In this 2018 Personal Trainer Conference hands on presentation, Dr. John Rusin demonstrates how he screens and assesses the upper body and shoulder complex, as well as discusses how to program horizontal and vertical pushing and pulling patterns accordingly.

Researchers and practitioners have highlighted the necessity to monitor jump strategy metrics and the commonly reported outcome measures during the countermovement jump (CMJ) and drop jump (DJ) tests. However, there is a risk of confusion for practitioners, given the vast range of metrics that now seem to be on offer via analysis software when collecting data from force platforms. As such, practitioners may benefit from a framework that can help guide metric selection for commonly used jump tests, which is the primary purpose of this article. To contextualize the proposed framework, we have provided 2 examples for how this could work: one for the CMJ and one for the DJ, noting that these tests are commonly used by practitioners during routine testing across a range of sport performance and clinical settings.

This excerpt from Developing Power discusses implementing plyometric training in a program to develop lower body power.

This article details the rationale for making the eight main movements the foundation of tactical strength and conditioning.

This infographic breaks down training on different surfaces and how they affect performance outcomes.

In recent years, performance and prevention strategies have grown to include monitoring training load (TL) to understand fatigue and the potential effects of fatigue on training adaptation and performance.

Examine the benefits of heavy effort training and where it fits in a tactical training program. In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 TSAC Annual Training, Matt Wenning explains a safe and effective approach to training tactical athletes using maximum effort training.

Explore the developmental process of teaching an athlete how to perform a power clean. In this session from the 2015 NSCA National Conference, Joe Kenn demonstrates how to “slow cook” athletes to a fundamentally sound power clean through a process of implementing supplemental movements.

The VO2max test is the most effective measurement of the body’s ability to deliver and use oxygen for producing energy that can be used by the muscles. VO2max (i.e., maximum aerobic power) simply stands for the maximal volume of oxygen that can be used.