Strength and conditioning for athletes need improvement

Conditioning is important for athletes.

This article is written by Rob Maxwell, M.A. Exercise Physiology, CSCS and ACSM CPT from www.fittothemax.net. Follow him on Twitter.

Strength and conditioning training for sports

Strength and conditioning routines are needed for athletes - whether it is for youth athletics, young adult athletics or adult athletes.

Weight training and conditioning go hand in hand with athletics.

I’ve seen a trend going on in this area that I don't like. The trend is what we’ve been doing with many athletes and it's not working.

One of the main reasons why athletes should take part in strength training is to reduce the risk of injury. The other reason is to perform better.

The problem that I’ve seen is that the emphasis is too much on performing better. The trainers are using too much specificity.

This is causing the opposite of injury prevention. I believe that this focus has led to more injuries.

Too much specificity leads to injury.

How sports for athletes used to be

A couple of decades ago athletes played their sport. They also played other sports. It seemed that the more athletic a person was, the more sports they played.

There wasn’t as much specialization twenty years ago as what we have today.

Most of the 'jocks' worked out because they liked working out. There wasn’t so much association between working out and athletics back then.

It wasn’t necessarily instituted into their sport program. The idea of having weightlifting days incorporated into practice was a common occurrence.

There also wasn’t the specialization that there is now with sports. Athletes didn’t focus on just one sport. It was common that the great football players in your high school also played baseball.

Did you know that Dan Marino, the great football player, was drafted by the Kansas City Royals to play baseball? John Elway, another great football player, was drafted by the New York Yankees to play baseball.

This was normal. It was common. This was common among all sports and athletes. Athletes played sports - plural!

Different sports are better for performance.

The world of sports has changed

Welcome to the world of specialization. It is now common in all sports that guys and gals now specialize in one sport starting at an early age.

Kids are now being guided to avoid playing multiple sports. They are being guided to 'specialize' in one sport. As soon as a parent or coach sees talent in a player, they recommend specialization.

The thought is that they should only be playing one sport so they can get as good as possible at that sport.

There is a problem with this thinking. Less than 1% of kids ever turn professional. The chances of getting a scholarship to play a college sport are exceptionally low as well.

I’m not being a dream killer here. If you can do it, do it! The rub is that you are taking a big chance with your kids by not exposing them to many sports when the odds are that they will never make it a career.

The risk of specialization

What's the risk? You risk exposing kids to injuries and to the loss of enjoyment from playing multiple sports.

I mentioned the hall-of-famers Dan Marino and John Elway above. They didn’t need to specialize to make it big. Why do your kids need to?

There is a time for specialization. That is when the kid is old enough to be at the top of his or her game in college - and later pro if they make it that far. 

Prior to that, you are only setting him or her up to injury by overworking one joint pattern and not working on all the other complimentary muscles.

The other issue going on in athletics that I don’t agree with is using weight training to specifically train for a sport.

Sport Specificity is one of the principles of physical fitness. It’s a good thing. It means that to get good at a particular activity, you need to do that activity.

For example, if a runner wants to run faster, they need to run. You must be as specific as possible to the activity to improve the activity. 

Many coaches, however, have missed the overall point and now take that principle to the weight training gym. 

Strength coaches have taken it too far. It is now common to use specific strength training exercises to match the sport.

An example would be a golfer who would be taught to do a strength exercise in which they rotate their spine with load to simulate a golf swing.

A football player will use weight in a press position to simulate coming out of their stances used in football. The examples are as endless as there are exercises.

Variety is important.

Sport has become big money

Sports have become big, big bucks. This is a big industry now. It is one of the biggest.

Why do you think that athletics came back before many other industries during the Covid-19 shutdowns?

It’s not because anybody was worried about the American citizens being entertained! It was because billions of dollars were being lost.

I love sports, but this is the side of it that we must all accept. It’s about the money. Because of that, many people want to cash in.

