Ultimate Athlete Series: The Max Strength Debate Part II

This article continues the “Ultimate Athlete Series”, which deals with common questions that aspiring, talented athletes commonly ask. With the difference of opinion amongst coaches, trainers and online writers, I hope for this article series to be a guide-post that will help athletes reach a higher level of understanding for what is required of them to reach sport’s highest level.

Key Points

Maximal strength as expressed in barbell squat squat, deadlift, and Olympic maxes are different than maximal strength expressed through jumping or sprinting
Training for athleticism requires far more deloading and “no-lifting” periods than training for strength sports
Lifting adaptations that improve athleticism are centered around increasing the size and strength of specific, usable muscle fibers, as well as improvements in the structure of the muscle (pennation angle), and improved neural adaptations for force development
Once an athlete gets past 85% of their lift 1RM, the neural instruction to complete that lift is a very different skill than the neural instruction to jump or sprint maximally

Maximal strength is a skill

Maximal strength, just like anything else in sport, is a skill. Athletes need to train the skills that will help their performance on the field reach their greatest levels. In Part I of this series, we talked about how specifically focusing on maximal strength in one’s training result isn’t typically the best way to accomplish things for achievement in sport. Strength is critical to results for many athletes, however. Athletes who don’t lift are going to get out-jumped, out-accelerated, out-bodied and generally more injury prone that those athletes who regularly push iron around.

Since lifting is extremely important… but over-focusing on it is counter-productive, we must find a happy medium that allows athletes to achieve the most advantages of lifting while avoiding the drawbacks.

The key to performance is knowing the difference between training “max strength” and “complementary strength” for athletic development. Virtually any elite, non-strength sport, athlete is going to thrive on complementary strength development rather than maximal strength. Let’s talk about a quick and important concept regarding maximal strength work with athletes.

Elite athletes and heavy lifts

Elite athletes don’t have huge lifts because they trained intensely and specifically for them

A common mistake is to look at the lifting numbers of an elite athlete or world record holder and think,

“If I only could bring X lift up to X level like “so and so”, then I’ll perform like them!”

This attitude couldn’t be farther from the truth for a few reasons.

Elite athletes have the big lift numbers they do (when they do) because they are genetically gifted with a “RR copy” of the ACTN3 gene, have loads of high density fast-twitch fibers and fiery central drive, ramping their nervous system like an Indy-car supercharger.
Elite athletes don’t get scary strong because they train like a powerlifter, or “decided” that they needed to get their lift to a particular level. They also didn’t follow a Smolov Squat program, Sheiko program, or 5-3-1 to hit their lifts. They reached their weightroom number because, when they did lift within the scope of their normal training, their genetic ability allowed them to pile on the 45’s like an old school CT Fletcher bench press video, leaving their slower and weaker counterparts in the dust.
Athletes make fast initial gains by addressing their weaknesses, but they won’t reach their ultimate level of performance until they play to their strengths. For the majority of elite track and field athletes in particular, the strengths of these athletes is speed, and they need to regularly play to that strength to see results. If they pushed too far into the lifting realm, and thus ignored their strength, they would fail to cater towards what their body is ultimately designed for.

The difference between max strength and complementary strength

Part I of this series may actually make it seem like lifting weights might actually be a bad thing for trying to become a faster or more explosive athlete. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! Even a “bad” or excessive lifting program won’t have too negative of effect on a beginner or intermediate athlete, because nearly any work in force production helps these athletes.

What athletes need to know as they move towards their genetic potential is the difference between strength done for the sake of moving a barbell with max weight, and strength done for maximal improvement in athleticism.

No, I am not a functional training expert. I don’t have a battery of special, fancy exercises for specific sport skills. Squats, cleans and presses are the core of my programming, just like most anyone else in the business. Still, there is a difference in squatting for athletic improvement, and squatting to win a powerlifting meet or brag to your friends on a training board.

Squatting/Deadlifting to improve one’s 1RM is going to typically involve lots of work above the 80% 1RM range, frequent “grinding” lifts, and a lot of barbell volume.
Squatting/Deadlifting to improve athleticism is going to be mostly lifting in the 60-80% range with a premium on bar speed, occasional but infrequent grinds, and somewhat low training volume.
Squatting/Deadlifting to improve athleticism is going to involve more frequent deloads than squatting to increase 1RM, because the off-periods are going to help an athlete retain their elasticity over the course of explosive training blocks.

The big difference between the two is that lifting to increase a 1RM brings about all of the benefits of lifting as we talked about above, but it also brings in all the negatives with the force Odin’s hammer. Lifting to improve athleticism is different because it brings in most of the positives with almost none of the negatives.

