Strength Overload

I received two related phone calls Friday 28th July. 

The first was a former athlete who’s 13yo son now plays Rugby League. The second was a sports coach I’ve known, learnt from and worked with on and off for close to 30 years.

The 13yo is pushing to hit the gym while his father based on his own personal experience having played Rugby League professionally is holding him off as long as he can. Instead his son is doing body weight exercises and their variations (flutters, push ups, chin ups, hip extensions, box jumps, sit ups, thin tummy drills, etc). 

The young athlete’s greatest needs are skill development and a more balanced approach to his physical preparation including flexibility and speed development.  The one to three hours a week that might have been used for traditional strength training – for a short term gain and long term (joint) pain in most cases – will pay him dividends down the track. 

Engaging in delayed gratification at his age is challenging, but worth it. 

Plus the boost in strength and size he’s going to experience over the next 5 years is going to be significant based on his family tree.     

Just because kids can strength train in their early teens doesn’t mean it needs to be rushed or prioritised. The western world is currently placing too much focus on strength in athlete training. 

Essentially every high school has a gym and strength coach employed at it. There is limited balance in their training. The outcomes of poorly written and executed strength training programs (which in my view is most of them) will be expressed in the posture, muscle development and joint health of the teenagers who engage in it years down the track. 

Strength training is a powerful stimulus that needs to be respected, especially in developing teenagers. Outside the obvious and fantastic gains in muscle mass, strength and bone density, the residual effects of strength training are poorly understood. You know the saying: you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. It’s similar with strength training.  

‘Undoing’ or reversing the damage of poor programming and technique execution is how I spend too much of my time professionally these days. It wasn’t like this 20 or even 15 years ago. Getting it right from the start is a huge advantage. 

Dentists individualise the needs of each patient based on what the patient’s teeth and gums present. Car mechanics do the same with each customer’s car. Ironically I rarely see teenagers with individualised strength training programs based on what he or she presents with.   

Ian King has spoken and written about this at length. Allow me to share a quick review. 

Athlete Preparation (or ‘Training Factors’ as written by Tudor Bompa in the 3rd edition of The Theory and Methodology of Training) is composed of:

• Physical Preparation
• Psychological Preparation
• Tactical Preparation
• Technical Preparation 

Physical preparation is composed of: 

• Endurance 
• Flexibility
• Speed
• Strength  

From a balanced perspective, physical preparation is 25% of athlete preparation and strength training is 25% of the physical preparation. Therefore strength accounts for a little over 6% of athlete preparation. While the physical changes strength training creates can be significant, its contribution to sports performance may or may not be as significant.  

The contributions of each of the above vary depending on the requirements of the sport played. The above example helps place some education and hierarchy in decisions that are often made emotionally. 

Practical Applications:

Ideally everyone (teenagers included) gets appropriate individualised guidance for physical training outside of the team sports training sessions. 

In terms of balance in training. Ideally kids play a large variety of sports. As they mature and gravitate towards one, maintain some exposure to one or two other sports for as long as possible. 

If strength training is added to the sports training week, flexibility training must also be added to the training week, if it’s not already.  

Having a clear understanding of the lines of movement concept and the residual effects of strength training long term goes a long way to stay pain free and injury free. 

Finally, prioritise technique over the load used. Loading is secondary to the technique executed. This goes for bodyweight exercises too. For example, manipulating the speed of movement of each rep, can add enormous variety and progressive overload.  

I need to learn to say more with fewer words, so I’ll save details of the second phone call for another day.