CoachesProgram designLTADYouth AthleteYouth Training GuidelinesAthletic Developmenths-coaching
Athletes in field and court sports require reactive agility—they must accelerate, decelerate, and change direction in a constantly changing environment. These requirements result in technical differences between sprinting in a field or court sport and sprinting the 100-m.
CoachesExercise Techniquespeed developmentsprintingsprinting for soccersprinting intervalssprinting for basketball
Strength and conditioning coaches with knowledge of the exercise principles for youth and the specific demands of basketball can design effective integrative neuromuscular training (INT) programs based on the individual needs of youth athletes.
Fitness testing uses a battery of protocols recognized by the scientific community as both reliable and valid, and it measures important fitness constructs such as aerobic endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, power, agility, flexibility, and balance.
CoachesExercise Sciencekinetic selectfitness testingfitness assessmentstactical strength and conditioning
This narrative review will focus on the research related to tactical load carriage and on a program recommendation to maximize strength and endurance adaptations in Special Operations Forces (SOF).
Both unilateral and bilateral training should be used to optimally develop basketball players. This article compares single-leg and double-leg training options and provides considerations and potential implications for training basketball athletes.
CoachesExercise TechniqueProgram designsingle-leg trainingbasketball conditioningdouble-leg trainingbilateral trainingUnilateral training
In the second of this two part series, this article will discuss program design with an emphasis on integrating lower limb plyometric training into soccer training to enhance power actions, as well as, consider high school athletes’ biological characteristics and long-term athletic development (LTAD).