Most parents, coaches, and athletes now agree that strength is a big factor in sports. It wasn’t always like this as there was a time when a lot of coaches from various sports would avoid having their athletes strength train because it would make them “tight and bulky”.
The fact is that stronger athletes can have more endurance, more speed, more explosive power, and can resist injury better than untrained and weaker counterparts.
Some examples to prove the point:
-If strength didn’t matter than they wouldn’t separate male and female sports. Men run faster and jump higher because they are overall stronger and more powerful. (more about this later)
-Put a well trained team of football players on the field vs an untrained team and one team is going to get beaten bad and injured.
-Pair up 2 wrestlers of equal weight AND skill and the guy who trains hard and heavy will kick the untrained guys ass.
-Why are there different size fields for softball vs. baseball and little kids vs. older kids vs. pros? Because as athletes get older and stronger they become more powerful and in turn throw harder, run faster, and hit farther.
A few things to consider…
-Training programs need to be balanced and weaknesses need to be trained. Too many programs, especially HS football, only focus on the front of the body. The front of the thigh (quads) and chest. The athletes may get tight in the front and seem like they are stiff.
-The athletes have to do jump training or plyometrics. This converts their strength into usable explosive power and athleticism because it forces them create a ton of force very rapidly which as I’ve said before is the holy grail of athleticism.
-They also need to be consistent with what they do. Consistency is KING!
Now, some sports strength and speed development are a given such as football. Football players have been in the “weight room” since my Dad played… (and they still screw it up) In my opinion. Most other sports have been slow to adapt training at levels below college.
I think that our wrestlers have had tremendous success because they are really good wrestlers technically. They practice a lot. They have embraced REAL strength training. Meaning they are into getting really freaking strong more than just push ups and pull ups. I rarely see one of our guys getting pushed around and out muscled.
Now the same thing is starting to happen with our baseball guys, and softball, and now soccer, and LAX, and track!
Ok, back to the female sports… If you can get your female athlete to embrace REAL training she is going to excel.. Meaning if she buys into actually getting STRONG she will have a huge advantage on her counterparts because although many girls sports are starting to train its (I hate to say it) typically wimpy programs. Many of these programs never progress the girls out of the GPP phase of bodyweight and high rep light weight training.
I will do a whole other article on female training, but in a nutshell it shouldn’t differ much from the boys. Most training is math and physics. Our females train right along side our males and sometimes they just have to adjust the weight!