A
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had parents and athletes ask me “is your training sport specific?” and about 100% of the time they have no idea what that actually means. I’ve seen so many coaches use these so called “sport specific training” methods in an effort to make themselves look more cutting edge when the reality is they are doing more harm than good. I decided it was time to write an article on the subject to clear the air, to explain why its not what most athletes need and to inform on what truly translates to performance on the field.
What is Sport Specific Training?
Like most good ideas, the concept is simple; take movements that occur in your sport and mimic them in the weight room to build strength in that movement pattern. Theoretically this should have a direct translation to the field. This idea was all the rage in 1990′s and suddenly performance coaches that should have known better were jumping on the bandwagon. Sprinters were doing high knees with resistance bands to mimic the high knee punch; soccer players were kicking balls with ankle weights; running backs were doing ladder drills with bands around their ankles; Pitchers were doing their throwing motion with a band around their wrist attached to a wall. The examples are endless. Yet in most cases performance was decreasing, and the smart coaches who took those crazy exercises out of their programs and focused on building up the compound lifts (squat, deadlift, olympic lifts, etc.) saw no loss in performance and in most cases improved performance.
Why sports specific training is destroying your performance
First of all, most athletes already get enough sports specific training… its called practice and playing the sport itself! Turns out these fancy, gimmicky, sports specific training exercises are not nearly as effective as playing the sport itself! Since most athletes are already performing these movement patterns multiple times a week as it is, incorporating those exercises into their routine only accumulates fatigue by burning out their nervous system from overtraining the same pattern. This diminishes the quality of their practices because it prevents them from being able to practice or play at their peak.
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Another important factor is that those exercises completely alter the mechanics and physics of how your body applies force. In most sports athletes have to utilize what is called ground reaction force. This concept is derived from newtons third law; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example a sprinter moves forward by driving back into the ground and the ground reaction force that is returned is what makes him go forward. So the more force he can put into the ground, the more is returned and the more ground he covers with each step. So coaches who fell for the sports specific nonsense are making their sprinters do high knees with bands when the truth is that the high knee punch is really a result of the massive forces they are applying to the ground! Ground reaction force is also huge for throwing athletes. Can a pitcher throw a 100 mph fastball while sitting down? No way! He has to transfer force that he puts into the ground back through his muscles through his feet, hips, core, shoulder into the ball. These so called sports specific exercises are not nearly as effective at training athletes to create ground reaction force and transfer that force which is the common denominator of pretty much all athletic movement. Additionally, these exercises use a very small percentage of a normal, healthy, fully functional athletes work capacity. They aren’t loaded enough to promote any significant strength gains which is the foundation of all movement.
The Solution
Same thing athletes have been doing forever, get strong! Stick to the basics. Squats, deadlifts and olympic lifts requires the athlete to produce massive amounts of force into the ground and trains athletes to transfer force through multiple muscle groups. Using multiple muscle groups and being able to use heavy loads gives you the ability to work at a much greater percentage of your total work capacity. This elicits much greater neural and muscular adaptions. In other words, your muscles get stronger and contract faster; which translates to the ability to produce greater force and produce it rapidly which is required in all athletic movement!
I was at a National Strength and Conditioning Association Clinic last weekend and one of the speakers cited a study that showed that golfers that had the longest drives also had the highest vertical jumps. Seems about as far from sports specific as you can get, right? But they know how to express power and that translates to power in their sport. The point of sharing that is to illustrate that playing your sport makes what you do in the gym sport specific.
Whos working harder?
A. The Lifter
B. The guy with bands
If you chose B, smack yourself in the head and re-read this article.
In closing, here are the take home messages I want to leave you with:
There is no replacement for strength.
There is no big secret, there is no short cut, the best thing you can do is the same thing athletes have been doing forever; lift heavy and play your sport
Train to develop maximal strength and power the old fashion way, big compound movements where you can really load up the plates (squat, deadlift, olympic lifts)
Playing your sport makes your strength training sports specific!
About Ben Servais
