3 Myths of Performance Training: Part I, Maximal Strength Tunnel Vision

What if the piece of training you believed most strongly in was the thing holding you or your athletes back from reaching the next level of their athletic performance?

There are several beliefs propagated through much of current strength and conditioning practice that are a trip-wire for maximal athletic ability.

What are these beliefs?

Three myths of high performance weightlifting for athletes are as follows:

The primary goal of stepping in the weightroom is to ultimately lift the maximal amount of weight in the competition standard lifts over the course of the year
The competition standard is the essential way to implement lifts (specifically the squat) for athletic performance, regardless of body type, function, and sport
Explosive lifts, such as squat jumps and Olympic lifts “bridge the gap” between strength and speed, and are thus an essential portion of the program during most yearly training periods

Where many strength coaches create personal validation through maximizing the numerical performance increase of lifts coached to competition standards, could it be the case that this practice isn’t yielding the fastest and most agile possible athletes on the field?

I’m probably making my name as a bit (or a lot) of an “anti-maximal strength” guy, but that isn’t the case, and I’ll show you why in a few counter-points within each discussion point in this article. I personally do use maximal strength ranges in training in the right situations, but only as a tool, and not an end game. After all, as coaches and athletes seeking higher levels of consciousness in the field of human performance, we can’t just sit in one tiny box of belief, as the human body, and mind, is a little more complicated than we often think it is.

Now let’s encounter some important realities in the iron game, and their relationship to athletic speed and power performance.

Myth #1: Training must be directed towards improving the maximal strength output of athletes in classical lifts as the number one indicator of program success.

Most people who are familiar with my work know that I don’t push athletes maximal lift numbers as much as I push a balanced training package that addresses all of an athlete’s needs. I’ve written articles about this before (Ultimate Athlete Series: Max Strength Guidebook, Ultimate Athlete Series: Max Strength Debate ) and this post is meant to expand on those ideas with some practical insights. As a track coach, I’ve seen my fair share of athletes who improve their squat or clean, only to have a phenomenally subpar season on the track. Why?

Because of this: Strength is a motor learning tool to enhance speed in the right environment.

The inter-muscular coordination that basic strength training yields is helpful for nearly any beginner athlete in terms of improving their speed, jumping, and specific power.

It also can be used to make speed workouts better through use of heavy loads that potentiate speed, and improve anabolic ratios for an individualized time frame, but this planning must be strategic (at least in individual sports), and in most weightroom settings, maximal strength is more of an ever-constant endgame than it is a tool to improve power, speed and function on the field.

Lifting maxes are not an endgame, they are a tool in the hands of a skilled practitioner to deepen the wells of fundamental sport movements, as well as introduce new and varied stimuli to the nervous system to build and refine existing skills.

There are plenty of strength tools available in building better athletes:

Maximal strength training
Repetition based strength training
Dynamic speed training
French contrast
Accentuated eccentrics
20 rep method
HIT

All these training means are tools towards steering an athlete’s nervous system towards improved athletic performance, and if 1-rep max performance goes up in the process (and it usually does), then great. The difference between these may not be directly intuitive, but it certainly exists.

Before we get farther, let’s define our term: “Max Strength Directed Training” is the yearly pursuit of the maximal weight lifted in the competition standard lifts as the overall indicator of program success. This pursuit is present, and the primary focus, each day the athlete walks in the weightroom.

Here’s the thing that coaches and athletes need to understand: properly executed lifts, performed in adequate variation which allows athletes to be maximally explosive in their sport will yield big strength gains that are also highly transferrable to sport performance. A narrow selection of lifts that hinges around high %1RM work in the competition standard powerlifts promotes compensation patterns in athletes over time that sways them away from their original movement patterning (lowered glute and psoas contractility at the expense of more active spinal erectors, quads and hamstrings).

Another problem with max strength directed work is that athletes won’t be able to base their strength training on only one style of the above tools during their sporting career for maximal results. In many cases, periodically altering training means throughout the year, and years, is best practice. A good example is alternating repetition and dynamic based strength training with short periods of 20-rep training to break up 6-10 week strength blocks in the yearly cycle.

How do coaches determine if strength work is designed towards improving 1RM performance, vs. athletic performances? Key Performance Indicators.

In sports like track, this is really easy. In the course of your training, if your lifts are going up, but your standing triple jump, overhead backwards shot put, 30m sprint, or 10m fly are staying stagnant, or going down, then you aren’t training your sport, you are training your lifts. In other sports, obviously, this line is often much more gray, as both muscular and elastic skills are needed in boosting sport outcomes.

Using lifts as tools means that you are using variations of lifting and strength (max strength, dynamic, rep based, complex training, etc.) to regularly measure the subsequent effect on athletic performances.

Of course, all this is made on a strong assumption: that your lifts can go up, and your dynamic performance can stagnate, or even decrease.

Far and away, the biggest problem with the mentality that maximal weights are the final destination of athletic performance is the concept that speed-strength coordination is the first quality to drop off when an athlete is in a point of slight over-reaching or stress-response. Even when speed-strength coordination is disrupted, athletes still have the capability to grind out big powerlifts, or get together the skill necessary to hit a big Olympic lift (usually with suboptimal bar speed and technique). Because the athlete lifted a weight that was greater than last week, does that mean that they are getting better in what they really need to? The answer is many times yes, but sometimes, it is also no. It is these “no” situations that often occur in the training of advanced level athletes that a good coach understands and thus, redirects the training focus to a proper place.

Looking at things through the lens of the intramuscular coordination, and specific muscle hypertrophy, relevant to sport movement, a particular max strength training modality delivers its yield early, then gradually fades into obscurity, opening the door for other forms of strength, or better yet, speed-strength variations, and this process is alternated and exchanged throughout the course of the training year.

