The goal is to build access to higher levels of force which can contribute to greater levels of speed & agility.
“Strength training for sport performance ins’t about a big bench press.
Strength training is about speed & agility.
To improve speed & agility, you have to acquire & express more force.
No athlete will ever not benefit from the ability to produce more force.
Strength wins.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I didn’t realize this as a High School kid.
Probably because I was heavily influenced by 70’s & 80’s bodybuilding & powerlifting.
I played Wide Receiver in High School. I was a 5’ 10” sure handed white kid who blocked relatively well. This didn’t put me on many P5 Recruiting boards, but it did provide me the opportunity to be recruited by a few G5 school’s.
My problem was that I was recruited at 180 pounds to play wideout and then the next summer going into my senior year I showed up at recruiting camps weighing 225 pounds with the ability to bench press 400 pounds.
It was safe to say I loved the weight room more than I loved football, though even at 225 pounds I still ran 4.6 with very little focused “sprint” training.
I decided to forgo the idea of playing college football and focus on my real passion of strength & conditioning right away.
Literally right away. I graduated High School on a Friday and started Zingler Strength the ensuing Monday and since that day I have never looked back or had a plan B.
I saw what strength training did for me mentally & physically so I wanted to design a life where I could share my passion with others to help them streamline learning curves and improve their athletic performance.
Despite being a “bench press hero” in high school, even my “non-athletic” training helped me tremendously on the field.
What if I could take my training “mistakes” and help others avoid them so they could be even better than I was?
That has been the driving force since day 1.
The goal of strength training is not to be like me walking around at 230 having to turn sideways to fit into high school classrooms.
The goal of strength training is to build applicable strength that can be utilized for force production to enhance all athletic qualities.
It’s never the “strongest guy” who wins in sports. It’s the guys who build their strength and apply it in the right ways.
To shoot you straight, strength training for sports is about increasing your “force reservoir” to have access to the ability to produce more of it.
In all honesty, strength training is FOR “speed & agility”.
