In the last part of this series, we finish discussing why certain popular exercises fail to yield the desired outcomes in athletic performance. We then conclude the discussion about how to most effectively and efficiently train for your sport by outlining how to best organize an effective and efficient strength program.

What about Speed, Agility, Quickness, Power, “Sport-Specific” and “Functional” training? (Continued)

Adherents of these “functional” and “sports-specific” exercise methods will claim various benefits and aims, but the general theme is that these exercises attempt to mimic activities of daily life and/or sports, make them more challenging, and thus improve them. The problem is that it doesn’t work the way they want it to. Aiming to improve activities of daily living and athletic performance is an excellent and noble idea. It’s for this reason that we prescribe lifting heavy weights for anyone and everyone who has the need or desire for physical improvement. Making training specific instead of general never works, remember? So what is true functional training? Weighted step-ups or squats and deadlifts?

“Soccer-specific training” will, in a normal gym setting, look incredibly different from “golf-specific training,” won’t it? One will have lots of lunges, footwork drills, sprints, and jumping. The other will have lots of “core stabilizing” work, rotational and anti-rotational work, and probably a ton of hip and shoulder “mobility” work. I hope, by now, you’re skeptical. In fact, the most effective “soccer-specific training,” “golf-specific training,” and everything in between involves heavy squatting, deadlifting, pressing, bench pressing, and power cleaning.

By now, you already know this. But this is a notion that completely ruins the business model of sport-specific gyms that create different workout routines for athletes of different sports. If nothing has to be especially tailored yet progress is evident, the illusion of specificity is broken. When the volleyball players do the same squats and presses as the soccer players, and the golfers and everyone gets a heck of a lot stronger and better at their sport by doing so, suddenly the veil of complexity is shattered. Suddenly what matters is not “variety,” “individuality,” “the programming,” or making training “specific” to the sport, but instead, simple progress under the bar. If you want to improve, your goal must be progress, and you must learn to identify when a program that promotes progress is merely hiding behind the distractions of variety, complexity, specificity, and confusion.

Devoting time to this nebulous realm of “training” is probably even more of a waste of resources than conditioning. Speed/Agility/Quickness (“SAQ”), “rate of force production,” “explosiveness,” or “power” training are not so much ways for athletes to improve (past basic levels at younger ages as they are naturally developing their coordination and proprioception) as they are a way for the already genetically-better ones to stand out and the worse-off ones to struggle. In other words, it’s not training at all, but instead a display of ability that is already there. Coaches know this even if they don’t admit it to themselves. The good kids look good running through the cones and ladders, and the ones who struggle look like they’re struggling.

And therein lies the more important issue. Power, explosiveness – call it what you want, you know it when you see it – isn’t trained. It’s given at birth by the DNA from your parents and ancestors. The explosive kids are born that way. I’m as sorry about this as the next ex-aspiring professional athlete, but it’s the truth. Coaches see this every day.

Are the slower kids really just lazier and not willing to put in the work (so often the way we choose to lay the blame for their slowness)? Hardly. Are the naturally quick kids just harder workers (so often the way we choose to praise them for their speed)? Hardly. Sometimes this is true, but realize that this is more of a confirmation bias than anything else. The physically gifted kids naturally excel and have fun doing so, and thus they often enjoy their sport much longer into life as their athletic ability is repeatedly confirmed. And sometimes the gifted kids don't work as hard because they don't have to. Similarly, the “athletically modest” kids certainly can become discouraged or disinterested when they realize that they are less able to keep up with their peers – the process of selection is at work, and unfortunately they haven’t been selected.

Is “training” for speed, power, explosiveness or the like going to hurt? No, probably not. Do a bunch of ladder drills and box jumps if it makes you happy. But do it after your heavy squats, deadlifts and presses – the real training that really makes the difference. The ROI for the former activities is so pathetically miniscule when compared to spending the same amount of time properly strength training that it shouldn’t even merit consideration. This is why we focus on lifting heavy weights and why we don’t care so much about lifting light weights quickly or for dozens of reps at a time. The “quickly” part can’t be much improved, but the “heavy weights” part can. So if the program’s main focus is trying to address the “quickly” part, how much are you going to really improve with that program?

