You may think that you don’t need resistance training, but
you are likely wrong (or at the very least missing out). Resistance/weight
training will make you stronger, which will translate into better power output
- this means you can go harder and faster. It can also strengthen up your
stabilising muscles (core, hips, shoulders, etc) which may prevent you from
getting injured. Do I have your attention? Good.
The Benefits of Strength Training
When you run (on the trail or the football pitch), you teach
your body to get better at it. This is called the “Specificity Principle”. If
it’s an endurance sport, your nerves, muscles, energy metabolism, and
cardiovascular system get better at endurance (and vice versa for sprinters).
But an unfortunate thing starts to happen - both the time you can spend and
your ability to voluntarily push yourself harder on the road start to reach a
plateau (and so does your performance). You’ve started to reach a ceiling on
muscular endurance (oxygen/energy transport) that won’t respond to the
“Specificity Principle” as easily as it used to. But if you can’t drive any
harder, you CAN build a stronger engine.
What does that mean? It means that on the spectrum of sports
performance, so far your muscle strength is a relatively untapped “weak link” -
you still have a huge amount of potential that hasn’t been directly developed.
And strength is “the tide that raises all ships” - by increasing power output
you should have improved endurance. Moreover, increased muscle strength is
beneficial to your stability. If the muscles that brace your knees, hips, core,
and shoulders get stronger, you should make yourself more resistant to
injuries. This effect is seen with general strength training (squats &
pullups), but also with specific stability training e.g. planks & big
rubber balls.
A Guide to Strength Training for Athletes
Entire sections of libraries have been devoted to this
subject, but I’ll try to be brief and practical. Some general concepts:
● It’s
important to train not just the muscles specific to your sport, but the whole
body - it works as a chain and we want every link made of steel not sausage
● Stick
mostly to the “big” exercises e.g. squats instead of leg extensions - they usually offer the best return on
investment (of time and energy) in the long run
● you will
need to moderate your weekly training volume (e.g. distance run, number of
sessions, etc.) to incorporate your strength training - avoid burning out like
a dropped Citi Golf
● Learn
proper technique! If that means reading a book like Starting Strength
(Rippetoe), watching some YouTube videos of trainers like Bret Contreras, or
getting a trainer for a few months, then do it. It will make your training
SAFER and MORE EFFECTIVE.
To Get Started
I would suggest doing resistance training two days per week
(that can increase with necessity & experience) and training your whole
body each session - this means everything gets enough work without being
OVER worked.
1. Start off
with a general warm-up - this can be a bit of cardio and bodyweight exercises
or a few yoga postures for 5-10min.
2. Pick 3-4
main/primary exercises to strengthen the most necessary movement patterns:
SQUAT (e.g. a squat or lunge), BEND (e.g. a back extension or straight-leg
deadlift), PUSH (e.g. a pushup or dumbbell press), and PULL (e.g. pullups or
dumbbell rows) - with necessity and experience I’d advise adding moves for
TWIST (e.g. cable twist) and CARRY (e.g. farmer’s walks)
3. Do 1-2
warm-up sets with a light resistance, then choose a challenging weight for 1-2
‘work' sets of between 8-15 repetitions -- the set ends when you can’t get
another rep with good technique.
4. Next,
perform 2-3 secondary or stability moves for the ‘core', hips, and/or shoulders
as is appropriate for your sport e.g. runners should do some hip work and a bit
of core, swimmers should do some shoulder work and some planks, etc.
5. Finish up
with a bit of stretching and possibly foam rolling for any tight areas.
Every week you should try to increase the weight used or
repetitions performed - this is how you make progress. Just don’t be a dumbass
and try double the weight you used last - an increase of 5% is usually plenty.
As you gain experience, start working in other rep ranges (see chart above) to
focus on specific aspects of performance.
Final Thoughts
● Strength
training is to support your sport: don’t go so hard that it makes you too tired
to perform - what’s the point?
● Don’t
overload certain patterns: if you are a throwing athlete (e.g. cricket,
waterpolo) there is no need to risk injury by doing 8 different shoulder
exercises
● Change it
up for variety, but not TOO often: no need to change the exercise you’re using
every session - never getting used to an exercise actually deprives you of a
lot of the benefits (but maybe change things up every 6-8 weeks).
Enough talk - get out there and lift something!
