Athletes Strength Training Pt. 3

 

In the previous two posts I outlined the two most well-known aspects of strength and conditioning work. Building sports specific strength and programming for injury prevention.
A good S&C program should address other aspects of the athlete’s performance as well. These all fall within the umbrella of strength and injury prevention but deserve their own explanations.

Mobility

All athletes require the ability to move through optimal ranges of motion unrestricted. A joint that is restricted in its range won’t produce as much force, as its mobile counterpart and will often cause other areas of the body to take up the slack which in turn can lead to injury.
With the large workloads that athletes undertake in their sport, it is imperative that they incorporate specific mobility work into their daily routine.

Stability

For water based athletes, the core is the essential foundation from which they need to derive force. Water based athletes don’t have the benefit of ground force reaction, instead having to generate force against an unstable moving surface.

Their core then must provide the stability from which force is generated.

For land-based athletes the core is still vital, but other aspects of stability have to be taken into consideration. Force is both absorbed and produced through the ankle and knee joints before the core can start playing a role through the hip joint.
If an athlete has poor stability through the ankles or knees the strongest core in the world isn’t going to make up for the power already lost.

Therefore, land-based athletes need to have sound landing and take-off mechanics to ensure optimum performance.

Stability is a critical aspect for all athletes, but specific stability work needs to match the demands of their sport.

Muscular endurance

Muscular endurance will primarily be developed by the athlete through their non-gym-based training, but the strength coach can and should aid the athlete by incorporating into their program phases of strength work that target the body’s ability to produce force for longer periods of time.