The purpose of this article is to provide some actionable topics for communication that can increase the frequency and effectiveness of communication for strength coaches with their sport coaches.
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
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.
In order to develop athletes who can move optimally in multiple planes of motion, training should include elements that can challenge them in multiple planes while providing various resistance and proprioceptive challenges.
This article serves to educate people about the menstrual cycle in the tactical female population. It provides a framework for how to work through the phases of menstruation to increase training response, and thus, overall success in military training.
TSAC FacilitatorsExercise ScienceProgram designBasic Pathophysiology and Science of Health Status or Condition, Disorder, or Disease
The purpose of this article is to present evidence for implementing wellness coaching practices for enhanced dissemination of knowledge and improved efficacy of lasting behavior change, positively affecting the service member’s fitness performance levels and decreasing risk of lifestyle disease development.
This article explains the quadrathlon and how it can help strength coaches measure linear speed, speed-strength (power), and elastic or reactive qualities efficiently.
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 article looks to explain why law enforcement recruits have higher incidences of lower extremity bone stress responses and stress fractures. It also explores injury mitigation pathways to increase the graduation rates among law enforcement academies.
TSAC FacilitatorsProgram designBasic Pathophysiology and Science of Health Status or Condition, Disorder, or Disease