As strength and conditioning professionals our job is to provide a safe platform for our athletes to develop strength, power, speed and other specific variables that can directly impact athletic performance. Simply put, we manage stress for a living. We prescribe specific doses of stress to elicit desired adaptation(s).   Too little we fail to alter performance. Too much, overtraining and organism breakdown are the result.  It is our goal to apply the right amount of stress at the right time to allow adaptation to occur (hypertrophy, strength, power ect.).

Either way we choose to look at it, we will all spend money on health.  The question is how we spend it.  It is much wiser to invest in “preventative” measures such as proper diet and exercise as opposed to “reactionary” measures such as disease and injury.  Our nation is fat (2007, 74.1% of Americans were considered obese) and does not move well.  Coupled with this problem is the fact that when many consumers’ are finally ready to exercise they are un-educated as to what constitutes effective/safe protocol.  We are consumed with the “magic pill” mentality of quick fixes.  It is not an easy problem to solve and the Hollywood angle only makes it worse.  Shows like The Biggest Loser and “celebrity” trainers offering professional advice only muddies the waters and makes our jobs that much more difficult.