How Much Strength Is Necessary?
Ask yourself this question. “How strong do I need to be to be successful at my sport?” Let’s word it a different way, “How much stronger do I need to get to optimize my athletic performance?” Lastly, “Do I need to maximize my pure strength, muscular endurance or muscular power to excel at my chosen sport?” First, let define the three main different categories of strength. Pure strength (muscular strength) refers to a maximum load an athlete can lift for 1 repetition. This is not to be confused with muscular endurance which is lifting a sub-maximal load for multiple repetitions. Lastly, muscular power is the ability to generate as much force as fast as possible.
What most athletes fail to understand is that every sport’s strength needs fall somewhere in between these three categories. Furthermore, different positions within each sport have different strength requirements as well. A sport like football has greater muscular strength requirements than basketball and vice versa. Wrestlers have to be more powerful than tennis players (in general).
What about the strength needs within a sport? Does a wide receiver need to be as muscularly strong as an offensive lineman? Of course not! But how can a wide receiver know if he is strong enough to maximize his athletic performance? Once he has the ability to deadlift twice his own bodyweight, should this wide receiver continue to strive for even greater strength gains? Or should he focus (prioritize) his attention on the other two areas of strength?
To hear most strength and conditioning coaches talk, you would believe that a football player is NEVER strong enough. I think this is a HUGE mistake as to continue to concentrate on pure strength, you have to place less of a priority on the other two areas of strength. All everyone ever talks about in the locker room is maximal lifts. The way you get respect is by lifting (or squatting) HUGGGGEEEE numbers, but that doesn’t necessarily (rarely in fact) translate to on the field performance. If I were the personal trainer for the wide receiver that could deadlift twice his bodyweight, I would minimize the number of sessions where we focused on muscular strength and instead focus more heavily (no pun intended) on muscular power and endurance. That will lead him to more success on the football field as opposed to just worshiping at the throne of the almighty maximal lift. Think about it.
Leland