John Hofman, CSCS, MS, spoke at the NSCA's 2013 TSAC Conference on preventing injury when providing firefighters with an in-house training program. In this hands-on presentation, John demonstrates exercises and prevention strategies.

This article is part of a continuing series of tactical strength and conditioning (TSAC) research reviews. It is designed to bring awareness to new research findings of relevance to tactical strength and conditioning communities.

This article summarizes the relevant literature regarding post-workout nutrient timing and its importance to training adaptations, specifically increasing skeletal muscle hypertrophy and replenishing skeletal muscle glycogen stores.

This article contains a sample progression to use with high call volume fire departments to help maintain mobility while building job-specific strength and avoiding a hyper-fatigued state.

This article from TSAC 76, describes first responder wellness and the effects of PPE on occupational performance. Visit NSCA online to learn about exercise science and tactical fitness.

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.

Firefighting is a profession that has the potential to be extremely demanding, both physically and mentally. More specifically, these tactical personnel must be physically fit to perform their occupational requirements, all while they are exposed to daily stressors. This is likely to include everything from physical strain and shift work to interrupted sleep and witnessing potentially traumatizing events. Failure to prepare and mitigate these occupational demands can have long-lasting implications to overall performance as well as health and wellness. Unfortunately, many of these elements often go unaddressed. As such, considerations for collaborative and overarching cross-disciplinary allied health teams should be made. Human performance optimization (HPO) is a model that has been successfully adopted by the U.S. military to enhance the overarching health, wellness, and performance of soldiers. This article proposes the utilization of a similar HPO model by providing a rationale for how it can be used to reduce premature morbidity and mortality, as well as increasing overall readiness and resilience within the firefighting profession.

This article presents ways to add variety to workouts using Bulgarian Bags as an alternative to kettlebells. It also provides an effective sample Bulgarian Bag program.

When integrating resistance training, endurance athletes must ensure that the sessions or workouts are sequenced in the context of the overall workload. Giving careful thought to these factors when designing the training plan will increase the chances of success.

This TSAC Report article examines the primary risk factors contributing to shoulder pain in tactical athletes and provides evidence-based rehabilitation strategies. Visit NSCA online to learn more about exercise research for tactical athletes.