Nicole Rodriguez always knew she wanted to pursue strength and conditioning, but the extent of her journey — spanning 44 countries and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games — is nothing short of inspiring. During her time at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, Rodriguez recognized the value of experience and environment, later joining the EXOS International Program to coach globally. Eager to test her skills and help standardize coaching education, she sought out developing countries to advance their sport infrastructure. Rodriguez outlines key differences between U.S. and European approaches: while the U.S. excels in strength methodology, Europe enhances sport-specific application through tactical periodization. Additionally, she highlights Europe’s emphasis on rehabilitation and an “inverse relationship” between time in the weight room versus pitch-side with sport coaches. Rodriguez also describes her work with Poland’s Ministry of Sport and Tourism to pursue NSCA Global Chapter status, aligning with her passion for improving strength and conditioning education and implementation worldwide. Connect with Nicole by email: nicole@coachnicolerodriguez.com and online at: coachnicolerodriguez.com | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs Learn more about NSCA international programs mentioned in the episode at NSCA.com/Global.

This NSCA Coach article focuses on the in-season resistance training and mobility exercises designed for the 100-m sprint track and field high school athlete.

The purpose of this article is to present a brief review of research on the safety and efficacy of caffeine used by athletes participating in anaerobic-dominant sports.

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.

Strength and conditioning professionals who incorporate a properly designed and supervised training program can help their young athletes train, compete, and reduce the likelihood of injury.

This article takes a closer look at training strength and stiffness in connective tissues.

This second article of a two-part series continues the discussion of long-term athletic development (LTAD). This article provides practical application of the LTAD principles by examining two sample programs.

One challenge is to critically examine your own successes and failures to find a way to attribute the outcomes to something you can control and can change for the future. This could be as small as how you deal with a single person, or it could be a more in-depth examination of how you provide feedback to athletes and how you work with your own staff.

This article examines using the sled as a dynamic correspondence exercise for increasing on-ice acceleration.