Personal trainers should be aware of the physiological changes during pregnancy for each trimester in order to provide appropriate exercise modifications and alternatives for their prenatal clients, to positively influence overall health.

This excerpt from NSCA’s Essential of Tactical Strength and Conditioning explores the neural and muscular adaptations to training over time.

Puberty is a critical period for young athletes, characterized by significant physical, psychological, and social changes. During puberty, young athletes experience the adolescent growth spurt at the same time as intensified training regimens, which can affect performance, injury risk, and overall health. Systematic training can improve physiological and performance outcomes, but the increased training volume and changes to the body during adolescence can also heighten the risk of injuries. This article discusses the injury risks associated with adolescent growth and provides comprehensive recommendations to mitigate these risks. Key recommendations include limiting training hours to the athlete’s age, monitoring growth and maturation to adjust training loads and content, and incorporating and modifying consistent strength and conditioning prescriptions. In addition, optimal nutrition, sleep, and interdisciplinary planning among coaches, parents, and stakeholders should be emphasized to support young athletes’ holistic development and well-being during the adolescent growth spurt.

This article will briefly discuss physiological and psychological adaptations, as well as review general guidelines for beginning aerobic and resistance training exercise during pregnancy.

Nutrition and dietary intake are key factors for exercise and sport performance. While a substantial body of research highlights the impact of nutrition on exercise, many dietary and nutrient recommendations are based on research studies only conducted in men. However, the distinct physiological, neurological, and hormonal changes across a woman’s life cycle significantly affect nutritional needs. This narrative review explores key recommendations for calories, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and select supplements, highlighting the absence of sex-specific guidelines in current dietary frameworks for strength and conditioning female athletes. The review synthesizes current literature to provide practical guidance for coaches, sport dietitians, and health practitioners to optimize both performance and health outcomes for female athletes.

This article discusses performance under stress, as well as factors influencing this performance in tactical personnel.

The purpose of this article is to share the importance of the menstrual cycle’s effects on elite athlete performance, and how these effects should influence the training and recovery of high-performing athletic women.

This article is part of a continuing series of tactical strength and conditioning (TSAC) research reviews. It is designed to bring awareness to new research findings of relevance to tactical strength and conditioning communities.

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 article will discuss specific measures of stress that can be monitored, as well as coping skills to mitigate the negative effects of stress.