Interview with Martin Bingisser on Special Strength Training for Optimal Athletic Performance

It’s hard to a sports training resource with an approach that doesn’t hail directly to the sprint drill or barbell gods, which in turn invokes the monetary and social contributions of the masses. The highest performances come from the mastery of learning to optimize primary sport skills, rather than living on a diet of drill derivatives or overloading general strength means. Martin Bingisser has put together a website, HMMR Media, that is highlighted by the transfer of training principles passed down from coaching legend, Anatoli Bondarchuk. In addition to this backdrop of true complimentary training science, Martin interviews elite coaches on topics that are highly pertinent to any coaching or sport science professional.

One of the few, if not the only writer who has direct experience training under Bondarchuk, Martin Bingisser has a gold mine of information to offer any coach or athlete seeking a higher performance level. One of Martin’s specialties is that of special strength training, which is strength training that replicates aspects of the sporting movements that athletes are seeking improvement in. Squats and bench presses are great, but the winners of the Olympic games typically aren’t any stronger in these lifts than the 8^th place finisher. It is strength specific to the event that makes the difference! This concept isn’t just a monkey-see, monkey-do principle, as specific strength has a delicate balance with the amount of competitive efforts an athlete is performing. I was fortunate enough to get answers from Martin on a variety of special strength and performance topics in this weeks coach Q&A, as he guides us in the right direction for implementing specific strength training, as well as the application of other Bondarchuk training principles, such as high frequency, submaximal general strength training.

Just Fly Sports: If you had one piece of advice for strength and conditioning coaches (primarily working with sports such as football or basketball) looking to incorporate special strength work into their regime, what would it be?

Martin Bingisser: I used to throw out a cliché like “keep the eye on the prize”, but that would often be misinterpreted since people have the wrong prize in mind. So now I say something general: make sure your aiming towards the right prize. As a coach your primary goal is to help your athletes perform better at their sport. As strength coaches we often create proxies for that in the form of tests we can do in the weight room. We shift the focus from becoming a better linebacker to becoming a better squatter. Sometimes this leap is justified, but sometimes it isn’t. It’s this leap, and the assumption that one exercise will automatically help another, that is the essence of transfer of training and something that coaches too often gloss over.

This is not easy, but it is essential. Make sure your focus point and goals you have for your athletes are ones that will help the athlete improve in their sport. So don’t just keep your eye on the prize, increasing a back squat max, but make sure that’s the right prize, i.e. something that translates into tackles or on-field performance. That’s the real prize you want.

Just Fly Sports: Many coaches and athletes are fearful of not “doing enough” circa-max strength work. Are there some anecdotes or experiences you have with the ability of Bondarchuk’s methodology (for those of you unfamiliar with Bondarchuk’s lifting methods, it involves high frequency, but low daily volume lifting, done around the 65% range of intensity) to maintain, or even improve barbell strength levels?

Martin Bingisser: While we might not be doing a lot of singles, we are doing 5-10 weight training sessions a week and the workload adds up. It is really amazing how much volume you can get in while using submaximal work. And this means that you can make substantial gains in size, max strength, power, etc. without needing much in the way of maximal intensity work.

In our latest podcast episode Nick Garcia and I go in depth about this topic and he gives some good examples from his high school group. It’s a hard sell to coaches, but it can work. Maximal strength training obviously also has its benefits too, but submaximal lifting is too often disregarded before people even give it a shot.

Just Fly Sports: A big hang-up with modern strength professionals and Bondarchuk’s programming is likely the lack of variety present in the programming, as well as the performance valley that is often present in the mid-point of a single-direction training cycle. What do you feel is a comfortable medium for the modern strength professional in terms of training variety, who cannot afford for the team on their watch to undergo the performance valley present in singular direction training.

Martin Bingisser: You hit lows will all training methods; if you don’t it is really hard to improve since it is part of the adaptation process.

I see many coaches and athletes actually have a bigger hangup with the lack of day-to-day variety in training that you mention. But this this is all about framing. Sure, if you are training alone it takes a special person to be about to repeat the same program without going crazy. I know that first hand. But in a program it can actually provide some positives. There is something nice in knowing what training is coming up and how you will adapt to it and knowing exactly how you will feel in one day or one month’s time. This builds confidence over the long-term. In a group dynamic I’ve also seen it pull athletes together. There is a different team dynamic than the lets-get-pumped-up-and-yell-at-each-other dynamic you see when the chalk starts flying around. But I’ve found it a deeper dynamic since everyone learns more about how their body is adapting and this deeper knowledge lets you help each other through the highs and lows.

Just Fly Sports: Since strength coaches can’t control the amount of specific work that their athletes are doing, where in track and field, it is closely measured and controlled (usually) what portions of the Bondarchuk style of training are most applicable, or have the most cross-over into the team sport based training world?

Martin Bingisser: Ten years ago I would have found it much more difficult to apply Bondarchuk’s methods in a team environment. You would have to pick and choose certain elements more. But with technology advancing, there is more room than ever to play with it. A strength coach still might not have control over what happens on the field, but now they can get more feedback about what is going on our there from a physiological point of view.

But if I had to choose one thing that had the most applicability in the team sports world I would come back to the first point again: transfer of training. Deep down every coach already knows this concept, but we drift away from it when we get distracted by other goals, as I mentioned earlier. Contrary to what people might think, focusing on transfer means keeping things simpler, not more complex. Training comes down to priorities laid out in three levels:

Spend most of your time playing the sport;
Once you get tired do some special strength work that requires less technique; and
Then top it off with a good amount of general work.

This formula is simple and has always proven to work not just for Bondarchuk, but many of the world’s best coaches. As a strength coach you need to see where you fit in this formula. Perhaps with the amount of time they spend on the field you just have to fill up the general work category. Perhaps you can add in some supplemental specific work. This is where it helps to know how the workloads are being distributed on the field.

Again, the problems start when you take your eye off the prize here and try to get too creative. Doing too much weight room work might diminish the time for and effectiveness of the higher priority work. And if you try to be too imaginative with the specific work you might actually get less specific. I can’t think of a more bastardized version of training than what some people call specific or special strength training. Doing squats on a Swiss ball is less specific, not more specific, than a squat for all sports I can think of. Again, always remember what you are training for and make sure what you are doing is helping you.

Martin Bingisser is the Swiss nation hammer throw coach as well as 6x reigning national champion. He is best known for helping coaches understand and apply the training principles of Dr. Anatolia Bondarchuk, whom he trained under for a decade. Martin has also founded HMMR Media, where he and many other elite coaches from a variety of sports write about training. And be sure to check out the site and their new podcast to learn more about these topics.

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