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The reading and video were full of ways to identify trained vs. amateur. As the directions say to list examples I’ll list some off.
- Motor unit activation- “Untrained people cannot recruit all their fast twitch motor units” (Zatsiorsky, 1995, p. 61)
- Efficient CNS System- Amateurs do not have the intramuscular coordination to display efficient force production during maximal efforts (Zatsiorsky, 1995, P. 64-65)
- Kinesthetic sense- An Amateur athlete must use the voluntary nervous system to assist in integrating the huge amount of information from all kinesthetic systems. A trained athlete will be able to rely on the automatic and reflexive process to manage the same task. (Siff, 2004, p.70)
In the video, John touched on an athlete’s ability to “grind” through a rep as a sign of a trained athlete. This eluded to the athlete having a trained CNS. This links back to number two on my list above from Zatsiorsky. Stating, the amateur doesn’t have the intramuscular coordination to possess the ability to “grind” through the rep.
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We often see people on the amateur progression ask for help when they haven’t hit their reps for the week. The first thing out of the next sensible person is, “how’s your sleep and nutrition?” These factors play a major role in progress through the amateur progression. To us as coaches, nutritional needs has become sort of second nature. We know what to eat and how much to eat to improve performance. The problem is the amateur athlete doesn’t always know. Some of the same factors appear in sleep. In general, we all know we need sleep. It isn’t until someone preaches the importance of sleep that athletes pay attention.
Zatsiorsky said, “Supervised strength training has been found to be safe and effective even for the preadolescent athlete” (1995, p.193). I keyed on a few words in this quote when I read it. The first word was “supervised”, indicating there is a coach present. The next words were, “safe and effective”. From those, we can assume they are indicating there is a competent coach present. Zatsiorsky even defined competent supervision “competent supervision involves having an individual who understands exercise techniques, exercise prescriptions” (1995, p.193). A limiting factor to progression of an amateur could be the coach. The coach may lack knowledge or drive to provide the athlete with the proper tools and knowledge. A coach lacking knowledge could lead to an athlete getting injured. An injury may be a limiting factor in progression as well. If they have to recover for a long period of time they will be away from training.It was quite fascinating how many factors could limit progression. Even more fascinating, seeing how many factors could compound like a domino effect if people distributing training lack knowledge.
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If there is any trouble with audio on either of my videos I also recorded from my phone. These videos were from my GoPro.
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At minute 6:15 I transition to UAP. I will have that posted separately momentarily.
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Well, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see my sticky note pictures but I can email them if you’d like to see them. But here is a video I put together real quick. Let me know if you still have questions.
And I totally forgot to video it with my phone horizontal…. I’m such a noob.
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I will post my stuff up after I get home from work around 6:30pm MST. I’ll include pictures and such.
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Specific Physical Preparation (SPP) “concentrates on exercises which are more specific to the particular sport.” (Supertraining, 2004, p.315) The main point in this definition is the focus on the specific exercise. Siff is driving home the point that exercise selection is important. There is nothing here on how the exercise is executed. which we all now know is a major factor in how an athlete’s adapts to the training.
Specificity means “exercising to improve in a highly specific way the expression of all the above factors in a given sport.” (Supertraining, 2004, p27) The “all above factors” are type of muscle contraction, movement pattern, region of movement, velocity of movement, force contraction, muscle fiber recruitment, metabolism, biochemical adaptation, flexibility, and fatigue. Here we are focusing on the type of adaptation we are trying to drive. Coaches should know the sport the athlete is training for and know how to optimally drive the expression best for performance in that sport.
Where to bridge the gap? Siff talked about two theories in “Supertraining”, “One theory proposes that strength training should simulate the sporting movements as closely as possible with regard to movement patterns, velocity, force-time curve, type of muscle contraction and so forth, whereas the other (theory) maintains that it is sufficient to train the relevant muscles with no regard for specificity. Separate practice of technical skill would then permit one to utilize in sporting movements the strength gained in non-specific training.” (Supertraining, 2004, p.27) With that said, I see two theories to bridge the gap between SPP and specificity. The coach can either take ownership of both SPP and specificity by training an athlete to express specific factors listed above while selecting exercises that are also specific to the sport or the coach can train specific factors and let the sports coach figure out the technical skill acquisition. I would argue it would be a mix of the two theories. simply because some sports are extremely technical (Ex. gymnastics) that it is near impossible or grossly unsafe to execute in strength training. Coaches should do as much as possible to blend SPP and specificity but with an intelligent approach. Some technical skills should be left to the sports coach. All while the strength coach is selecting exercises specific to the sport and driving specific training factors best fit for the sport.
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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.
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I think you nailed this topic pretty well. Especially in the intermuscular sense. The awareness of joint position and how they move with weight is a great way to identify the amateur vs. trained. I’m sure we have all seen the athlete who starts lifting and they get all Ricky Bobby on us http://cdn.meme.am/instances/22048802.jpg
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This genetic piece could be a huge rabbit hole. Now, we cannot speak in absolutes because there are always some outliers (ex. Muggsy Bogues). But genetics will play a role in the sport an athlete would be best suited for. The sport an athlete is best suited for, physically, may not always be the sport they want to play. Which then if a person has all the physical attributes to play a certain sport they must have the drive to play it too. The athlete’s lack of effort to advance in the sport or training could be the limiting factor.
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It was pretty fascinating just how many factors were out of the athletes control. The main factor the athlete could control was their mental and emotional readiness to participate. Although not all amateurs are young, most of them are. So parental influence could limit the performance as well. We have all seen the parents trying to live through their kids. The athlete/kid could end up burning out and hating sports because of their parents.
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@carlcase Totally on board with you on that.
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Where are you bridging the gap?
I’m picking up that we must know the demands of the sport, watch our athlete to identify limiting factors, and then address those limiting factors in the weight room. Where does SPP and specificity meet? on the practice field, in competition, in the weight room?
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Do you feel that preparation and preparedness are the same? Our question was specific to preparation, which is the process of preparing. Preparedness is a state of readiness. If we are talking about preparedness, I would generally agree that it is the sports coach job to develop skill. In preparation, I would suggest the it is a mix between the sports coach and the strength coach.
I certainly agree with the use of the SAID principle for bridging the gap but maybe we should look more into what SPP exactly entails. To make sure we, as coaches, aren’t missing out on ways to positively affect the athlete’s performance.
