Some things that I have seen the past couple of days brought to forefront again a conundrum that I have wrestled with for over 40 years. When you get in the weight room and get “strong,” you can lift more weight, it is measurable, but how does that strength transfer into performance? I am convinced it is not a matter of how much strength is enough, which is what I used to think it was. I really think it is about what strength you can use and how you apply the strength. I guess you can call it functional strength, but I try to stay away from that term because of all the negative connotations of standing on physio balls and juggling flaming swords. I am thinking it is more about getting parts of the body talking to each other, creating a better system of linking the parts. I think Frans Bosch came close when he called strength training- coordination training with resistance. I would say it is coordination with appropriate resistance. Appropriate for the sport you are training for, for the time of the training year and for the individual athlete. The way I view it unless you are a weight lifter or a power lifter how much you lift is not that important. In many ways it is how you move the resistance regardless of the mode. Some movements with heavier resistance are slower and more deliberate and other are faster and more ballistic. Movement in sports covers a spectrum of speeds; therefore it is important to train across those spectrum’s. That being said I think sometimes the weight room in a traditional sense can be a trap where we get caught up chasing numbers and lose sight of the application of the strength to the activity.