Adding on to this, in many cases, coaches don’t weigh the cost of athletes getting mentally wound up to hit a particular lift when they walk in the weight-room in a lower state of psychological and physiological readiness. These “big lifts” are always driven by the body “finding a way”, and that way is always rewiring and rerouting muscular efforts, adding extra compensators to the movement.

Of course, even if you are looking at 1RM lift performace as an end goal, you still need to often gauge the administration of weightroom stimulus in light of the state of the athlete.

A great study done at the University of Kentucky (I first heard about this at the Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar) revealed some interesting data regarding athletes who used the Omegawave to assign alternative (lightened load) workouts when they registered weaker athletic states. The workout adjustment group (via the Omegawave) improved facets of performance such as increased muscle mass, standing long jump, and vertical jump by 50 to 600% better increases than the control group that ground out their strength workouts with no adjustments, as is typical practice in many strength environments.

Inspired by the ideals of Paul Chek, you only have as much “yang” (power output in the weightroom) as you have “yin”, (recovery energy). If you keep going to the well when you don’t have your recovery energy available, you’ll cut your athletic pursuits seriously short. I’ve seen “stress addicted” athletes (and coaches), and they never accomplish what they are truly capable of.

I’ll say it again, you can get stronger without getting faster. Grinding out strength when your athletic state is in a valley, and your speed-coordination is poor is a road to lackluster athleticism, also known as “looking like Tarzan, playing like Jane”.

Finally, increasing size and strength is a very important factor in many sports, but remember that, outside of the excessive compensation effect of prolonged maximal strength training, there are short-term implications regarding the effects of excess muscle hypertrophy, such as reduced muscle coordination and a negative impact on motor learning and skill development. Of course, improving the size of relevant muscles to sport is important, but in many cases, care should be taken as to the rate in which this size is attained via strength work.

In order to field a proper article that has some practical implications spring-boarding off of all this, here are some things I’ve done in the last several years following my learning process regarding the implementation of maximal strength training:

Doing max strength for a period of time is beneficial for many athletes, but more than 5-7 weeks of this type of work will start to wire in poor movement patterns, and reduce fast-twitch response.
For utilization of general lifting, it’s often a good idea to go into either the 20 rep range, or perform in a super-slow tempo (~30 seconds per repetition) to help movement patterning and body awareness.
Be continually altering the tempos and emphasis of the strength training in the program. Not only will you be less likely to plateau, but athletes will be more interested and invested.
Do more contrast training, and particularly French Contrast work. Exercises that alternate heavy general loads with dynamic, specific work has a powerful potentiation, and motor learning effect.
Alternate periods of traditional, general work with small blocks of training that promotes specific patterning and awareness. This strategy can be reversed if you are working with groups that don’t psychologically embrace heavy strength training. It’s also a good idea to have periods of training where athletes aren’t doing much, or any lifting.
Do more versions of lifts that limit “muscle slack”. Essentially, do less regular tempo squats, deadlifts, bench presses, etc. Do more work with the bar starting form a position resting on the pins, or with a quick drop and isometric hold pattern. A hang squat clean is a great, traditional way to hit the squat muscles in a manner that optimizes the way muscles operate in sport (more on this in part II).
Having an idea of an athlete’s genetic potential for weightroom strength is a crucial aspect of knowing how hard to press them in this arena. Yes, many athletes will experience increases in performance all the way up to an athletic 2.5x bodyweight squat, but many athletes are not capable of attaining this feat! Don’t put a square peg into a round hole by ushering an athlete into a weightroom zone they aren’t genetically suited for. These weaker athletes often rely on the elastic transport of energy via bi-articular muscles, and excessive strength direction takes away from their natural strength.

Counterpoint: Cases and situations for 1RM directed training

Many strength sports, such as American Football can make the argument that regular pursuit of greater one rep maxes are part of their sport culture, a harbinger of weight and mass gain, as well as providing a psychological edge in competition. Athletes in contact, and particularly collision sports need “Armor Building” (as Dan John calls it). If coaches are seeking mass gain, the maximal strength mentality is great, but it still should be regulated by some sort of daily readiness assessment, such as bar speed tracking, vertical jump, or a more high tech assessment like Omegawave.

Along these same lines, some athletes are psychologically dependent on either acquiring or demonstrating a particular level of physical strength demonstrated via Olympic or powerlift at some point prior to a big competition. Regardless of your coaching philosophy, if what you are prescribing doesn’t optimally motivate the athlete, their results will fall short.

Additionally when it comes to strength as a “tool” to improve athletic performance, there are many athletes out there whose physiology and psychology respond extremely well to the regular use of maximal strength efforts to potentiate their performance on the field. Realize that there are also athletes out there who do not respond well to maximal strength efforts in combination with their sport. This is exactly why a debate exists on the subject; it’s all about individual differences!

Maximal strength also proves very important when it comes to performance in short burst activities, such as vertical jump, and 10 meter sprint. Check out John Grace’s article on EliteTrack for some great charts on this one. Of course, how we go about acquiring this maximal strength is the key variable here. An athlete with the genetic capability to jump 40 inches vertically is absolutely going to have a much better genetic squat capability than an athlete with a 25-inch jump. Regardless, this does show us that athletes who exhibit good short speed are “strong”.

Finally, going overboard, and monitoring and analyzing specific joints angles, transfer, etc. too much can be just as bad, if not worse, than simply bombarding athletes with an excessive strength program. Henk Kraaijenhof tells a great story of speedskater Kjeld Nuis whose immensely over-detailed training program left him out of the winner’s circle. Analyzing every single sport specific detail of the training process is as handicapping as it is helpful.

Stay tuned for part II, featuring myths 2 and 3, coming soon

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