I just finished a couple of your podcast’s where you spoke a bit about sport specific strength training. What you said goes directly against what some say (unnamed organization), but also what I have experienced with the untrained high school athlete. Do you still feel that a novice program is best used to get a base, or as much strength as possible in the small amount of time available, is the best route before adding “sport specific” exercise?
Great info on the video blogs and podcasts by the way, I really have picked up a lot from them.
To be clear, I am not arguing against your point, I actually lean more towards it. From what I have heard Jordan say, he is pro sports specific. The podcast I listened to today was concerning a golfer and Jordan expanded on what to work on ie: trunk rotational exercises etc. My question or issue that I would like some clarity on, is when to work this in. I contend that time is the resource that is shortest in supply with the HS, or even college athlete, so a base of strength or getting the athlete as strong as possible is the priority. The time spent doing a “sport” exercise is time away from the actual acquisition of strength. I’m not necessarily against it, just when do you add it.
I think the bigger issue that I have only heard one other strength professional address, that being Jim Wendler, is the lack of ability to move in an athletic fashion. I argued this with a SS coach and was kind of dismissed, but I have seen HS kids who when told to take a knee struggled. These were athletic and stronger kids, but the basic movements that kids of even 10 years ago were able to perform due to a different culture of outdoor play are hard for today’s kids to perform.
I’m quite interested in this topic as well. I’ve been looking around reading some of Bondarenko’s stuff about sport specific strength training for throwers. I’d be interested in hearing what BBM’s argument is in this area.
As usual, context matters. In a completely untrained beginner, strength training provides a more general adaptation, and is likely to provide incremental benefits in both performance and in injury risk reduction. We have strong evidence for both of these things and have no objection to the idea.
However, the idea that strength adaptations are always completely “general” (and thus always provide beneficial carryover to sports performance) is flawed, and why getting the athlete "as strong as possible" (as defined by powerlifting movements) is usually not a useful goal. There is a point where putting another 5 lbs on an athlete’s low bar squat is not a productive use of time and resources, and may actually provide no performance benefit at all.
This is because defining and measuring strength as a 1RM (or other rep-max) effort on a powerlifting-specific movement may not be particularly relevant for the physical demands of the athlete’s sport. If we are defining/measuring strength this way, the idea that a “stronger athlete is a better athlete” is not necessarily true, with countless counterexamples in the real world. This is because of the specificity of strength adaptations based on factors like contraction mode, velocity, joint angles, and numerous other factors (with mountains and mountains of supporting evidence that get casually dismissed by powerlifting-centric strength coaches, as it does not fit their narrative). And, of note, the “all else equal” qualifier is useless handwaving, as all other things are never equal in reality.
For more on this topic, I’d check out Beardsley’s book “Strength is Specific”, where he explicitly discusses many of these issues in detail, including a section devoted to strength training for sports outcomes.
Yes, I meant Bondarchuk. I guess I had Sergei Bondarenko on my mind.
I’m thinking of picking up his book Transfer of Training in Sports, if I can find it for a non-insane amount of money. “Strength is Specific” is also on my list now.
Context matters, I agree, and I guess I wasn’t specific enough. While I agree training an athlete towards the highest 1RM, or even spending time to gain that extra 5 pounds is not an efficient use of time in the weight room, I believe the additional weight on the bar is just a by product of the training process. In other words, am I going to put all of my eggs in one basket, say the squat, and program towards that goal, no.
In my opinion, what a lot of strength coaches (BBM,SSC etc) don’t take into effect is the lack of time available to the HS strength coach. If I am lucky to get a kid to show up off season three times a week for 1 1/2 hours at a time for a month at most I am overjoyed. Then in season you usually get 45 minutes a day 2 times a week (I am talking football, which I used to coach). So with that limited time, I really don’t get to focus on individual programming for each athlete based on where they are at on their strength journey for the entirety of their HS career. You naturally have to individualize a bit, but again time kills you in these scenarios. So for me, the basic lifts with some jumping, and also cleaning are about as good as it gets.
Now for the private coach, and I get a lot of female athletes (volleyball and softball), I can do more individualized programming. I will admit to being more of someone who fell into the “strong as possible” as defined by power lifting movements kind of coach, and always followed the absolute strength thought. So what I am looking for is more info on the beneficial adaptations that can occur doing more “specific” training for the sport in which my athletes participate. I did just download the Beardsley eBook, and I am digging into that, and also your podcasts and video blogs have been another great resource. Would there ever be a chance you could add another forum header for the HS or college strength coach?
Thanks for the content and your reply, it is appreciated.
So you recognize the practical limitations in your situation requiring compromises to be made, and you choose to program accordingly. Additionally, many (if not most) HS athletes are completely untrained from a strength standpoint, so I don’t see the problem here – but it’s a very different discussion than how best to train for sport over the long term.
I think you’ll find what you’re looking for in that book.
You are free to discuss these topics in the unmoderated training forum below.