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.

The purpose of this article is to help bring awareness of athletic recovery by useful fatigue monitoring and managing tools, such as external and internal load examples.

Monitoring training load is essential for determining if athletes are adapting positively or negatively to their training program. This article goes over the various measurement metrics and includes recommendations to monitor training load for football athletes.

This session by Dan John from the 2015 NSCA Coaches Conference explains the “concept first” method as a simple way that allows the athletes to learn movement quickly and begin to load appropriately.

Velocity-based training (VBT) is a contemporary method of resistance training that enables accurate and objective prescription of resistance training intensities and volumes. This review provides an applied framework for the theory and application of VBT. Specifically, this review gives detail on how to: use velocity to provide objective feedback, estimate strength, develop load-velocity profiles for accurate load prescription, and how to use statistics to monitor velocity. Furthermore, a discussion on the use of velocity loss thresholds, different methods of VBT prescription, and how VBT can be implemented within traditional programming models and microcycles is provided.

From the virtual 2021 NSCA Coaches Conference, human performance specialists from the O2X Human Performance network discuss the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), including what it entails, how strength coaches can best prepare individuals for it, and the nutritional and mental demands of training for the test.

This article will explore the concept of “pink taxing,” whereby females must expend more metabolic energy compared to their male counterparts to achieve the same scores in standard military fitness tests.

Michol Dalcourt spoke at the NSCA’s 2016 Personal Trainers Conference on recovery-based strategies in program design, and how this approach can benefit clients.

This article examines using the sled as a dynamic correspondence exercise for increasing on-ice acceleration.