In order to effectively prepare an ice hockey player for the season, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the specific demands of the sport.
The purpose of this article is to strongly suggest and offer a pragmatic and stepwise approach that takes into account the ideas and concepts of shared decision making that allows for the “best practices,” pre-participation screenings, evaluations, and stratification flow charts for safe and effective return to play for athletes.
This article applies LTAD principles to guide the process of generating an athletic profile (part 1) and sample program design (part 2) for a middle school athlete and a high school athlete.
From the NSCA 2020 Texas Virtual State Clinic, Erik Korem, Senior Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete High Performance at the College of William & Mary, discusses these unprecedented times and safe ways to reintroduce athletes back to full competition.
Adam Feit, Coordinator of Physical and Mental Performance at Springfield College, discusses the use of psychological skills in collegiate strength and conditioning and shares his insight into how strength coaches are in an optimal position to incorporate more of these skills into the weight room.
Sled exercises provide a training stimulus that closely mimics real-world physical demands of sports. This article provides examples of how to implement sled training into a program.
Tex McQuilkin, Director of Training for Power Athlete HQ, defines athleticism as a trainable performance variable at the 2019 Coaches Conference. McQuilkin illustrates the four phases of the competitive lifecycle for sport athletes and empowers coaches with strategies to best apply progressive overload and support the long-term trainability of novice athletes.
This excerpt from NSCA’s Guide to Sport and Exercise Nutrition discusses the research surrounding the timing of hydration and its impact on sport performance for those participating in aerobic endurance exercise.
From the NSCA’s 2020 Coaches Conference, Scott Schultz and Beau Smith show hands-on drills for prehabilitation of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) to reduce the risk of injury in sport. These drills include posterior chain warm-up exercises, plyometric and balance exercises, and proper landing mechanics to reinforce proper hip and knee positions.
This article covers commonly used terminology from United States of America Weightlifting (USAW), plus it contains illustrations of the basic positions for weightlifting exercises.