What is the purpose of strength and conditioning for athleticism? With this question, I am not suggesting a specific training modality (kind of am but indirectly), but rather the overall purpose of training athletes. What features are S&C coaches trying to train, and what are the best methods to train them? Having already submitted a research review on this topic for my EdD, here is where I stand.
Athletes need to have a certain set of abilities to perform in their sport without injury. These abilities are often cited as speed, agility, strength, power, and sometimes size. Looking at these features, one thing stands out to me; except for size and strength (to a degree), power is the underlying feature that needs to be developed the most for general athleticism. I will break down each one in detail in the following sections, however, speed requires power being expressed into the ground to accelerate the body in the desired manner, agility requires management of power absorption and distribution to make abrupt changes in direction and speed, and strength will be reinforced through the expression of maximal muscular power with heavier loads.
Simply defined, "power is work over time," with work being defined as "the product of the force exerted on an object and the distance the object moves in the direction in which the force is exerted" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 28). When discussing power in sport, plyometrics and Olympic-style movements (snatch and clean and jerk) should be the first thing that comes to mind (not powerlifting). These movements both require rapid displacement of an object (body or barbell) to be successful movements. Strength, however, is "the ability to exert force" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 25) and is the foundation for power and therefore athleticism. However, an athlete can, and should, hit a strength threshold to continue developing power. Examples of this can be found throughout Weightlifting with athletes who have enormous squats (front and back) and pulls, but stop at a certain weight because there is plenty of strength reserved to produce the force required for the movements. This application can be applied to sports but in a slightly modified view.
As mentioned, in the previous section, strength is the foundation for athleticism, to allow power to be built upon. Strength allows for a reserve of force-producing capability as well as provides the structure for the muscles, ligaments, and tendons to support the loads they could be placed under during a sporting event. This provides a higher resilience to injury when loaded and periodized correctly to not overtrain. Strength should taper out though as it is only a foundational feature that should rise in proportion to power and size. This is not to say that strength isn't important however, it should not be the focus of an athletic program, but rather a phase. Enough strength needs to be developed to be able to produce the forces required at the stage of the athlete's career meaning a high school senior shouldn't have a 500# squat but can only starfish clean 185#s. This is a dramatic (but still common) example of a disproportion of strength and power with the athlete having plenty of leg strength to drive a 185# barbell however, may not know or be able to express that power in that manner. This example however shows the problem with a focus on strength without power being a depreciation of athletic ability through force production and absorption (I will cover this in the agility/power sections). This strong athlete may not be the fastest or most agile either which is important for every sport and position (even linemen).
Speed is defined as "the skills and abilities needed to achieve high movement velocities" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 522). Speed requires a high amount of force to be pushed into the ground to elicit a force back (Newton's third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction). One significant component of speed is the rate of force development (RFD) defined as "the development of maximal force in minimal time, typically used as an index of explosive strength" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 522). RFD is important as it is the ability to rapidly produce force (power) as opposed to maximal force production (strength). This requirement comes out of the need of sports not allowing time for maximal force development, so the athlete who can produce the most force in a shorter time will be more athletic in a given situation due to the stretch-shortening characteristics of the body.
Agility is defined as "the skills and abilities needed to change direction, velocity, or mode in response to a stimulus" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 522). By definition, someone who possesses higher levels of agility is better able to absorb and rapidly redistribute the force placed on them (i.e. a running back making a cut at higher velocities) and training agility should model this definition. Again, the more powerful athlete will be the more agile since the body is being developed to continually produce and absorb a stimulus. This is also why it is important for athletes to catch cleans; training the ability of the body to produce and rapidly absorb a high load. Never catching a clean (yes there is a reason to only do pulls) robs the athlete of the training of rapidly changing their body position to receive a load, after a forceful projection of power. A common type of agility is change of direction which is defined as "the skills and abilities needed to explosively change movement direction, velocities, or modes" (Haff & Triplett, 2015, p. 522). Within that very definition is explosively which is a hallmark result of focusing on power rather than strength with athletes.
As mentioned at the beginning, strength is absolutely necessary to provide a foundation for power to be built and to increase injury resilience. Power, however, should be the main focus of athletic development as outlined in this post. Plyometric and Olympic weightlifting style movements have the highest carryover [1,2,3,5,6,7]. As alluded to in the previous section, this can be achieved through various modes. The athlete does not have to snatch and clean and jerk to see the benefits of the movements. Rather, research seems to point to the intent of those movements requiring the lifter to produce maximal force to get the barbell high enough to drop under and receive it, with no intent to slow the movement down. Simply loading up heavy pulls with the intent of moving them fast seems to elicit a similar response to performing a full lift (from a force production standpoint).
Finally, the idea of intent brings us to the last section of this topic, velocity-based training (VBT). The idea came about due to the previous use of percentages of maxes being an inaccurate way to train athletes with fluctuations in ability depending on where they are in their cycle or season. VBT uses a submaximal load, with an external feedback device, and is lifted with the intent of moving it as fast as possible. This is done with cleans, bench press, squats, deadlifts, and sometimes jumps, among really any exercise. VBT focuses on the intent of moving the barbell quickly and efficiently, improving power through RFD training, assuming the carryover is trained as well. The major drawback to VBT is its cost of entry with units pushing $1,000+ that schools, gyms, or programs cannot really afford to buy in quantity. A workaround for this is a stopwatch, however, this is reliant on the eye of the coach and communication of expectations between the coach and athlete, and does not provide as accurate of a readout as the measuring devices.
So, to conclude this thought, when assessing the basis of athletic development, power training is significantly more important than the other areas since it more closely resembles and translates into athletics. Strength lays the foundation for power to be produced, as well as improving tissue quality to reduce the chance of injury, but should not be the focus of athletic development. Speed and agility both heavily rely on power to be efficient with speed requiring a high RFD and agility requiring a rapid absorption and distribution of forces the body is encountering. When developing athletes, it is our responsibility (as strength and conditioning coaches) to ensure our athletes are best prepared for their sports or competitions, and biases should be put aside when doing this. As always, these are just my thoughts (with research being done and cited) and I am happy to discuss these points.
Research Paper on Weightlifting for Athletic Development
References
Chaouachi, A., Hammami, R., Kaabi, S., Chamari, K., Drinkwater, E. J., & Behm, D. G. (2014). Olympic Weightlifting and plyometric training with children provides similar or greater performance improvements than traditional resistance training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 28(6), 1483-1496. https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000000305
CRONIN, J. B., & HANSEN, K. T. (2005). Strength and power predictors of sports speed. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 19(2), 349-357. https://doi.org/10.1519/00124278-200505000-00019
Hackett, D., Davies, T., Soomro, N., & Halaki, M. (2015). Olympic weightlifting training improves vertical Jump height in sportspeople: A systematic review with meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(14), 865-872. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-094951
Haff, G., & Triplett, N. (2015). Essentials of strength training and conditioning (4th ed.). Human Kinetics.
HOFFMAN, J. R., COOPER, J., WENDELL, M., & KANG, J. (2004). Comparison of Olympic vs. traditional power lifting training programs in football players. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 18(1), 129-135. https://doi.org/10.1519/00124278-200402000-00019
Hori, N., Newton, R. U., Nosaka, K., & Stone, M. H. (2005). Weightlifting exercises enhance athletic performance that requires high-load speed strength. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 27(4), 50-55. https://doi.org/10.1519/00126548-200508000-00008
Markovic, G., Jukic, I., Milanovic, D., & Metikos, D. (2007). Effects of sprint and plyometric training on muscle function and athletic performance. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 21(2), 543. https://doi.org/10.1519/r-19535.1
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