This article provides methods used by tactical facilitators, related research articles, and professional interviews to demonstrate how physical conditioning facilitates the transition from practice to duty for service members, including law enforcement and fire and rescue personnel.

The tactical strength and conditioning field is evolving each year. Because of the experience of those in the field, as well as the growing body of research, we are gaining a better understanding of what it actually means to work within the tactical field.

Learn the basics of conducting a needs analysis for tactical athletes based on the athlete’s goals and desired outcomes, assessments, limitations on workout frequency and duration, equipment availability, health and injury status, and occupational physiological demands.

This article is part of a continuing series of tactical strength and conditioning (TSAC) research reviews. It is designed to bring awareness to new research findings of relevance to tactical strength and conditioning communities.

From a strength and conditioning perspective, how should a tactical athlete be reintegrated when they return to a kinetically operational workplace after time away?

The path to actual integration of mental and physical training for the tactical athlete is paved with growing empiricism. The current challenge is to sustain creative development of functional approaches and demonstrate that integration can deliver potential benefits.

The daily energy requirements of tactical personnel are highly variable, depending on gender, body composition, activities performed, age, and environmental conditions.

During 2018 TSAC Annual Training, the NSCA’s own Tactical Strength and Conditioning Program Manager, Nate Palin, discusses his personal and professional take on running in the military setting. Here Palin identifies the pros, risks, and shortcomings associated with run-centric physical training for special operations forces, as well as discusses more safe and efficient strength and conditioning alternatives to running-based fitness programs for these tactical operators.

Learn about the unique culture that comprises tactical performance, to include the unit-specific subcultures within it, and how to adopt both intuitive and research-based methods to more strategically impact military personnel. In this session from the NSCA’s 2016 TSAC Annual Training, Nate Palin explains effective and ineffective approaches to influencing the physical training within a tactical setting.

An organized, science-based, and evidence-based periodized program that is guided by capable and competent professionals is the most efficient and effective way to accomplish the task of returning from a shoulder injury to full active duty. The concepts of periodization paired with evidence-based strength and conditioning interventions provides the framework needed for tactical facilitators to accomplish this task.