This Personal Training Quarterly article presents time-efficient fitness strategies to maintain physical and mental health during early parenthood. Visit NSCA online to read more on nutrition, health science, and fitness news.

This NSCA Coach article examines the importance of hip-shoulder separation on performance in baseball pitching. Visit NSCA online to read more on athletic performance and sport science.

Developing a truly successful program involves several layers that the personal trainer must address with time, competence, and critical thinking. A thorough and complete initial consultation can ensure that the personal trainer has all the data that they need to design a program that is time-efficient and successful.

The path to the top is not always linear. For Jill Costanza, it included returning to school and stops in collegiate and military performance before becoming Director of Sport Science and Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach with the National Football League (NFL) Detroit Lions. Costanza describes today’s sport science landscape as a “Wild West,” where definitions differ by perspective. Her focus centers on assessing the athlete and program effectiveness against the demands of the game to identify holistic interventions. She outlines how intentional systems, a clear communication funnel, and data visualizations help athletes and stakeholders understand the “why,” build buy-in, and tap into competitiveness. Addressing common misconceptions, Costanza clarifies that elite athletes can still have foundational qualities that need rewiring. She emphasizes movement quality, proprioception, and breathing while adapting for individual needs and neurological fatigue. Learn how to build sport science systems, turn insights into action, and keep progressing on your professional path. Reach out to Jill by email at: jill.costanza@lions.nfl.net | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs Join the NSCA Football Special Interest Group (SIG) and explore 24 other specialized communities designed to support your development on the Special Interest Groups page.

If you are struggling to generate sales via social media, it might be time to look at email marketing for the best bang for your buck. In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 Personal Trainers Conference, Sol Orwell explains the differences between social media and email for marketing purposes, how email marketing works to build up buy-in and trust, and how to collect email addresses from your existing audience.

In this session from the 2015 NSCA TSAC Conference, Matt Wenning explains the sumo deadlift, a foundational exercise for maximal strength development and a tool that is essential to the tactical population due to its movement pattern. The ability to learn proper technique and progressions with this exercise can help to improve a tactical athlete’s performance and decrease the likelihood of injury because it trains major muscle groups and multiple joints at the same time.

Given the high prevalence of injuries that occur during rucking, implementing an injury prevention program is paramount. Disseminating information on proper injury prevention training methods and reducing the risk of ruck-related back injuries can improve overall mission readiness with minimal lost training time.

This article contains examples of how to periodize training programs to help aerobic endurance athletes reach their peak condition at the appropriate time of the year.

The goal of this article is to understand contralateral and ipsilateral loading, how to set-up loaded carries, electromyography activity during exercises, and how to apply these exercises into the strength training program.

This article is the eleventh in a continuing series of tactical strength and conditioning (TSAC) research reviews. It is designed to bring awareness to new research findings of relevance to tactical strength and conditioning communities.