Gatorade Team Sports Manager, Jon Jost, to share stories and lessons from an over four-decade collegiate coaching career. This Gatorade Performance Partner collaboration episode of the NSCA Coaching Podcast emphasizes the vital role of the strength and conditioning coach as a team builder, leadership developer, and master motivator for student-athletes. Coach Madden takes us on his journey from the early days of being a strength and conditioning coach to today, discussing some major influencers in the profession and training principles that support long-term career success in college athletics. Listen in and be better equipped to face the challenges we experience in our jobs as coaches. You can reach Coach Madden by email at jmaddog59@gmail.com| Email Jon at: jonathan.jost@pepsico.com | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscs To learn more and join the Gatorade Performance Partner Community, visit GatoradePerformancePartner.com.

Due to the high contact and intensity of football, injuries to the players are inevitable. Strength and conditioning coaches play a vital role in the athlete’s process of return to sport. This article is a detailed outline of the solutions that are involved with transitioning a football player from rehabilitation to strength and conditioning back to the field.

The goal of this article is to understand contralateral and ipsilateral loading, how to set-up loaded carries, electromyography activity during exercises, and how to apply these exercises into the strength training program.

Deceleration in court and field sports, such as football and soccer, is an important component of speed and agility. This book excerpt looks at how to train for effective deceleration.

This excerpt from Developing Power discusses neuromuscular training for youth athletes.

This book excerpt explains how to perform the box step-off landing assessment, which is used to determine an athlete’s readiness before beginning a program in agility and quickness.

Ultimately, there is no “one magical exercise” that can be programmed to appropriately develop all physical training adaptations required in competition, but the JOP Matrix can be used to help address several necessary adaptations needed for lacrosse players.

The evaluation, treatment, and management of concussions are an ongoing evolution in sports injury management and medicine. Strengthening the neck and shoulder region has been one way of trying to reduce head and neck injuries.

Strength and conditioning coaches that temper their posterior chain exercises with some threshold training and specific trunk exercises designed to break the extension/compression stabilization strategy (ECSS) to restore proper stabilizing strategies may find their athletes will move better, get injured less, and actually perform better.