Squat Big....?

We all know that many great athletes also have very good numbers in regards to their squat and olympic lift performance. Although it is true that many of these athletes did lift weights for an extended period to reach those numbers, a poor decision by any athlete is to directly focus their training on reaching those same weights in the weightroom. The reason why is that, although elite athletes will carry with them excellent weightroom numbers, those athletes did not focus their training directly towards hitting huge lift numbers to reach their dynamic performance on the track, field, or court.

Let’s take “X track and field triple jumper” for example. This athlete in particular has a 400lb backsquat at 165lbs, and can clean 315lb, almost double bodyweight. Although this athlete is extremely explosive, I can bet you they didn’t focus their training through the years on doing heavy triples and doubles in those lifts to reach their current level of athleticism. They reached their strength through: A) Genetics and B) A balanced training program of sprints, jumps, plyos and lifting.

Bottom line, I am writing this to remind everyone out there that simply chasing strength in your training (by simply chasing strength, I mean basing 50-75% or more of your training on heavy weightlifting), and especially strength through maximal strength training, isn’t going to work very well unless you are:

A. A beginner and haven’t done much training, in which case just about anything will work for you

B. Severely weak and yet very fast… outside the bell curve of the normal range

To back this, I’ll give you a few stories from my own personal experience:

Story #1)
I reached some pretty impressive standing and vertical running jump numbers in high school with relatively poor lifts to match my jumps. I lifted, but averaged only 2 days a week of any lower body exercise, and usually performed around 2-3 sets of 8 with a fairly low weight. I typically only did 1-2 exercises. My olympic lifts were also a fraction of what they were when I was in college, especially my early years…. but yet I could jump just as high in high school… if not higher… than my first year or two of college when my prime focus was on lifting.

Story #2)
My best athlete that I trained a couple of years ago went from a 6’3, 160lb beanpole who had never really lifted to a 335lb deep squatter his first year lifting (after 3 months to be specific). That year he beat me at deep squat in relation to bodyweight, and I had been lifting for years. I wrote his program, so it was similar to what I had followed in the past. He also had a 37″ (93cm) standing vertical on my just-jump mat. Prior to lifting he still jumped around 34″ on the mat, which showed he had some real explosive power to begin with. Because he was so explosive, his squat jumped up easily. Athletes who are not as explosive will not be so lucky. This is why elite athletes are so good at the weight room… they are naturally…beastly!

Moral of the stories:

The first is that heavy weightlifting is a skill in and of itself. Chasing lifting heavy will help… lifting heavy. Many people seem to think that lifting at 95% of your 1RM because you turn on all of your motor units is awesome because well, you turn on all your motor units… so what? You are turning all of your motor units on in a slow moving pattern that will help you lift heavy weight, not jump high or run fast. Lifting should be done to support explosive training. One of the first real concepts I learned of performance training was: Achieve maximal motor recruitment through plyometrics and max jumping efforts, and then, once you can recruit no more muscle fibers, you can increase your performance by creating new muscle fibers (myofibrils to be specific… you can’t really increase your number of muscle fibers). I personally feel that spending more time in the 4-10 rep range (size building range) is going to be more beneficial for athletes, especially if the bar is moving fast for those reps.

The second is that explosive and dynamic movement compliments strength training. I have found, year in and year out, that I can squat more when I have explosive work, such as depth jumps and sprints built into the program. Any time where I have focused only on lifting, I have never seen that great of gains. I, as an individual, really need explosive work to make me a better squatter. Research done with javelin throwers in the 1960’s-70’s showed that doing ONLY depth jumps helped to improve squat maxes. As an athlete, you can’t afford to drop explosive work from your program to focus on lifting maxes.

The third is that… well… some athletes are just going to be beastly. And they don’t get that way by just lifting heavy weights, in fact, they tend to get that way basically by playing their sport and doing a few things to support that sport, such as weight lifting or plyometrics. For a little example, the former wind-aided 100m dash world record holder was “allergic to iron” as described by his coach. Carl Lewis also hated lifting weights, and didn’t do it until his last couple years of competition, in which he didn’t improve his performances. You also can’t expect to try and match a great athlete’s numbers in the weightroom and just think that you will be able to replicate their performances on the field or the track. Your body is not built like theirs.

Bottom line… don’t buy so much into maximal strength training. Athletes do need to get stronger (especially for vertical jump development), but personally I think that going for “explosive hypertrophy” by working 4-8 reps at high velocities will pay off better (although the specific reasons why is for another place and time). Getting stronger in the weightroom IS important to long term athletic development and injury prevention, but it is not the end all and be all. Use strength training to support your program, but where you should really get fired up to go for maximal CNS recruitment is your actual sporting movement. That is where the all out efforts will really reap some nice gains.

Joel

Squat Big….?

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