This article in NSCA Coach shares a research-driven framework for dryland training in competitive swimming. Visit us online to learn more on sport performance and exercise science.

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.

Concurrent training (CT), which combines resistance exercise and energy systems conditioning, is the default approach to preparation in high-intensity intermittent (“stop and go”) team sports. This review provides an overview of CT, emphasizing its complexities and challenges in managing fatigue and optimizing performance. These complexities are specifically compounded by the variability in game demands across the season, where the presence of intensified and nonintensified competition periods necessitates a flexible and adaptive training approach. In this context, there are essential training variables to consider, including intensity, volume, session order, and recovery intervals between sessions. In addition, nontraining variables such as travel, sleep, and nutrition play a role in the fatigue experienced while training and competing. These variables interact to influence acute performance and training adaptations and can be strategically adjusted by strength and conditioning practitioners. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive understanding of fatigue management for practitioners in team sports, emphasizing the complexities and challenges of CT and offering simplified practical recommendations for adjusting training variables within any given microcycle.

Determining VO2max can be useful in all areas of health, from potential diagnosis of heart disease in the elderly to measuring peak performance in elite athletes. This article will discuss the physiological limiting factors of VO2max and the role each plays in cardiovascular improvement.

This excerpt from Developing Agility and Quickness highlights the high-intensity, reactive agility hockey players require, and provides two agility drills that challenge that skill.

Understanding how the body adapts to the overload of aerobic exercise is critical to designing effective exercise training programs, monitoring exercise responses and progress, and assessing training outcomes.

This article highlights some of the benefits, components, and training methods involved with time-efficient training.

Dietary fat has both long-term and short-term effects on an athlete and athletic performance. “Fat loading” as a strategy to improve athletic performance remains unproven.

Some of the major misconceptions concerning Olympic-style weightlifting for sport are addressed in this article, providing evidence-based recommendations to better implement the snatch, clean and jerk, and their derivatives in the training of high school and collegiate athletes.

This article discusses how first responder organizations can optimize their training programs through scientific techniques, including the measurement of training load.