Week 2: Discussion A

Im gonna go ahead and shut this one down right away. Why do we lift weights? Because chicks love muscles. EOS bro.

Why do athletes lift weights? My answer is as follows: To be able to successfully accomplish the challenges our sport demands of us.

Let’s break that down.

To successfully accomplish, the opposite would be if you fail the task at hand. After assessment was this failure a result of your training? Were you strong enough, fast enough, explosive enough, or did you train at all? Assess your failures and address them in the weight room, if it was a failure of skill you need to ask if your physical preparedness affected your skill execution and what can be done to address such break downs.

Challenges. This is whatever physical requirements are involved in our sport. In basketball can you be explosive with your first step, can you jump high enough to rebound, can you hold your ground and not let your man back you down? These are all things that can be trained and reinforced by lifting weights.

What are some direct benefits lifting weights can provide to an athlete and why should they lift?

A very simple study example provided by Zatsiorsky on page 21 highlights why strength training is important, and I believe an equally simple study could be preformed with athletes in any sport. To paraphrase, a swim coach wanted to find validity in dryland strength training for her athletes. After finding the that the maximal force an athlete could produce correlated significantly to swimming velocity, her assumption that it would be worthwhile spending time and effort to enhance this maximal force production through training. (Zatsiorsky, V. 1995.)

Hatfield states, “since strength determines the extent of force you are able to apply, and leverage determines the effectiveness of your application of force, it is important for you to become as strong as possible.” Let’s say two wrestlers of the same anatomical dimensions are going at it and ALL skill, understanding of leverage mechanics, equipment are totally the same. Who is going to win? Simply put the stronger athlete, which is developed by lifting weights. We lift weights to win!

Siff’s “Two Factor Model of Training” states the long-term fitness after-effect and short term fatigue after-effect interact to produce physical preparedness. (p.88) An athlete must have a level of physical preparedness to even play a sport. With a high combination of sport skill and physical preparedness (which can directly relate to enhancing sport skill) the athlete will undoubtedly be better at there sport.

Why do ATHLETES lift weights?

BLUF: Athletes lift weights to induce stress on the body and drive adaptation in order to positively increase performance.

Context is everything. As coaches we will not have athletes of different sport, or even different position in the same sport, train the exact same way. Each sport demands different types of strength, movement, recovery, etc. Knowing the demands asked of an athlete allows the coach to develop the most optimal process of lifting weights for an athlete.

In “Supertraining”, Siff discussed the specificity in training. The topics Siff discussed ranged from muscle contraction to flexibility. Each topic touched on effects to an athlete’s performance. If the coach is armed with the knowledge of how to positively affect an athlete’s performance through weightlifting, the athlete can make substantial improvement to performance.

Our ability to induce stress is going to drive better motor skills for an athlete. We may not even need to add weight in the beginning if an athlete isn’t moving properly. Once the athlete moves properly, we are then able to add weight to further drive adaptation of proper motor skills, fiber recruitment, movement velocity, etc. As coaches, we equip an athlete with an arsenal of strong, efficient, and proper movement patterns to optimally perform.

@benkuch I like it. I am trying to pick what you said apart but I feel we are saying the same thing in two different ways. Considering we are talking about athletes, when you say performance I can only assume that means the performance transfer to their sport and not just an increase in performance in the weight room unless lifting weights is their sport. And since you want the performance to positively increase this would by default make an athlete more “successful” (the term I used in my definition) at their sport. So ipso facto we essentially have the same answer to this question. Unless you see otherwise, then I am all ears (and I have large ears).

@chobbs,

Bingo! I am most definitely talking about performance transfer to sport. The only way I would care about numbers in the weight room would be if weightlifting was their sport.

At first, I used the phrase “on-field performance”. I thought about it for a minute and concluded that definition left out a bunch of athletes. Words have meaning. By using the term “on-field”, I was disregarding a large number of athletes who lift weights to improve performance.

Your quick definition of “we lift weights to win” sums everything we both talked about in one easy to understand way.