It’s especially easy to identify this genetic endowment when working with children over a long period of time. Any teacher or coach can identify the one or two kids in the kindergarten game who are going to be the all-stars later in life. They’re already faster, stronger and more intuitive with their bodies. Sure enough, if they keep playing they’re the physically gifted teenagers and beyond. There’s a reason you can find old home videos of Messi, Ronaldinho, Maradona and some of the other greatest soccer players in the world absolutely destroying their peers in early childhood. Not only are they more skilled from birth, but they’re more physically gifted from a very young age as well. It was never taught, it was never trained – it was just there.

So if you can’t very well train (i.e. improve) the genetic capacity responsible for explosiveness, you must be on the lookout for programs that claim they can. Programs that tout “speed training,” “power,” “rate of force production,” “agility/quickness,” etc. must be avoided if you want your efforts to yield big results (unless of course these programs involve a lot of heavy lifting, but they never do). Because these will always, unfortunately, misunderstand and oversell what can actually be achieved in explosiveness and agility in a gym setting.

Will it work?

Now that you understand which physical and physiological improvements are worth pursuing and the best way to train to get results for these pursuits, and when you’ve determined what specifically your athlete needs to improve, you must be able to critically identify whether a program will provide the outcome you’re looking for. We’ve already discussed various ways in which a program may not work. When in doubt, ask yourself: Does this program, gym, trainer, system, clinic, etc. include the specific work required to promote the outcome I need? Does it prioritize this outcome, or is it a tertiary aspect of the work done?

This, really, is the simple part. If you’ve followed along so far, the conclusions are clear. If you need to improve your skill, go work with the ball. Identify which specific skill sets that need improvement, and go practice a million times – rote repetition with the goal of perfection. If you’re seeking external help in this area from a qualified coach, make sure you’re only receiving skill coaching. Avoid anything with “fitness,” “strength,” “power,” or “cardio” in the program name. Do not dilute the effect of your efforts. Remember, training and practice must be separate if either is to noticeably improve.

If you need to improve your conditioning, run or work harder in practice and/or pre-season. Adequate intensity tends to be an issue for the under-conditioned athlete. Don’t be lazy. Anyone can be under-conditioned if they don’t actually play up to full speed.

Everything else benefits from an increase in strength. Yes, even if you’re slow and are trying to get faster. It bears repeating: to improve strength, you must train for force production, regardless of your sport. Lift heavy weights. This requires the right equipment, and it can benefit from the right hands-on guidance.

What Works and What Doesn’t

To get stronger, you already know which exercises you need to do and why. What you must now understand is that it is incumbent upon a good program to force adaptation to happen. If you’re in high school, pay attention in Biology. For those well past that point, all you need to do is remember the simple process of Stress/Recovery/Adaptation and the SAID (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand) principle. Lifting the same weights over time will do nothing other than keep an athlete’s strength levels exactly the same, because there is no further stress requiring an adaptation. If stronger is the goal, the stress must continually increase, and the stress stimulus must be force production.

The SAID principle illustrates that the stress must be specific to the adaptation we want. If I want to get better at playing the guitar, I can practice my scales at a higher BPM. To get stronger, I must give my physical system the challenge of producing more force. Luckily, this is incredibly simple: add 5 pounds to the bar every time you lift, and you’ve given the body the stress it needs to force a specific adaptation. This is referred to as progressive overload. In other words, adding 5 more pounds provides adequate stress to tell the body it better recover and then be ready for a bigger load next time. It's simple, and beautiful, and it works every time.

