How do you build a sustainable high-performance culture despite yearly assistant coach rotations and demanding schedules? Alice Read, Assistant Athletic Director for Sport Performance at Vassar College, shares expertise from managing 29 teams and 600 student-athletes while continuously "riding the rollercoaster" of Division III scheduling. Read explores strategies for maintaining program continuity, including matching assistant coaches to sports based on strengths and growth areas. She emphasizes advocating for daily staff lifts to test and refine programs firsthand. In a full-circle moment, Read, once an NSCA Foundation Assistantship Recipient, now serves on the committee awarding these opportunities, demonstrating the value of early professional involvement. She also discusses collaborative problem solving within the Liberty League Strength and Conditioning Committee and explains how the College Coaches Professional Development Group (PDG) provided boots-on-the-ground guidance for the 2024 NSCA Strategic Plan. Tune in for actionable insights on mentorship, collaboration, and longevity in collegiate strength and conditioning. Connect with Alice via email at aread@vassar.edu and on Instagram: @ajpr3 and @vassar_strong | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

Using Academia to Advance Your Strength and Conditioning Career

This article aims to provide information designed to assist firefighter recruits to achieve a successful Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT) performance.

Learn about cluster sets, and how they can be used in program design for optimal athletic development. Greg Haff, President of the NSCA, shares examples of various set structures in this session from the NSCA 2016 National Conference.

In this hands-on session from the 2020 NSCA Coaches Conference, Allison Skufca, from Landow Performance, demonstrates progressions from their four pillars of speed and agility training with soccer athletes.

Steve Morgan, Tactical Strength Coach with the US Army, explains modifications to the sled push for tactical populations.

From the 2020 NSCA Alabama Virtual State Clinic, Christina Myers discusses the benefits, training considerations, and exercise selection factors for maximal strength training, as well as how these techniques improve sport performance.

This hands-on lecture features Nick Tumminello, who spoke during the NSCA's 2014 TSAC Conference on the programming and use of hybrid strength complexes to lose fat and increase conditioning.

In this video from the NSCA's 2013 Coaches Conference, Ron Hruska, MPA, PT, and Mike Arthur, CSCS, discuss postural restoration and its importance in terms of an "inside and out approach to strength training."