This consensus statement provides specific conditioning recommendations with the intent of ending conditioning-related morbidity and deaths of secondary school athletes. Most deaths in sports are preventable; our charge is to meet this expectation.

Learn why the NSCA has joined the Smart Heart Sports Coalition to advance emergency action plans, AED access, and CPR training that save young athletes’ lives.

The purpose of this article is to address the key elements when designing a training program for firefighters, provide evidence for utilizing circuit training, and suggest recommendations on how to incorporate circuit training into the training program.

This consensus statement provides specific conditioning recommendations with the intent of ending conditioning-related morbidity and deaths of collegiate athletes.

Courteney Benjamin discusses the importance and warning signs a strength and conditioning coach should know to help prevent sudden death in their athletes.

As athletes return to training in the heat, Doug Casa, CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute, covers safety and considerations for strength and conditioning coaches. Casa discusses guidelines for heat acclimatization, signs and symptoms of traumas, emergency action plans, prevention strategies, and provides valuable resources for coaches.

Falls resulting from trips are a leading cause of injury and can sometimes result in death, especially in the older population. Numerous researchers have studied the biomechanical mechanisms that differentiate fallers from nonfallers and determined whether training can beneficially impact those outcomes. Exercise and task-specific interventions have demonstrated fewer falls after trips but can be costly and often require specialized equipment, making their applicability less practical. Qualified health and fitness practitioners can develop evidence-informed, exercise-based programs focusing on 3 components (balance training, task-specific training, and resistance exercise). Such programs may help to reduce fall risk in older adults based on previously documented studies identifying the biomechanical demands of a successful fall arrest after a trip perturbation. These multicomponent programs should include a safe task-specific training element that does not require specialized equipment.

This column will explore specific investigations that evaluate the impact of PA and fitness on mental and physical health outcomes among firefighters and law enforcement officers.

The VO2max test is the most effective measurement of the body’s ability to deliver and use oxygen for producing energy that can be used by the muscles. VO2max (i.e., maximum aerobic power) simply stands for the maximal volume of oxygen that can be used.