Prioritizing specific training without general training is exactly how you limit your potential.
“For most, it’s hard to understand how strength training helps sports performance.
The barbell (weight room) improves strength.
Stronger muscles can produce more force to enhance running speeds.
The strength & speed developed in the general environment can now be applied in the specific.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
“Do you do sports specific training!?”
It’s one of the most common questions I get this time of year, especially as we get into the school year and a bit of regularity and predictability comes into folks schedules.
And I understand the question. It’s a fair question because many parents and athletes want to ensure that whatever training they’re doing will translate over to their performance in their sports.
I totally get it.
We do and don’t do “sports specific training” and I’ll explain what I mean.
The primary objective of any training program for most athletes is going to be, again, performance enhancement IN sport.
Sports, as we know, are specific environments with specific actions. Think the swing of a bat and tackling an opponent. Those are two vastly different actions that happen in two different (specific) sports.
But to peel back the layers a bit, what is going to help the same two athletes, again playing specific sports of their own?
Would enhanced levels of strength and speed allow player a) to hit the ball further? Would improved strength & speed allow player b) to make the tackle sooner and more effectively? Of course, right.
So what the weight room does for athletes is it fills the gas tank.
“Huh?”
Let’s say you’re in Florida and you want to drive to Texas. You’re all packed up, you have the directions, snacks, drinks, itinerary and all of the other specific requirements to get there.
But the one gleaming problem is that you don’t have gas to fuel the car to be able to get there.
As much as on the surface, gasoline has very little to do with you enjoying your time in Texas, it’s the required resource to even give you a chance at getting to Texas.
The gas isn’t “specific” to the desired pleasurable experience, however it is specific to making the desired pleasurable experience possible.
It’s the exact same concept with our training.
We are enhancing general athletic qualities that can then be harnessed and used in the specific environments of sports.
Kids can want all day long to do all the specific skill work in the world, but without the gas required to improve the quality of their outputs, they’ll always be stuck in neutral.
