Death to "Sport Specific"

After listening to Mike Boyle's State of the Industry interview and his abolishment of back squats and aerobic conditioning, I started feeling a little trigger happy myself. So to keep the momentum going, I decided to pull out my double barrel fitness shotgun and empty the chamber on "sport specific" training. That's right, just like disco music it's dead and gone.

Training athletes and anyone in general for that matter, has evolved to a point where we now have either EFFECTIVE or NON EFFECTIVE TRAINING. For example, what's more effective for developing lower body strength, core and joint stability - squats or leg presses? What's more effective for improving conditioning and burning fat- high intensity interval training or a 3 mile jog? What's more effective for posterior chain development - glute/ham raises and deadlifts or seated leg curls? Do you see a pattern developing? The point is a good program addresses all of the weaknesses an athlete may have through appropriate exercise selection in combination with appropriate volumes and intensities REGARDLESS OF THE SPORT THEY PLAY! All you have to do is walk into a university weight room and you'll see a bunch of varsity athletes doing squats and hang cleans and three hours later you'll see a different group of athletes doing the exact same thing. You would never be able to tell what sport they play based on the exercises they are doing. All you could assume is that they are trying to get bigger, faster and stronger by using the most EFFECTIVE exercises to achieve their goals.

As trainers, there's no doubt that we definitely have to account for hectic practise and game schedules as our first priority is keeping our athletes off the injured list and not overtraining them. Simultaneously, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility/mobility, and conditioning are all attributes that must be addressed. "Specificity" then becomes highly dependent on the attributes that need to be developed most. For example, if the athletes needs more explosive power then perhaps some olympic lifting variations or plyometrics may be in order; how that power is applied in a game situation is dependent on the athlete. When it's all said and done, if an athlete wants sport specific training, they simply need to go play their sport.

With the exception of Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting, nothing in the weight room can ever truly replicate the intensity and unpredictability of anything an athlete will encounter on the playing field. Having said that, one cannot deny the physical prowess of today's athlete which is a testament to the advancement of strength and conditioning and sports nutrition. Fortunately, these more effective methods are slowly trickling down into the mainstream allowing the general public to reap the benefits of what has proven to work with some of sport's greatest physical specimens. The main thing is to not fool ourselves anymore by designing training programs that we think can only be useful to one type of sport or athlete and adopt a mindset that is only concerned with effectiveness. At the end of the day, that's all I care about. That concludes my eulogy. Rest in peace "sport specific".