Do you understand the youth athlete? In order to train youth athletes effectively, coaches must have an understanding of how to motivate youth athletes. This article will explain how to do just that, as well as how to use age-appropriate developmental cues for this population.

Flexibility training is important because of the role that flexibility plays in improving movement performance and reducing the opportunity for injury. Learn more about the role of flexibility training in this exclusive excerpt from the book NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training, Second Edition, published by Human Kinetics.

In this session from NSCA’s 2019 National Conference, Molly Galbraith, Woman-in-Charge at Girls Gone Strong, discusses barriers of body image and explains the impact a health professional can have. This session also provides actionable tools to help clients improve their body image and feel safer, stronger, and more confident in their body.

In this session from the 2016 NSCA Coaches Conference, the Sports Science and Performance Manager for the Seattle Sounders Major League Soccer (MLS) team, David Tenney, discusses the “high performance model” in the American elite sports environment. Tenney delves into how this model impacts hierarchy and daily decision making, as well as the obstructions that many organizations face, how this model can help to drive decision making and optimize training strategies, and the different strategies that can help make this happen.

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.

Joel Raether, Director of Sport Performance at Authentic Performance Center, uses this session to take a closer look at how all variables within a program must be addressed to account for cumulative fatigue, density of variables within, and how to manage stressors for the tactical athlete with high demands for physical, mental, physiological, and emotional stress.

This book excerpt reviews the psychological principal of the self-determination theory (SDT) and its role in motivation and how this can be used in a tactical setting.

In this lecture from the NSCA's 2016 Coaches Conference, Caitlin Quinn discusses how to implement simple techniques for creating a disciplined (yet enjoyable) team lifting environment. Quinn talks about how to hold athletes to a high standard of knowledge and movement accountability, how to teach simple physiology to achieve desirable technique, how to instill a level of ownership within each athlete, and how to place a large emphasis on an athlete's mental engagement throughout a lifting session.

Self-myofascial release (SMR) through the use of foam rolling or other implements is a time and cost-efficient method of increasing performance and recovery.

This article discusses the potential benefits of exercise for helping reduce depression in tactical populations.