There are many factors, both personal and environmental, that play a role in the success of a training and diet program for an individual client. This article looks at the factors to be aware of and some solutions to finding the best fit program for an individual client.
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Guy Leahy writes a review of the research relating to the tactical population from presentations and research from the 65th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).
Athletes in field and court sports require reactive agility—they must accelerate, decelerate, and change direction in a constantly changing environment. These requirements result in technical differences between sprinting in a field or court sport and sprinting the 100-m.
Coaches can use drills to improve quickness and agility. The training session can improve the specific areas needed to increase performance results by setting up appropriate intensity levels, duration of drills, recovery periods, and volume of drills.
Much in the same way that a single movement or a single workout does not make or break a training cycle, the same holds true for mental skills. The challenge is that the strength and conditioning coach will likely need to reach out to another professional trained in sport psychology to help establish the plan and construct the appropriate interventions.
Boyd Epley, founder of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and one of the most decorated strength coaches of all time, talks to the NSCA Head Strength and Conditioning Coach, Scott Caulfield, about how the NSCA was founded, how Coach Epley talked Nebraska into letting him weight train all football athletes (most of whom never lifted before), and growing the profession for female strength and conditioning coaches.
Ground-based free weight lifts, especially the explosive Olympic-style lifts, are highly recommended for athletic conditioning for the core muscles. They can provide a moderately unstable stimulus to augment activation of the core and limb muscles, while still providing maximal or near maximal strength, velocity, and power output.
This article provides essential guidelines for athletes beginning a strength and conditioning program that ensures safety and productivity of the training sessions.