At this point, we should be able to paint a pretty detailed picture of what a good athletic performance program looks like. It must be specific to the specific outcome we need. It should be a sport-specific skill-based program, a sport-specific conditioning program, and a strength program. That’s it. The different elements shouldn’t be mixed together. They can be trained concurrently (in the same week), but not together (mixed into the same workout). Let’s clearly lay out the important aspects of a proper strength training program, which should encompass the vast majority of an athlete’s off-field training.

The athlete should squat, deadlift, bench press, press, power clean and power snatch in accordance with the four criteria we reviewed earlier. Older, banged-up athletes may do well to omit the cleans and snatches. The best proven sets x reps scheme is 3x5 for the squat, bench press, and press, and 1x5 for the deadlift, while keeping cleans and snatches to many sets of 2-3 reps. This allows heavy weight to be continually used while allowing for continual progress.

All, or nearly all, of the athlete’s time should be spent lifting weights. This should take 60-90 minutes – not 20-30 minutes – each session. Ideally, there should be three training sessions per week (this is the stress). The athlete should prioritize recovery by eating plenty of protein and calories, resting adequately between sets in the gym and days in between workouts, and sleeping a minimum of eight hours a night. The athlete should add weight to every exercise every time they train, 5 pounds for squats and deadlifts, 2-3 pounds for the upper body lifts is a nice simple plan, but it is arbitrary. Do what you can, but go up every time for as long as possible. This both demonstrates and forces a strength increase – the adaptation.

Ideally, the lifts should follow a model based on efficiency, safety, first principles, and the four criteria laid out previously. This is where learning the Starting Strength method or hiring a coach comes in handy. Even without the ideal application, you can and will get strong if you follow the above layout.

Too simple, right? Simple works – simple, general, and basic. Starting Strength was developed and is continually fine-tuned in the real world by observing what works and what doesn’t work. It was not hypothesized in a lab or classroom and then (*fingers crossed*) reality-tested after the fact. We do not cling to the principles of the program because of heavily-invested time and money from which we’re desperate to profit. We believe in them because they have proven themselves time and again, and because most of us have wasted so much of our own time (and often others’ as well) doing countless things that haven’t produced results. These are the principles that will give you results. If you want results, you must seek a results-oriented program. The program must continually build upon itself and progress upwards. You cannot make progress with random workouts under the guise of “variety,” “new challenges,” or “muscle confusion.”

All that’s needed to get stronger is a squat rack, a platform, a bench, a good barbell, plates, and chalk. Anything else is superfluous and unhelpful. Here’s a non-exhaustive summary of things to avoid if strength is the goal: Anything that isn’t the layout above, any combination of resistance training and sport skill (whether general or specific skills), anything that is marketed as “Soccer-Specific Strength” (again, replace “soccer” with your sport of choice), probably any place calling itself a “Lab,” making the gym exercises look like the movements done on the field, artificial turf, high-tech stuff, anything that is tracking speed, kettlebells, dumbbells, “getting a pump,” plyometrics, sets of 10, moving light things fast, and anything that cannot be improved methodically for months and years. Remember, strength is about force production. Lifting light weights fast is about sub-maximal force display. We don’t train to demonstrate what we already have – we train to improve what we need to acquire.

The hardest part about making a good decision is having the proper understanding of what works and what doesn’t. After having read this, you should be well-equipped to make good decisions moving forward. You should be able to see an Instagram post, walk by a gym, or read an article and very quickly determine whether or not strength improvement is a main feature of what you’re witnessing. If it’s not, you must ask yourself, “What exactly are they accomplishing?”

Practicing and improving your specific sport’s skills will make you better at that sport. But getting stronger will also make you better at that sport. The same cannot be said for inferior exercise methods. There is no substitute for skill practice, and there is no substitute for strength training. If you haven’t been truly training for strength this far into your athletic career (or life), realize that you now have an incredible opportunity for growth. Make the most of your time and effort and prioritize the things that matter most.

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