In the last several decades in the United States, university athletic departments and professional sport teams began hiring sport scientists to support team operations. Many variations in sport science–related job titles and a variety of duties are apparent across the industry internationally. Therefore, the aims of this article were to (a) define sport scientist roles because they may be positioned in U.S. sport organizations, (b) demonstrate potential levels of application, (c) demonstrate how a sport science program helps establish a standard of care for the athlete, and (d) highlight overseas practices that establish professional competency for those in sport scientist roles. This discussion may be used to optimize organizational structures, enhance organizational dynamics within sport organizations, leagues, and systems, and used to develop, refine, or support certification and training programs in the United States. In addition to the discussion in this article, several job descriptions are provided as Supplemental Digital Content, http://links.lww. com/SCJ/A347. These resources may help decision makers construct job descriptions for their organizations.

From the 2024 NSCA’s Coaches Conference, Kelly Jones helps coaches with practical nutrition strategies to maximize physical and mental performance, as well as optimal recovery methods.

Gain a deeper understanding of how to safely train and program for the shoulder joint with Lee Boyce

The physiological response to breath holding includes bradycardia and peripheral vasoconstriction, which contrasts with that of exercise which includes tachycardia and peripheral vasodilation. This raises the question as to what the physiological response is to breath holding during exercise. During low-intensity exercise, the breath holding response of bradycardia and peripheral vasoconstriction prevails over the exercise response of tachycardia and peripheral vasodilation, but nevertheless the exercise may be sustained. Due to the lack of availability of extrinsic oxygen (O 2 ) from the atmosphere during breath holding, the energy demands can be met by increased reliance on intrinsic O 2 stores (i.e., O 2 that was in the body before the breath hold) via increased O 2 extraction at the muscle compared with exercise while breathing, or increased contributions from anaerobic energy systems. During high intensity exercise of short duration, the exercise response may prevail over the breath holding response due to the increased parasympathetic withdrawal and sympathetic drive of higher intensity exercise. If breath holding during high-intensity exercise was sustained for long enough, the breath holding response may eventually overcome the exercise response, although this may be difficult due to the inverse relationship between exercise intensity and breath hold duration.

From the 2023 NSCA Tactical Annual Training, Ian Bonder and Andrew Shim review micro-dosing programming strategies and benefits for the tactical population.

Eccentric resistance training has been shown to elicit beneficial effects on performance and injury prevention in sports because of its specific muscular and neural adaptations. Within the different methods used to generate eccentric overload, flywheel eccentric training has gained interest in recent years because of its advantages over other methods such as its portability, the ample exercise variety it allows and its accommodated resistance. Only a limited number of studies that use flywheel devices provide enough evidence to support the presence of eccentric overload. There is limited guidance on the practical implementation of flywheel eccentric training in the current literature. In this article, we provide literature to support the use of flywheel eccentric training and present practical guidelines to develop exercises that allow eccentric overload.