It is the job of the personal trainer to help clients reach their goals in a safe and effective manner. However, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture of a client’s life and have tunnel vision on specific training aspects that may not matter.

From the 2021 NSCA Coaches Conference, the University of Indiana, Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, William Alli, provides his approach to the relationship between power and skill to help coaches understand the nuances in their athletes and how they can better communicate with them to achieve their performance goals.

From the 2020 NSCA Coaches Conference, Brian Buck, Director of Sports, and Bryce Patterson, Director of Education at Sparta Science, discuss how to understand data, create a repeatable and scalable system to address goals, and create a feedback loop to assess the effectiveness of a program.

In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 TSAC Annual Training, Tonya Butler-Collins identifies key sources of funding from alternative sources outside of traditional banks. This session teaches how to partner with non-profit entities for grants and identify missions, visions, and goals in order to align appropriate partners for funding.

Weightlifting movements and their derivatives can be programmed effectively by considering their force–velocity characteristics and physiological underpinnings to meet the specific training goals of resistance training phases in accordance with the typical application of periodized training programs.

This section from the book, Developing Endurance, gives an overview of how to plan and develop a program for endurance athletes by following four steps.

Athletes are highly vulnerable to pervasive supplement marketing and are largely unaware of how real, whole–food solutions stack up to some of the most popular supplements on the market. In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 Coaches Conference, sports dietitian Lara Gray presents a variety of nutrient profile comparisons between top–selling sports supplements and whole–food options that can alternatively provide sustainable, cost–effective solutions to common training goals.

Confused about which diet is best? Alan Aragon examines the evidence behind the claims made by each of the main diet perspectives in this session from the 2015 NSCA Personal Trainers Conference. The questions answered include: “which diet is best for weight loss?” and “which diet is best for promoting health and preventing cardiovascular disease?” Individual goals and circumstances will be discussed as well as practical applications.

Developing a truly successful program involves several layers that the personal trainer must address with time, competence, and critical thinking. A thorough and complete initial consultation can ensure that the personal trainer has all the data that they need to design a program that is time-efficient and successful.

Developing a truly successful program involves several layers that the personal trainer must address with time, competence, and critical thinking. A thorough and complete initial consultation can ensure that the personal trainer has all the data that they need to design a program that is time-efficient and successful.