Excessive heavy lifting

Aside from being a pain in the rear end to speed development, excessive heavy lifting (beyond 90% 1RM) can be more detrimental to the process of max strength development than weights of 85% and below. Going heavy often can be tough on the CNS, and movements of greater than 90% of one’s 1RM generally “display” one’s strength more than they build it.

Even most powerlifting coaches won’t use lifts of more than 85% 1RM often in their training efforts; it is just the heavy sessions that we see on youtube that tend to give us the impression that this is how they regularly train. Granted some athletes with the right genetics and environment ramp to max often, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Taking a look at one of the most successful powerlifting coaches of all time, Louie Simmons, his athletes only squat once a week, and pound box squats, or other auxiliary lifts on the other days. They take pride in boosting their squat without needing to slam the specific squat pathway often. This principle should be in even greater effect when training athletes for strength; realizing that the battery of explosive movements an athlete is exposed to on a regular basis will do wonders for their strength levels. In order to build strength for speed and power pursuits, athletes must know how to lift in a complimentary manner. Although a 500 page book could be written on the matter, I can summarize the most important facets of complimentary lifting for you below.

Main Tenants of Complimentary Lifting for Speed and Power Athletes

90% of lifts are performed between 55 and 85% of one’s 1RM.
70-90% of lifts should have an emphasis on all-out concentric bar speed.
Athletes should generally leave 3-4 reps “in the tank” on any set. Never grind or go to total failure. Never perform more than 1-2 extra reps when bar speed starts to drop, if you even perform those reps at all.
Keep a good amount of variability in ones lifting as to not overload specific fatigue pathways, and keep ones adaptation rate high. One of the easiest ways to do this is via the tri-phasic model, centered around the movement demands of one’s sport.
Deload often to allow an athlete’s adaptation reserves to recover, as well as to allow for the maintenance of elasticity.
Occasionally embrace some low volume general lifting with higher rep-ranges (8-20 reps) to allow some of the specific neural fatigue that builds up after 2-3 months of intense and heavy work to subside.
Realize that low volume lifting in the midst of intensive power training is easily enough total work to ensure continued gains in speed, and even strength.
Use both full and partial range movements, centered around the specific movement to be improved, and perform a percentage of both throughout the season.

How it breaks down: Practical Examples

On top of the differences in the microcycle, loading and deloading rates will also differ between strength and sport athletes. High volume training eats up the adaptation reserve of any athlete. Because strength athlete’s barbell training IS their training, they don’t have to deload as often because their training volume is very precise. Team sport, and many track and field athletes have consistent, explosive training to contend with outside of their barbell practices. Because of this combined, high volume load, adaptation reserves often run low, which requires more frequent deloads.

When I was coaching track and field full time in my mid-20’s, I often employed a 2 week on, 1 week easy training cycle for my athletes to much success, particularly my jumpers and vaulters. I found that I could push athletes to 3 weeks on, 1 week easy, but they couldn’t sustain this for long. Things are a bit different now as a full time strength coach for sport teams. Last year was the first time that I decided to incorporate a regular 2 on, 1 easy method for the barbell work of my sprinters, and the results were fantastic: around a 3-4” average vertical jump increase in the fall months, 2 individuals ran faster than the school record in the men’s 60m dash (the event with the highest correlation to strength levels), and the men’s 4×100 running under 40 seconds for the first time since 1987. When I noticed athlete’s adaptation reserves starting to burn up, and their sharpness down, I would put them on a very general lifting program (Similar to the athletic hypertrophy program in the sample, minus the eccentric squats) for a bit to help them come back around.

Conclusion

I didn’t aim to make this article brutally long, so I’ll keep the conclusion quick. The bottom line with strength training for improved speed and jumping ability is as follows:

The more force involved, the more strength training is useful and must be emphasized. Clearly the force that goes into putting a shot is greater than maximal sprint speed. Qualities such as vertical jump and acceleration fall in the middle, and great initial and intermediate gains can be made from strength, but eventually speed is king.
The closer an athlete looking to train speed gets to their “limit strength”, the more it brings down all other athletic qualities to close in on that genetic limit.
Strength training has positives and drawbacks. Focus on the positives while minimizing the drawbacks
Don’t strain for PR lifts, let it happen in the process of balanced training, and don’t worry about maxes unless you are actually in a strength sport. If you are being explosive regularly through sprints, jumps, throws and sport play, and then lifting moderate but explosive weights regularly, you’ll get stronger.

As a final note, I do customized, personal workout programs, which at 250$ for 3 months is far better than what you’ll get with the local speed coach or personal trainer, and it also beats a lot of similar online training rates. Check out the programs and prices here.