Former Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach for Edinburgh Rugby, Ashley Jones, discusses ways to simplify a complex world of programming. Jones lays a foundation of how to construct training programs that relate to the current training environment and how to develop a taxonomy of exercise variations and training methods to assist coaches with the “why,” “when,” and “how” of programming.

This article is a personal perspective of creating and providing a fitness assessment and resistance training program from scratch to a large law enforcement organization.

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.

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.

The exerciser with 8 to 12 months of training experience can begin to include exercise complexes that combine trunk movement patterns with multijoint movements. Single-plane and multiplane movements can be performed using both open- and closed-chain exercises.

The path to actual integration of mental and physical training for the tactical athlete is paved with growing empiricism. The current challenge is to sustain creative development of functional approaches and demonstrate that integration can deliver potential benefits.

This excerpt from Developing Agility and Quickness provides a needs analysis for field hockey and possible program design options for optimal performance outcomes.

The purpose of this article is to provide education surrounding the importance of recovery in tactical populations, identify key aspects of the mental recovery process, and identify strategies Tactical Strength and Conditioning Facilitators® (TSAC-F®) can implement to promote mental recovery when working with athletes.

This article provides a sample six-week lumbo-pelvic hip complex strengthening program with the intended goal of improving vertical jumping ability and landing mechanics without the addition of plyometric or jumping/landing drills.