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.

Learn about the pros and cons of popular diets, and how each diet will impact the training of your clients. In this session from the 2016 NSCA National Conference, sports nutritionist, Marie Spano explains the key factors that determine dieting success, and shares resources to help your clients decide which approach is best for them.

There can be no doubt that protein is important and this article reviews the current research to help further understand the recommendations for protein intake.

Congratulations to the 2020 NSCA Award Winners!

Dietary fat has both long-term and short-term effects on an athlete and athletic performance. “Fat loading” as a strategy to improve athletic performance remains unproven.

Meet the 2026 NSCA Peer & Special Recognition Awards recipients, who will be recognized for excellence across the profession at the NSCA National Conference.

Join the 2026 NSCA Personal Trainers Virtual Conference (PTCon) online October 27–30 for flexible continuing education, evidence-based strategies, and 2.0 CEUs.

This excerpt from NSCA’s Guide to Sport and Exercise Nutrition briefly analyzes some of the research behind creatine and its application to sport performance.

The strength and conditioning profession involves combined competencies for the application of sport/exercise science, administration, management, teaching, and coaching. Its professionals must also comply with various laws and regulations while responding to instances of potential injury, and related claims and suits. This creates remarkable challenges, and requires substantial experience, expertise, and other resources to effectively address them, especially in multi-sport (e.g., collegiate and scholastic) settings.

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.