In order to ensure consistent and accurate results, coaches must take certain steps to ensure proper data collection. It is also important to establish sound protocols prior to testing.

Decompressing after a workout, practice, or competition is a beneficial habit that can be achieved through breathing. This article provides an overview of the autonomic nervous system and guidelines for how to use breathing to calm, or balance, the brain and body.

Trainer Tips are infographics designed to help you, an NSCA professional, educate clients and promote your services. These member-only resources can be used for client education, motivation, and promotion.

This excerpt will briefly discuss the importance of exercise, dosage of the supplement, efficacy, body mass changes, and adverse effects of creatine.

This article seeks to provide a sample periodized program plan that will progress wrestlers for multiple years while considering the diverse individual needs and weight class-specific goals.

This article features the recharge skate—an in-season hockey conditioning drill, designed by the authors, to maintain hockey-specific energy system fitness throughout the competitive season.

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.

Multidirectional ground reaction forces (GRFs) and jump tests within baseball pitchers provide insight into athletic ability and coordination to produce lower-body force and power. Lower-body power is a biomechanical feature that denotes physiological capacity through dynamic and passive tissue stretch-shortening in transferring energy from the ground through the kinetic chain. Optimized lower-body power may lessen the magnitude of forces on the upper extremity. Insufficient lower-body power may create a greater risk of upper-body injury. Lower-body power and its relationship to ball velocity have been minimally investigated, yet some research points to a correlation between jumping ability and fastball velocity. Because pitching is unilateral, practitioners should consider unilateral jumps to determine the extent of bilateral asymmetry or stride to drive leg differences that can guide training to remediate deficiencies. The purposes of this brief review are to (a) examine factors that influence vertical jump performance among baseball players, (b) examine research on pitching multidirectional GRFs, and (c) examine literature concerning jump performances to baseball pitching performance. Collectively, this review can assist coaches and practitioners in lower-body power testing and training for baseball pitchers.

Join the 2026 NSCA Training for the Endurance Athlete Summit in Tempe, AZ, on March 28. Explore endurance training performance, learn hands-on, + earn 0.8 CEUs.

This article provides considerations for preparing firefighters for the physical and psychological demands of their job, including pre-operational work specific training during their rest times.