The daily energy requirements of tactical personnel are highly variable, depending on gender, body composition, activities performed, age, and environmental conditions.

In this session from the 2015 NSCA National Conference, Nelson Ayotte—the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the St. Louis Blues National Hockey League (NHL) team—explains how to design and implement a specific energy systems program at the elite level. Ayotte demonstrates the characteristics of each of the three energy systems and their trainability, and explores how to understand the energy demands of a sport by analysis of its characteristics, competition intensity, and duration of efforts and recovery periods.

This excerpt briefly describes the different energy systems used by structural and wildland firefighters.

In order to effectively prepare an ice hockey player for the season, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the specific demands of the sport.

This article is intended to provide an understanding of the demands of football from a bioenergetic perspective and provides a framework in which strength and conditioning professionals can design conditioning plans that focus on preparing athletes for competition.

The extent to which a special operator’s training schedule can be planned in advance is often limited due to their unpredictable operational demands. However, there may be opportunities to plan for specific training during certain periods.

All sports nutrition professionals should be able to answer basic nutrition questions. However, athletes with complex nutrition issues should be referred to the appropriate resource as explained in this book excerpt.

Knowledge of metabolic rate can help athletes as well as health-conscious people improve their exercise performance or obtain the fat-to-lean-mass ratio optimal for their personal situations. Two examples of how this works follow.

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.

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.