This article is intended to assist tactical facilitators in the construction of a well-designed tactical return to duty program to help combat against the musculoskeletal injury burden that exists within tactical professions.

The purpose of the following article is to discuss current interventions surrounding prevention of musculoskeletal injury and improved physical fitness across military, fire, and police populations.

Because a client’s functional abilities will change in each of the tissue healing phases, the fitness professional must understand the time it takes to heal and the science behind each phase in order to prescribe safe exercises for clients in those phases.

In this session from the 2015 NSCA National Conference, Charlie Weingroff discusses interventions based on the core foundations of movement, output, readiness, and sensory systems. Interventions are presented as an intersection between medicine, fitness, and science.

Despite best efforts, musculoskeletal injuries among active duty service members continue to be pervasive and on the rise. Tactical facilitators can each do their part as a member of one team to avoid the injuries that are preventable and to rehabilitate, recondition, and optimize performance in the ones that do occur and are treatable.

Knowing when to train and how much time to devote to training each of the three energy systems is an important ingredient of success in endurance sports. This knowledge is also reflected in a well-designed and scientifically-based training plan.

Soldiers must be physically prepared to meet a broad range of challenges. This article is designed to help identify risks and discuss recommended strategies to implement in order to minimize those injury risks at the company, commander, and soldier level.

Bridge the Gap Lecture: Understanding Energy System Development in Hockey

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.

In this session from the 2017 Coaches Conference, Joe Eisenmann explains the three major energy systems in the human body, identifies appropriate tests of physical work capacity, and explains how to design programs that maximize energy production and fatigue resistance in sports.