Athletes want to be paid big. Owners want to make money off their athletes. Sponsors want a return on their investment.

Due to this, any edge is gold. Athletes and trainers have tried to find the edge with strength and conditioning. They are on the right path, but have taken a wrong turn.

Strength and conditioning can absolutely make an athlete a better athlete. This happens by keeping the athlete injury free so they can stay on the field.

Is it working? I do not think so. It is hard to find true injury rates on every sport. Many are hidden.

There is a reason that many teams do not want to release the injury status on their athletes. It can be used against them.

If you watch any sports at all you; know that at the very least, it is not getting better.

Doing weight training with specific exercises to the sport is simply making those muscles, joints, and patterns used in the sport even more overtrained and causing more muscle imbalances.

That is not the original goal of strength and conditioning programs for athletes.

Injury reduction must be a priority.

 

The results of the new conditioning programs

Is this new approach working? I'd say, 'Not so much'.

Injury rates in all sports are off the charts. Athletes are injured all the time! The injury reports in all sports, both college and pros are increasing.

My eyes tell me that we are missing something.

If all this time and money is being spent on athletic conditioning, where is the reward?

It’s not working. It’s clear to anybody that pays attention. 

Athletes are more injured now than 20 years ago. Are they any better at their sport because of it? That is hard to answer.

Individual records are greater, but there are a lot of other changes that have gone on as well. The balls have changed and the rules have changed. These are major impacts on the games played. 

Athletes are bigger, stronger and faster now than they were 20 years ago. I believe that nutritional science has helped. I believe that conditioning has helped that as well.

If you play football and you are undersized, there is no doubt that hitting the weight room and proper eating is the only thing that will put more muscle on your body.

What about the current state of specificity and total specialization? I do not think so. The athletes are not better off because of it.

The problem caused by current strength and conditioning programs

Here is the problem:

Athletes will get overuse injuries when they use the same muscles and joints repetitively without enough rest.

There is only so much stimulation that the soft tissue and connective tissue can take. When soft tissue like muscle tissue is fatigued, the joints gets worn down. An injury can occur suddenly.

The other issue is that you create a muscle imbalance when you use the same muscles all of the time and don’t train its opposite muscles (the antagonists). One side is too strong (inflexible), and the opposite side is weak and overly flexible.

Muscles are made to be used in balance. Both opposing muscles should be strong and support each other.

When we do more weight training in the area of our sport, we magnify the imbalance. Do the opposite and train the antagonist of these muscles.

When young athletes are encouraged to avoid multiple sports, they are not allowing all the muscles to grow in balance with each other. This will cause muscle imbalances as the young athlete grows and gets older.

Imbalances cause injury.

Tom Brady

Let's look at Tom Brady as an example.

He has defied age. Brady has not followed what is now commonplace in professional athletics regarding training.

He believes more in recovery and nutritional science. He calls it TB 12. His program maintains an emphasis on staying lean and injury free. He is 43 and still plays at a top level.

Many of his counterparts are following the dominant training trend in athletics - and are injured at a much higher rate.

I’ve always believed that we need to look at what’s working and what’s not. When something is working well, we should look at what’s being done. 

The solution to the current training dilemma

The solution is a happy medium.

We want to keep conditioning in sports. We simply want to do it the right way. I do that believe athletes need proper guidance, spotting, and programming; but I think that the program must change.

The program needs to evolve to fix muscle imbalances and prevent injuries. If an athlete needs to put on muscle for their sport or another athlete needs to lose body fat for their sport; that should be done in the off-season period when sport-specific training is on a pause.

This is the time to get bigger, stronger and faster. They do not need to be in the gym at their sport.

I believe until high school is over, athletes should be encouraged to play all the sports that they desire to and rest their main sport while they are.

Let's make athletes great again!

Implement variety into your training.

Rob Maxwell

This article is written by Rob Maxwell, M.A. Exercise Physiology, CSCS and ACSM CPT from www.fittothemax.net. Follow him on Twitter.