Because we’ve prioritized strength training over the last 20 years. Do not be fooled by these “new age” coaches undervaluing strength.
“In the last 20 years, athletes have gotten bigger, stronger, & faster than ever before.
Why?
We prioritized strength training.
Now, because we’ve gotten ‘sMaRtEr’, we want to trade what’s worked best for trends & novelty.
Stick with the basics.
Cuteness gets you killed.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I always get a kick out of these “new age” Strength & Conditioning coaches who want to undervalue, and at times, demonize strength.
They want to get all cutesy tootsie with their technology and show you how advanced they are (mainly in an effort to stand out on social media) while they yell at the strength world and pretend that we’ve “placed too much of an emphasis on strength” because they see 4 squat hype videos per year on Twitter.
“wE iN tHe StReNgTh WoRlD pLaCe ToO mUcH eMpHaSiS oN tHe 1Rm!”
We do?
You’re basing your stance on strength having diminishing returns because improving an athlete’s squat from 600 to 615 isn’t going to make them a better football player?
Do you know how many athletes in the world have this “strength problem”? Like 82.
Total.
You’re using the .0001% of athletes who have huge squat maxes and thinking that athletes in general don’t need to place a massive emphasis on strength development?
Are you kidding me?
While admittedly strength is NOT the be all end all, let’s take a brief look at athletes over the last 20 years.
What has happened to them, collectively?
“Athletes these days are just bigger, stronger, & faster than they’ve ever been before!”
But why do we get to say this?
It’s because over the last 20 years, we have prioritized strength training. Progressive overload.
That’s why.
While I am not at all against evolution and I believe there is a lot of value in upgrading philosophies, thinking and telling people on the internet, that we place too much of an emphasis on strength because an elite athlete doesn’t need to squat 405 anymore, is one of the worst things we’re doing for our field of athletic performance.
Why?
Because “your truth” with 7-year NFL vets gets lost in translation as it trickles its way down to the eyes and ears of 15-year-old’s and their parents as they subscribe to your heavily unrelatable ideologies.
“I did what <insert trendy coach> told me to do and I didn’t get any faster!”
Yeah, because you can’t overcome the basic laws of physiology.
Speed requires relative strength.
You can’t get around needing to be strong.
