“What is Sport-Specific Training?”

I get asked all the time, “What is Sport-Specific Training?”

First off, as you may or may not know, every set, weight, movement, and training session I design has a specific purpose, and I encourage you to take the same purposeful approach to fueling and recovery. As an athlete (everyone is an athlete), please make sure you have a practical, comprehensive nutrition and recovery program in place, if not, we can help you there as well.

“Sport-Specific” Training….Here ya go!

It’s no secret that an athlete who is serious about his/her sport needs to train differently than someone just looking to get a little healthier, or gain a little muscle. And no one is surprised when I say that a soccer player needs to train differently than a football player (American football). This all boils down to the fact that every sport has specific demands: both on movement (kicking a ball, swinging a bat/stick, blocking and tackling, jumping, etc.) and on the metabolic energy pathways used for that movement (explosive with lots of rest, varied sprinting and jogging, etc.). These specific movement and metabolic demands put muscles and joints at risk for overuse injuries, which a good training program strives to counter through exercises aimed at injury prevention. Soccer players don’t need to worry about overuse of the anterior shoulder like baseball pitchers do — so a specific training program for a soccer player looks quite different than one designed to decrease injuries for a baseball pitcher. “Sport-specific” training is how all these factors fit together to ensure the best transfer of performance in the weight room to performance on the field. If your strength and conditioning program doesn’t help performance or reduce injuries, then you’re just spinning your wheels in the weight room. Unfortunately, there is a ton of misinformation about what an athlete needs floating around out there—but, I believe the answer is simpler than you think.

Let’s start by defining what ISN'T Sport-Specific Training?

The term “Sport-Specific” has become a pretty ubiquitous, and sadly ambiguous, term in today’s age, and one common misunderstanding is that it means simply adding resistance to a specific skill set. While it might be enticing to think that a golfer can use a piece of rotational exercise equipment to add resistance and give him or her a stronger swing, it just doesn’t work that way, or by having a baseball player use a heavy “bat type” implement in training or even having a basketball player shoot a 20 pound medicine ball for training. In reality, adding resistance to specific skill patterns can be/most often is detrimental to the development of their ACTUAL swing. The same goes for throwing, swinging a bat, and kicking. Adding heavier resistance to these movements changes the biomechanical demand, and increases the likelihood of overuse. If you want to train in a method 100%-specific to your sport, you need to just go out and play the sport. Let skill development take place on the field or on the court, and use the weight room as a place to develop foundational movements, structural integrity, and explosive power. Increasing these performance measures gives the athlete more to utilize during skill work, and can keep him or her healthier throughout the competitive season. Building a strength and conditioning program around a sport is meant to improve performance of specific skills—and reduce the risk of injury from the repetitive practice of those skills. Use the “weight room” as a tool for your sport, not as the sport!

We want/need to train to meet the demands of the sport!

Each sport is different, however there are similarities in fundamental principles that apply to most, such as Rotational Power, Strength, Lateral Quickness, Stamina, Max Strength, Explosive Power, and Linear Speed to name a few. The key is to identify the ones that are key and crucial to continued success in the specific sport. Once they are identified, the key is to not develop a training program that continually adds new “cool, trendy, fashionably neat, and sometimes dangerous stuff/exercises”, it simply is more about simplifying what makes that sport unique and making those fundamental principles better.

The first step in improving the athlete is to identify what movement patterns are used within the sport. Training these movement principles and improving their quality is how to make the time in the weight room worthwhile. Using soccer as an example, athletes need not only to pass and shoot accurately, but also to win challenges, shield the ball, and tackle effectively. Soccer players also need the ability to sprint, and change direction and pace quickly for the full 90 minutes. This means strength training should focus on the development of bilateral (two-leg) and unilateral (one-leg) leg strength, speed and power, and developing aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. These demands are met through correctly programmed strength and power movements. Properly progressed training of compound multi-joint structural movements like squats and deadlifts lay the framework for more explosive and challenging movements, like single-leg box jumps and Olympic weightlifting variations. Simply put, if you want to be training effectively for a sport, you need quality programming and quality progression.

What else is involved Sport-Specific training?
Injury Prevention, that’s vital!

Many sports have skill patterns that endlessly repeat themselves or continuously stress the athlete asymmetrically. Think of how many times a baseball player throws a ball. How about the catcher? How many times does he throw back to the pitcher? Generally he throws more in a game than all others combined (besides the pitcher)! Now we not only have “Sport-Specific” training, but we also need “Position-Specific” training. The body becomes "unbalanced" from all of this specific movement, which can lead to a higher risk of injury. For this baseball player’s program, we wouldn't want to add resistance to an already overloaded movement pattern, since that could only further any imbalances and increase injury risk. Instead, we program a high volume of movement patterns opposite to those typically under continual stress. The aim is to bring the anatomical structures back to a state of symmetry, and regain the neutral positions the body was meant to be in.

Every training day in my program offers injury prevention movements and methods to assist in keeping athletes healthy and mobile. Like with baseball, every sport program comes with its own injury prevention methods that take into account the movement patterns overused throughout the season.

What else is vital to “Sport-Specific training?
Foundational Movements!!!!

Sport-specific training is less about adding something new to the game, and more about simplifying what makes that sport unique. It's important to remember that all athletes benefit from getting stronger and MOVING BETTER. Training compound, multi-joint movement stress the body to produce force in efficient patterns rather than isolating them, thus removing the proprioceptive control associated with a barbell. Foundational movements like squatting, deadlifting, and pressing lay the framework for how the body moves and produces force. Likewise, consistent practice of explosive bodyweight and progressive Olympic variations add to any program to help build efficient recruitment of fast-twitch muscle fibers and a well-functioning neuromuscular system. Practicing these patterns correctly helps to keep every athlete in a healthier state, and allow them the baseline strength and function to take their training further.

“Sport-Specific” training is a science, but applying simple fundamental systems and applicable processes are where the science comes into play. Our job as a Strength Coach/Train is to help keep the athlete in the game/playing, as well as physically progressing, that involves a lot more than just picking things up and putting them down.

Regards,
Greg