NSCA Board President's Message

September 3, 2019

It's conference season for the NSCA! With highly successful National Conference and Tactical Annual Training over the last couple of months, we are very pleased with the registration numbers for the first 100% virtual Personal Trainers Conference in October. In an effort to address the particular needs of our Personal Trainer members regarding missing client sessions to attend a conference in person, the NSCA is trying an online format for this year's conference, with the ability to access talks for up to one year. While we will continue to have most of our conferences in person, we are seeing a growing trend of 'virtual' attendance. We welcome feedback regarding this type of conference format. Check out the 2019 Personal Trainers Virtual Conference!

A couple of the highlights of the National Conference in July were recognizing our founder, Boyd Epley, for his many contributions to the field of strength and conditioning as well as to the NSCA, and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the NSCA-CPT examination. We also had three of our five International affiliates (Italy, Korea, Spain) celebrate 10 years with the NSCA. We are thrilled that more countries are seeking associations with the NSCA, which will only help us to achieve our vision to advance the Strength and Conditioning profession worldwide.

At the National conference we also had open sessions regarding the Accreditation of Education Programs in Strength and Conditioning initiative. We received some great questions and feedback and have incorporated that into the latest version of the Accreditation Standards that educational programs will have to comply with in order to achieve accreditation. This will help us in our quest to raise the qualifications and respect as professionals for individuals who pursue careers as strength and conditioning coaches. We will continue to provide updates as the process unfolds.

With evidence-based knowledge at the core of our mission and vision, we are working on several position statements, some of which are new, as well as revising some of our older position statements. The most recent to be published is the position statement on resistance training for older adults in the August issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Stay tuned for more position statements in the future.

Another exciting development that is proceeding is the new certification in Sports Science. Both the textbook and examination are in development and we continue to move forward with that and update you on our progress. This will help to further define sports science as a profession, and shape this career path, which has strength and conditioning at its root.

Overall, we continue to grow our community of committed strength and conditioning professionals. Please take advantage of opportunities to learn and interact, as well as to serve our great profession. The NSCA can't do this without your continued interest and dedication. Thanks for being a part of our community.