Six Reasons Why a Strength and Conditioning Program is Essential
“Just do more…”
Old School sport coaches love to answer the question of increasing strength and endurance with
“do more tennis (or wrestling, gymnastics, brazilian jiujitsu etc). “Weights are for bodybuilding, not athletes” say these coaches with great emotional conviction. Here are six reasons why strength and conditioning may be preferable to more practice:
1) Not all athletes are equal
Coaches often point to exceptional individuals within their sport as evidence to support their anti-strength and conditioning bias. I often hear or read: “Maximus does not strength train, he is great champion”. A few exceptional athletes will have physiologies which readily adapt to the imposed demands of their sport. For most athletes, however, regular practice will not be enough to fulfill their conditioning potential. They require specialized intervention. Limiting factors such as grip strength, calf power or hip mobility have to be identified and appropriately targeted. Hard working athletes will need every tool available to even the playing field against those that nature has blessed.
2) Not all muscles are equal
Muscles have individual demands for load, frequency and volume. Regular practice cannot be tailored to accomodate the specific demands of muscles. Sure, that forty minute drilling session was an optimal conditioning stimulus for your athletes’ hamstrings and abs. Unfortunately, their elbow flexors and glutes require more stimulation to meet their potential. Good strength and conditioning programs accommodate the characteristics of individual muscle fibers.
3) Cognitive Overload
Too much information from practice can overload an athlete’s mind. Information overload can actually cause a decline in cognitive performance and memory. Once the skill development threshold has been met, time should be invested in improving other performance factors (such as strength, power, mobility and endurance).
4) Ability to Isolate
Strength and conditioning programs can isolate and develop weak bodyparts while leaving the rest of the body alone to recuperate. For example, an athlete with strained spinal erectors could easily improve grip strength in a strength and conditioning environment without imposing further strain on his back. Protecting strained bodyparts is extremely difficult in a traditional practice setting.
5) Numbers
It is impossible to gauge energy output by how you feel. Proper strength and conditioning provides objective feedback by providing loads, repetitions and time intervals. How can serious athletes not really know whether they are progressing or not?
6) Muscular Balance
Finally, a strength and conditioning program based solely on muscular balance can be athletic gold. Everyone is subject to one of two possible patterns of muscle-recruitment bias. This means our bodies repeatedly favour recruiting some muscles over others. Those that are under-recruited need to be strengthened to maintain muscular balance. Muscular balance ends chronic, muscle-based pain and greatly improves resiliency.
Good strength and conditioning programs are mandatory for the modern athlete. Pervasive myths and emotion based, closed-mindedness belong in the past. Strength and conditioning makes everything easier!