S B Coaches College - Tip of the Month April 2005




		S B Coaches College Tip of the Month April 2005

Increasing our athletes’ strength is a major component of our job, but should not take precedence over other qualities. This may sound strange (coming from a strength and conditioning coach), but ask yourself “how strong is strong enough?” Are we creating imbalances and impeding our athletes’ progress by focusing too much of our time and energy towards improving numbers? What do numbers mean? If I can bench 300, and squat 500, does that mean I will be a good football player? The numbers are not a good predictor of performance, which is the bottom line when training athletes. Our number one job is to reduce the chance of injury and to improve performance. Increasing strength is merely one component of performance enhancement.

Take a look at a number of successful athletes today, and ask yourself if you think they spend much of their time concentrating on purely strength. Allen Iverson is a great example of someone who can barely bench press his own bodyweight, but continually makes seemingly stronger opponents look foolish night-in and night-out. He possesses a number of other qualities other than absolute strength that make him a superb athlete. He can reduce a tremendous amount of force, which allows him to change direction, and make moves. He is quick, has great hand-eye coordination, and is highly conditioned and mentally tough. These are all other qualities that we need to enhance in our athletes. Do not get me wrong; I’m not advocating against strength training, but looking at how much time we spend increasing strength.

All athletic qualities should be trained concurrently, but the percentage emphasized on each quality should be different depending upon the time of year.

Athletic qualities:
1. Speed
2. Power
3. Strength
4. Acceleration
5. Deceleration
6. Agility
7. Sport-specific conditioning
8. Work Capacity
9. Quickness
10. Reaction
11. Movement skills
12. Flexibility
13. Balance

When writing programs and workouts, remember that the ultimate goal is to improve performance, and not to get too wrapped up in numbers, because ultimately they are not great predictors of performance.