Endurance sports are typically not thought of as highly technical endeavors, but proper movement during training and competition for endurance sports can affect both performance and health.

Line drills can be an excellent way for athletes to improve their footwork, speed, and coordination. This article contains examples of several easy-to-implement line drills.

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.

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.

Strength and Conditioning Coaches who are NSCA-Certified are preparing youth for training, using proven strategies that improve their safety and competitiveness.

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.

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.

Coaching elite mixed martial arts (MMA) athletes demands creativity, adaptability, and a global mindset. Gavin Pratt, Senior Director of Strength and Conditioning at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Performance Institute, shares insights from his international career. Pratt reflects on preparing athletes for the Chinese National Games and managing strength and conditioning at the world’s first MMA academy in Shanghai. Applying a systems-based approach, he tackles MMA’s unique challenges — including unpredictable training schedules, diverse personalities and backgrounds, session intensity, and load management. Driven by passion rather than prestige, Pratt emphasizes he’s never been a "tracksuit hunter" — someone motivated primarily by titles or status. He highlights MMA’s innovation potential, especially when using individualized technology based on athletes' force or velocity deficiencies. Pratt contrasts the United States’ expertise in speed, agility, and change of direction with Australia’s early adoption of sports science. He also provides valuable interview advice to help coaches communicate effectively under pressure. Discover practical strategies to elevate your coaching impact. Connect with Gavin via email at gpratt@ufc.com and on Instagram: @gav_pratt | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs If this episode sparked your interest in MMA and other combat sports, take the next step by joining the NSCA Combat Sports Special Interest Group (SIG) on LinkedIn. Connect with a global network of professionals shaping the future of performance. Inspired by Nick Barringer’s recommendation? Register early to save on 2025 NSCA Tactical Annual Training. Catch Barringer’s talk on performance bloodwork and more nuggets of wisdom.

This brief excerpt from NSCA’s Essentials of Sport Science discusses skill-based key performance indicators (KPIs).

This excerpt from NSCA’s Essentials of Sport Science highlights the importance of quantifying training load for both programming and monitoring an athlete’s progression or regression over time.