The All-American Strength and Conditioning Athlete of the Year Award program recognize those collegiate and high school athletes whose athletic accomplishments reflect their dedication to strength training and conditioning.

Strength training is an often neglected aspect of training for distance athletes. This article gives an overview of the importance of strength training for collegiate female distance runners by providing a sample of an annual training program and considerations to increase performance and avoid injury.

What's behind enduring success at the highest level of college athletics? Kate Smith, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Michigan, shares insights from nearly 14 years of experience coaching multiple sports in a competitive collegiate environment. Smith emphasizes sustained excellence through adaptability, genuine curiosity, and openness to opportunities — even outside of athletics. Drawing on her private-sector experiences, she explains how diverse roles helped shape her flexible, athlete-centered philosophy. Smith candidly addresses current collegiate challenges, including navigating Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) distractions and adjusting motivational strategies across team cultures and generations. As a Certified Performance and Sport Scientist® (CPSS®), Smith highlights how integrating data-driven insights helps her create a more effective training environment. This expertise uniquely positions her to bridge athletics with academics, deepening collaboration on campus-wide performance initiatives. Learn how to implement practical strategies for keeping athletes engaged amidst external pressures, leverage performance data meaningfully, and continually refresh your coaching approach. Connect with Kate via email at kannehay@umich.edu and on Instagram: @katehaycock | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

NSCA Coach 11.3 is an exercise research article providing strength coaches, considerations to design effective sports performance programs for collegiate soccer.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to methods of training collegiate volleyball athletes.

It is important for strength and conditioning coaches, sport coaches, athletic trainers, and administrators to recognize and address the evidence of stress within student-athletes in order to avoid chronic stress-related anxiety and injury.

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

This article discusses the influence of lower-body power on soccer performance in collegiate female soccer players. It also covers testing for muscular power qualities, different training modalities to use, and sample training programs as examples.