Given the growing interest surrounding youth strength and conditioning, the NSCA recently engaged a group of leading experts to author a position statement on long-term athletic development. The document proposes ten key pillars of successful long-term athletic development that practitioners should adhere to in order to enhance performance, promote health and well-being, and minimize the risk of sport- or physical activity-related injury.

Strength and conditioning professionals who incorporate a properly designed and supervised training program can help their young athletes train, compete, and reduce the likelihood of injury.

Athletic performance can be enhanced through the use of implementing various unstructured, semi-structured, and structured play from the 12 types of play. These can be performed in the weight room, at a sports practice, or even at home.

This article suggests how high school strength and conditioning coaches can not only prepare high school athletes for sports and fitness, but also help with the process of improving fitness and athleticism of all youth.

This article breaks down youth training. To develop athleticism for youth, coaches should follow the C.O.R.E. principles: context in which to apply movement patterns, opportunities to develop proper movement, recognition of physical attributes required, and environments in which youth explore movement.

The top concern of strength coaches should always be athlete safety. For this reason, the NSCA has compiled a list of resources to raise the standard of care when working as a strength coach at any level. By reading and sharing these examples of standards and guidelines, policies and procedures, position statements on vital topics, mental health best practices, and more, strength coaches can push to increase the safety of athletes around the world.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the different opinions regarding the validity of early sport specialization as opposed to diversification, specifically the effect these two methods have on injuries, motor development, skill acquisition, and social and psychological aspects.

Learn about the 10 pillars of successful long-term athletic development, summarizing the key recommendations detailed within the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s (NSCA) Position Statement on Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD).

Strength coaches make up the foundation of the NSCA since its beginnings more than four decades ago and continue to drive our purpose and passion. Learn more about obtaining the acclaimed CSCS® certification, gain knowledge through NSCA's peer-reviewed journals, and get inspired by NSCA's coaching podcast. From tools and resources to thousands of top professionals across the globe, you've got the support and the credibility of an association dedicated to your profession.

Early sport specialization involves physically immature children participating in intensive year-round training and/or competition for a single sport. The lack of sport exposure and diversification during the developmental years may underlie the increased risk of overuse injuries, blunting of motor skill development, psychosocial issues, overtraining syndrome, burnout, and potential dropout from sport. With increasing number of youth choosing, or being encouraged, to specialize at an early age, we aim to provide evidence based recommendations for the integration of strength and conditioning into the development programs of young athletes who participate in sports with a culture of early specialization. In addition to the principles of programming, strategies are provided relative to monitoring of growth, maturation, and training load to illustrate the potential complexities of attempting to optimize long-term athletic development in early specializing athletes.