Strength and Conditioning Knowledge Center

Baseball Has Specific Needs Which Must be Taken into Account Baseball has specific needs that must be taken into account. The two objectives we seek with baseball training are to optimize performance and reduce the risk of injury. These goals can only be achieved with an understanding of the unique physical demands of the sport …

What Should I Take into Account When Preparing an Upper Body Workout for basketball? Basketball is a popular sport that requires technical, tactical, psychological, and physiological skills (Roman et al., 2009). Physical fitness, including velocity, strength, endurance, stamina, agility, and flexibility, as well as jumping, running, balance, and changes of direction, affect basketball performance (Nikolaos …

One of the best parts of being a beginner in the world of athletic sports and training is finding out what your body can do. Callisthenics is bodyweight training in which your body’s interactions with gravity create resistance. These workouts are important for athletes from all walks of life and from all levels of experience. …

The weight room has seen a growth in female attendance, including participation within the formal sport of powerlifting. While stereotypes and barriers for women still exist in strength sports, gone are the days when lifting weights was only seen as a male domain. Strength sports are becoming increasingly popular and participated in amongst women of …

What is Progressive Overload and Why is it Important to Utilize this Principle in Training? Strength training is used to develop muscle size, strength, endurance, power, and many other positive physiological outcomes. To achieve the desired adaptations, the training regimen must involve some form of progression for a given stimulus, a phenomenon known as progressive …

Full Body Dumbbell Workout: No Gym Machine Required Centuries ago, the current gym machines we see today did not exist. Nevertheless, you’ve probably walked through a museum showcasing sculptures of muscular Greek athletes. Recently, a group of researchers delved into the traditional myth suggesting that machines are better for gaining muscle mass. Their conclusions were …

We all are aware of wearable sensors and how they help with athlete tracking. With a lot of companies and systems jumping into this bandwagon, the system involved in tracking and managing the external training load is only going to get better. That also means more business for brands producing equipment and software to help …

The Importance of Executing the Correct Bar Path in Bench Press When it comes to improving in technical exercises like bench press, we must look beyond the classic training variables such as intensity or volume. The bar path in bench press is one of the technical elements that will help us progress much faster in …

Why Perform Bodyweight Leg Training? Bodyweight training is a global fitness trend that continues to rise in the rankings of the American College of Sports Medicine (Thompson, 2023). Disciplines like calisthenics have exponentially gained followers in recent years, but bodyweight leg training is the most complex part of calisthenics. Athletes don’t always have access to …

What is Explosive Strength? Strength can manifest itself in static/isometric, dynamic/active, and reactive forms, although it does not occur purely as one of these, but rather simultaneously to generate movement, transmit it from one part of the body to another, and absorb impacts (Tous Fajardo, 1999). In the following figure created by Joaquín Vico and …

What’s a Training Plateau And Why Does it Occur? A training plateau is a hurdle commonly encountered by both professional athletes and amateur sports enthusiasts throughout their athletic journey. It refers to a stagnation in physical and performance adaptations that halts the progress observed until that point, despite continued training at the same or even …

Volume & Intensity – Definitions Training Volume The training volume for strength is described as the amount of work done in a given time, measured in repetitions and sets (McBride et al., 2009). It is crucial to consider that when counting sets for muscle hypertrophy, science defines a set as one that is completed with …