Even if it is trendy to undervalue it on Twitter.
“Strength, like speed, power, conditioning, & capacity are the spokes that comprise the performance wheel.
It’s trendy in 2024 to undervalue strength & sell out on speed because that’s how you (currently) win Twitter.
But remember, performance doesn’t care about social trends.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I think the best way to think about athletic performance is in the context of a wheel.
Wheels have spokes, and every spoke serves a purpose.
Go without or reduce the integrity of one or more of the spokes, and you’re going to compromise the output potential of the wheel.
You may not “feel it” initially, but rest assured, issues are brewing.
In the best-case scenario, a compromised spoke will lead to untapped potential and in the worst-case scenario it will lead to catastrophic injury.
If the best case is still a net negative, it’s probably a good idea to take all components of athletic performance very seriously.
In the athletic performance wheel, our spokes are (not limited to, but so you get the idea):
-General Physical Preparation
-Capacity
-Strength
-Speed
-Agility
-Power
-Mobility
-Motility
-Sport Skill
-Etc.
The order of importance on the front end, matters, because general preparedness and capacity feed EVERYTHING else.
But again, viewing performance in the context of spokes in a wheel, we must understand the importance of every spoke and how their continuity drives performance.
Place too much emphasis on one component and another suffers.
Just how it is in every other area of our lives, but we seem to believe this concept doesn’t apply to our kids and their sports, as the epidemic levels of preventable injury and burn out soar to never before seen levels.
While most kids want to focus primarily on sport specifics, and the quality they care about most is speed, or my favorite “first step quickness”, it’s important to understand that without prioritizing the other components, mainly the most controversial component in all of performance right now, strength, you don’t maximized speed and sport performance.
The bro trainers down the road will try to convince you that you can get around it or that it’s “not that important”.
(Mainly because they are unwilling to invest in the resources to even have the capacity to prescribe it – education, space, racks, weight plates, bars, etc. = $100,000’s of thousands of dollars, or cones and hurdles at $84?)
But like those prerequisites in the school hall, you can’t or ever will be able to get around strength if you want to be your best.
It’s non-negotiable.