Why do we lift weights?  Since @train608 stole my answer, I’ll take another route.  The most concise way to answer this question in my opinion is: with all other factors equal the stronger athlete wins.  As Hatfield states “strength determines the extent of force you are able to apply” and the means to developing said force (strength) is lifting weights.

Since this course focuses on amateur athletes the selection of exercises is not as important as in an elite level athlete.  We must begin the adaptation process by exposing the athlete to an external load that he/she must overcome.  By consistently and thoughtfully doing this the athlete will develop the ability to create force, learn coordination, and develop movement patterns that will correlate to his/her sport (the latter is assumed that you have picked exercises that correlate to the task the athlete will be asked to complete).  In general amateur athletes will see benefit in increases of maximum maximorum force (Fmm) so weight training should be exhausted as a result.  As the athlete progresses and accommodation begins the challenge becomes: how do you adjust the training to continue to drive adaptation?  This is where training specificity comes into play and in my opinion rate of force development becomes key.

Zatsiorsky talks about explosive-strength deficit (ESD) or the difference of your Fmm and Fm (max force reached in a given condition).  To me this is the expression of your strength on the field.  We talk all the time about how weight room numbers mean shit if you can’t play, this is it.  Being able to express your strength is what separates and as an athlete progresses the rate of force development helps bridge that gap.  As Zatsiorsky states almost all sporting movements on average take place faster than one can create max force (pg. 26-27) so it lends to being more explosive.  The 2 ways to positively affect force output in explosive motions is to increase Fmm or decrease ESD. Increasing Fmm would be my approach with an amateur athlete and decreasing ESD via rate of force development for the elite athlete.

In either case we lift weights to improve our ability to express strength in an athletic setting, the method and priorities change based off of where the athlete is in his/her progression.

Conveyed knowledge inspires some and forces other to realize that in any competition just like in evolution the strongest survive.  It really doesn’t matter if you share Siff’s topics of performance.   This will be a bit of a controversy or make this post a little spicy.  There is a handful of athletes that actually have a clue on why they lift weights.  Most do it because everyone is doing it, because the coach said so, because thats what football players do. If you find 1 in 20 young athletes that actually “Get it” is too much.  So in the end we are the educators the catalyst that allows our athletes to transcend in their sport.

“Lifting weights in sport is essential to:

Eliminate potential injuries.

Create a perfect balance within an athlete’s body to perform at the peak of his human potential via adaptation through carefully planned and executed plan.

But it goes beyond the playing field: it is in our D.N.A to be active, to move heavy shit, to eat, fuck, sleep, fight…. It is primal and necessary for all humans to live life to their fullest genetic potential.

If you watch our young ones they are always moving stuff around, picking it up, putting it down, throwing it around… WE LIFT BECAUSE ITS HUMAN!

I feel like I can’t really disagree with any of these so far. I’ll try to spark some discussion though. @tonyfu you and myself said something interesting that we both could discuss further. We said given all other things equal the stronger athlete will come out on top. I suppose we could say that about any components, given all things equal (which in this case includes strength) the athlete with more speed would win, or agility, or insert arbitrary performance measure here. So I guess what we are saying is a “duh” statement. I am not changing my definition because what I am about to say still fits within it. We all find our own style of play and we need to enhance our abilities through training (lifting weights) to reach our full potential. An example of what I am talking about would be Mayweather vs. Alvarez a couple years ago. Alvarez tried to rely on his far superior “strength” and punching power, however, he couldn’t touch Mayweather while he danced and tagged him with jabs all night. Mayweather’s superior speed, skill, agility, etc…made him a far better boxer. My point in all of this is we don’t just lift weights to improve strength, we do it to improve all things related to our performance goals. I know we know this but I wanted to clarify.

