Strength and Conditioning Knowledge Center

What Does Transfer Training Means? The concept of “training transfer” is a hot topic in discussions among strength and conditioning coaches. This term refers to the degree to which a workout affects a particular performance or task (Issurin, 2013). For example, is performing power loads in the gym going to improve our 100m sprint performance? …

What are the training phases that field sports athletes go through? The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) developed an evidence-based fitness training system based on scientific principles more than 20 years ago (NASM, n.d.). Dr. Mike Clark, its creator, established five distinct but complementary training phases to improve the physical performance of field sports …

History of oscillatory training Oscillatory training is a method that emerged based on Sherrington’s law of reciprocal inhibition which states that for one muscle to contract, another must relax (Johnson, 1960). Several decades ago, Matveyev, one of the most influential Russian scientists in the field of training, found that one of the main differences between …

The Olympic lifting or Olympic lifts are exercises increasingly known by the population. The development of Crossfit or weightlifting has made people who had no idea what a “jerk” was know how to perform a squat, a pull-up or know the “overhead” squat. As we have said, the advancement of Crossfit, a discipline that uses …

The preparation for a new sports season begins with the end of the previous season. Athletes need rest, but we must keep in mind that the sooner a season ends, the sooner the next one begins. This period in which the coach and physical trainer meet to set up the next season is complex because …

For both amateur and competitive sport, it’s important to maintain a good general physical condition. Each sport requires some special characteristics; being an Ironman distance triathlon athlete, where the training volume is very high, is not the same as training for the long jump. However, even though both training sessions are far from each other …

Football, today, is one of the most popular sports in the world. Before it, sports such as boxing or gladiatorial wrestling have been sports practices that have reached a very high level of fame. So much so that gladiator wrestling was known as “the opium of the people”. Football is a sport that currently enjoys …

Workload for strength and conditioning coaches: why is it essential to work with VBT technology? A strength and conditioning coach must administer the workload as precisely as possible to obtain maximum results with minimum fatigue. Velocity-based strength training (VBT) is the fastest and most optimal way we currently have to control whether the administered load …

First key to becoming a great S&C trainer: specialist of specialists   They say that “knowledge does not take up space”, but it does take up time. They also say that “learner of everything, master of nothing”. There are many personal trainers who have a client portfolio that includes pregnant women, older adults, people with …

What is long-term athletic development (LTAD) and why is it important? Image taken from Brett Wharton (Unsplash) Physical activity improves the overall health of children and young adults by reducing the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, and suicide, among other chronic medical conditions (Washington et al., 2001). Increasing youth physical activity has become …

What is a key performance indicator (KPI)? Image taken from Jonathan Chng (Unsplash) A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows how effectively an athlete’s specific objectives are being met. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs from now on) are useful to evaluate the success of the objectives set for each athlete. Every athlete …

In the last decade, the importance of physical exercise for health and sports performance has gained great relevance among the population. So much so that in the last 30 years, more scientific studies related to physical exercise and performance have been published than in the previous 80 years. This is because sports science has been …