NSCA CSCS Exercise Technique: How to Judge a Lift, Spot It and Coach It for the 28 Scored Questions

Exercise Technique questions test your eye more than your memory. Only 5 of the 28 scored items are recall, and the 30 to 40 video and image items in Practical/Applied can land in this domain as well as others. What helps most is a fixed way of looking at a lift, so that a clip or a photo turns into a short list of checks.

The 28 CSCS Exercise Technique questions: what the outline covers

NSCA's Detailed Content Outline (DCO) sets the domain at 5 recall, 15 application and 8 analysis items, in five task areas:

For almost every movement, the DCO asks for the same three things: demonstrate or explain the technique (body and limb positions, mechanics, breathing), engage the safety protocol for the athlete and equipment, and "assess, cue, and modify based on arousal, focus, competency, and safety." The Practical/Applied guide turns that triad into a video-review routine. This guide fills in what to look for.

Judging a back squat with NSCA's journal checklist

An article in the NSCA's Strength and Conditioning Journal proposes a Back Squat Assessment (Myer and colleagues, 2014) with ten criteria in three domains, observed with the athlete holding a light dowel. It's one of the clearest public descriptions of what "correct" looks like:

The article ties common faults to likely causes, which is exactly the kind of reasoning an analysis item asks for:

• Knees caving inward (valgus). Linked to decreased hip abductor and external rotator strength, increased hip adductor activity and restricted ankle dorsiflexion. The scored threshold is the frontal-knee row in the table above.
• Heels rising. Shrinks the base of support and creates compensatory torques at the ankles, knees, hips and lower back. The authors name better ankle (and often hip) mobility as the goal, and note a heel block may help some athletes at first.
• Excessive trunk flexion or a rounded back. Linked to weakness of the trunk and hip extensors or poor lumbar control, and to restricted forward knee travel.
• Asymmetry at the hips. One hip dropping or the dowel tilting points to weakness, muscle imbalance or joint asymmetry.

Two nuances from the same article. It finds no known evidence that a defined point exists where knees traveling past the toes becomes harmful, and notes that consciously restricting that travel increases forward trunk lean and loads the hip and spine. And it says an athlete who reports pain during the assessment should be referred to a licensed healthcare professional, which is a scope-of-practice answer, not a coaching cue. On breathing, the authors describe inhaling to about 80% of maximal inhalation and holding the breath before the descent to raise intra-abdominal pressure.

Once you can run this checklist quickly, planned Exercise Technique practice runs to 212 questions at launch.

Olympic lifts and their derivatives: phases and classes

The NSCA's 2023 position statement on weightlifting for sports performance gives the vocabulary these questions use.

Phases. The snatch and the clean have five phases: first pull (lift-off), transition (double knee bend), second pull (power position to full extension), catch and recovery. The jerk has four: dip, drive (thrust), catch and recovery. The statement reports that the greatest force, rate of force development and power occur in the second pull of the clean and snatch and in the thrust of the jerk.

Derivative classes.

On loading, the statement reports that certain pulling derivatives may be prescribed above the 1RM of the catching lift, up to 120% from the floor and up to 140% from the knee or midthigh, while ballistic pulls such as the jump shrug and hang high pull tend to maximize velocity and power with loads as low as 30% to 45% of a hang power clean 1RM. It advises against setting novice loads as a percentage of body mass, because relative strength varies too much between athletes.

Spotting: what NSCA's facility standard requires

Standard 3.2 of the NSCA's Strength and Conditioning Professional Standards and Guidelines reads: "In conjunction with appropriate safety equipment (e.g., power racks), attentive spotting must be provided for participants performing activities in which free weights are supported on the trunk or moved over the head/face." Standard 3.1 adds that professionals must have quick access to participants who need spotting or assistance.