Strength is the foundation on which we as coaches build our athletes.  It is the one aspect of sport that we have the most control over and provides the catalyst for all other personal aspects of each athlete to be accentuated and hopefully developed.  Strength can be built by repeating movement patterns above the basal level, presented as overload by Zatsiorsky (4).The force of gravity and the weight of the athlete is the resistance and will drive an adaptation to the increase in work load therefore building strength.  “If an athlete uses a standard exercise with the same training load over a very long time, there will be no additional adaptations…” (Zatsiorsky, p.4). Without changing the said movement, one must increase the load moved in order to effect change.  This is why we lift weights, to increase the force applied and required during the movement.  With this being said, the addition of weights to the movement is the quickest and easiest way to develop strength.

We can also lift weights to reduce the effects of sport/movement on the athlete.  Be it an opponent, an apparatus or an element, the increase in strength due to lifting weights will counteract and in some instances overcome the forces from said objects.  @chobbs, you nailed it with Hatfield’s quote “since strength determines the extent of force you are able to apply, and leverage determines the effectiveness of your application of force, it is important for you to become as strong as possible,”   I just don’t think that this strength goes in one direction.  I believe we have to counteract the forces of opponents, objects, and elements as well.  For example, the dissipation of force from contact, the deceleration of limbs after releasing a throwing element, and the ability to rebound from stationary objects.</span>

@hashaw21

I like your take on how lifting is engrained into our DNA. Only the strong survive in life and in competition. I’m bought in on that.

It’s hard to stir up controversy in this topic because we all seem to be on the same page. So I’m going to be a stickler on this and say the primary reason athletes lift is because they need to improve in sport not because it’s primal. The primal factor is no doubt a factor but it is not the primary factor.

We lift weights to become better.  We lift weights because they cause our bodies to become more capable at things we want and need to do.  We lift weights because of the mental fortitude and discipline in behavior they require.  We lift weights to expose weaknesses and develop them into strengths.

Athletes lift weights to practice the skill of leveraging force against external resistance as Dr. Hatfield says.  Injured people lift weights to return to functional levels of strength.  Bodybuilders lift weights to create a physical representation of what their mind believes is a perfect body.

I loved @hashaw21 bringing in the primal need of humans to exert force against their environment.  Moving, carrying, altering their physical surroundings.  In many ways, moving weight is what we have evolved to do.  It allows us to create (and pro-create) a more fulfilling life.  To sustain that life for longer and against more circumstances.  It makes us better.

@menacedolan you brought up a great point that weights can be used to teach an athlete reduce forces, most injuries a results of an athletes lack of ability to do so. A great tool for this is the power clean. Tt is often implemented for its ability to drive power production, however I think the catch is ofter over looked. We have all this force that is being directed towards the ground, which is the perfect opportunity to teach of reduce and dissipate that force safely. A proper catch is going to transfer over to a safer athlete on the field. This goes with using weights to challenge posture and position It’s usually did I get from the ground to my shoulders, yes? Then it was successful. This is part of the reason the other part is simply to develop maximum force. Hatfield states, ” In all the world of sports, speed is king. But you cannot become fast in any sports movement without maximum force. And that means one thing: Get awesomely strong.” Using weights to to develop strength gives us the launching pad to move forward into other athletic developments. During our last class talked about mobility, stability, and proficiency to be the precursors to strength. Looking what comes after strength we have power, speed, replication of speed. These other things cannot be properly developed with strength and we do that through lifting weights.

I really like what you all guys say, and as some of you have already said, arguing about this subject is almost impossible, but if trying to be Devil’s advocate (I think that would be the expression), I’d ask you guys about the nonparametric relations between maximal force (developed through lifting weights) and maximum velocity, being the latter the ultimate sign of athleticism.

Anyway, I’d like to start by quoting Zatsiorsky when he says “The carryover from the exercises used in the weight room to the sport skills is relevant to the concept of task-specific strength”.

From my point of view @tonyfu nailed it mentioning the two possible ways to increase the force output on explosive movements, either increasing maximal force or decreasing the explosive-strength deficit.  (Difference between maximal maximorum and maximal force).

As training against resistance as in lifting weights has been shown to be the way to improve that maximal force capacity (strength), lifting weights proves to be the best way to improve sport and/or daily performance.