That rule gives you a fast first filter for a spotting question: a back squat (bar on the trunk), a bench press (bar over the face) and an overhead press (bar over the head) all fall inside it, while a seated machine exercise doesn't. For exercise-by-exercise spotting technique, turn to NSCA's Exercise Technique Manual for Resistance Training (4th ed.), which NSCA's store listing says covers 100 exercises with checklists, full-color photos, spotting and breathing tips, and online video clips that highlight common errors.

Coaching the lift: chaining, cues and feedback timing

Program Implementation's first task (coaching athletes through sessions, with internal and external cues, progressions and regressions, and demonstrations) overlaps with this domain, and the weightlifting position statement explains the methods behind it:

• Reverse chaining. The statement says the reverse-chain approach, teaching the end of the lift first and adding earlier parts in front of what is already learned, is the method advocated by both the NSCA and the International Weightlifting Federation. Forward chaining tends to produce skills that start well but develop faults as the sequence grows.
• Short cues. Cues should be "buzz" words rather than long sentences, to avoid information overload. For children, analogies and metaphors can encourage an external focus of attention.
• Feedback timing. Terminal feedback, given after a repetition or set, helps athletes learning a new skill concentrate on the movement. Concurrent feedback, given during the movement, suits skilled athletes in the autonomous stage. Too much feedback can make a beginner dependent on it.

Speed, agility, plyometrics, conditioning and restoration

The remaining task areas are listed in the DCO with less detail. For speed, agility and plyometrics, it names acceleration, deceleration and change of direction, with safety protocols that cover the athlete, the environment and the equipment. For energy system development, it asks you to explain the session's purpose, intensity and duration and to adjust recovery to each athlete's competency and safety. For restoration, it names breathing, stretching and active recovery. A likely question shape is a described session followed by what to adjust, so tie each technique back to its stated purpose. To drill these topics in short bursts, 65 Exercise Technique flashcards are planned for launch.

Four Passy practice questions on CSCS Exercise Technique

Written by Passy for practice, in the exam's three-option format.

1. Viewed from the front during a dowel back squat, the outer side of each knee moves inside the inner ankle bone on the descent. Which interpretation fits NSCA's journal assessment?

• A. Knee valgus, possibly from weak hip abductors and external rotators
• B. Excessive tibial progression, caused by gazing slightly upward
• C. Normal motion, since knees naturally travel inward at depth

Answer: A. The Back Squat Assessment marks this as a frontal-knee deficit and links valgus to decreased hip abductor and external rotation strength, among other causes. Option B attaches an unrelated cause to a different criterion, and inward collapse isn't the desired pattern.

2. In which phase of the clean does NSCA's position statement report the greatest force and power?

• A. First pull, as the bar moves from floor to knee
• B. Second pull, power position to full extension
• C. Catch, as the bar settles onto the shoulders

Answer: B. The statement places the greatest force, rate of force development and power in the second pull (and in the jerk's thrust).

3. Which exercise requires attentive spotting under NSCA's Standard 3.2?

• A. Barbell back squat in a power rack
• B. Seated leg curl on a selectorized machine
• C. Medicine ball chest pass to a partner

Answer: A. In the squat, the free weight is supported on the trunk, which is exactly the standard's trigger. The machine exercise and the medicine ball pass don't involve a free weight on the trunk or over the head or face.

4. A novice is learning the hang power clean. When does NSCA's position statement suggest giving technique feedback?

• A. Mostly after each repetition or set, as terminal feedback
• B. Continuously during every repetition, as concurrent feedback
• C. Only at the end of the session, to avoid any distraction

Answer: A. Terminal feedback helps a learner focus on the movement itself. The statement reserves concurrent feedback for skilled athletes and warns against too much feedback early on; it doesn't recommend withholding it until the session ends.

Your next step for CSCS Exercise Technique

Film one squat and one hang power clean from the front and the side, run the ten-criterion checklist on the squat, and name the phase where any fault in the clean appears. Then test yourself on technique-fault items in the 20 free CSCS practice questions. To find out whether technique or another domain should get your next week, planned Progress tracking names the domain to focus on next once full prep opens. Spotting and supervision rules continue in the Organization and Administration guide.