Article on Sports specificity

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[This entire article is based upon the erroneous belief

propounded by far too many strength and conditioning folk

that weightlifting and other free weight training should be

done because they are " sport specific " , " functional " and

otherwise very similar in skill to the movements in

many sports. Many of my previous letters have criticised

these unfortunate notions about supplementary, " functional "

and " sport specific " training - see the archives for more

details.

If ston criticises those beliefs, then those

who ineffectually support those methods in many ways deserve his

criticisms - those who promote SuperSlow and HIT also make

their own prolific errors in promoting their methods of training,

so that is why they, too, are doing their methods a grave

disservice. This is a good reason why anyone who is promoting

ANY method of training ought to obtain a very solid education

in the underlying science, its strengths and limitations. Mel Siff]

Dan Fichter

Rochester NY

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By D. ston

President, I.A.R.T.

Including specific resistance training exercises to enhance sport

specific movements is utter absurdity. There are no degrees of

specificity... either something is entirely specific or it is not –

either a physical movement is completely specific or it is not.

Specific means explicit, particular, or definite, not 'sort of'

or 'similar.'

For example, throwing a baseball that is ounces heavier than the ball

you are used to is no longer specific and will definitely hinder the

accuracy of your pitch if continued then eventually returning to the

original ball weight. This phenomenon occurs since the nervous

system controls the muscles, producing a particular pattern and

firing rate participation of the motorneurons and skill acquisition

in accordance to the practiced movement in question.

The inter-task transfer, or the ability for the skills of one

activity to improve that of another unrelated activity, typically

finds that the transfer is small or negligible. If the tasks are

more similar, the transfer tends to be higher yet still typically

small. An example would be a badminton player taking up tennis.

Because of this athlete's past experience, the skills of badminton

may help in learning the game of tennis. However, a proficient

tennis player will unlikely become a better tennis player as a result

of learning badminton skills. Never has a world-class tennis player

become a world-class badminton or table tennis player. The skills

may appear similar, but differ greatly as a result of play area,

racket weight, air resistance, ball/birdie weight, and kinetic

characteristics such as speed, delivery, and return.

Strength training is analogous in this regard, but to a much greater

magnitude. The skills of a power clean cannot transfer to the skills

of sprinting and dodging in football, or a slap-shot in hockey,

although many strength and conditioning coaches believe otherwise.

Strength is general and contributes to any activity. The applied

demonstration of strength is specific, however, and applying strength

to any activity, such as football, requires skill training. And the

only way to produce specificity in a sport is to practice the sport

skills themselves – not something that appears to be similar.

Being more explicit, in football there are many positions, including

running back, quarterback, and wide receiver. Being good at one

position does not make that athlete good at all positions. If this

were the case, a running back could take the quarterback's place if

the quarterback became injured during the game. It should be obvious

that the skill acquisition is much different from one position to

another. Likewise, Olympic lifting is even more far removed, not

offering any direct transference of skill nor producing any better

gains in strength or power than a sound program of strict, hard

exercise characterized by safe, low-force, non-ballistic movement.

Since resistance exercises (regardless of their apparent

duplications) are not specific to the speed, gait and force produced

in athletic events, they are useless for increasing a specific skill

and an inappropriate way to contribute to a skill. Even the use of

parachutes during sprinting has not been proven to optimally improve

running speed since it is non-specific to the speed, mechanics, and

gait of sprinting without a parachute. Those who make modest gains

from such training do so because the stress overload on the muscles

caused muscular strength and growth to occur. They could have

received better results from a sensible strength training program and

without disrupting the specifics of their natural gait.

NEGATIVE TRANSFER

Attempting to duplicate a sport specific movement with unaccustomed

movements and loads results in the athlete learning two methods or

styles of performance, thus causing a negative transfer. Multiple

motor memories adapt, which inevitably leads to confusion.

Competitive performance will either suffer or not benefit in any

manner as a result.

Similarly, it is not uncommon for a strength athlete to be very

strong in the bench press, yet be relatively weak with the incline or

decline bench press (if s/he did not also practice those movements)

due to different motor learning patterns. Try it yourself, utilizing

a totally new exercise, and you will discover a comparable weakness

to that of a seemingly similar exercise movement.

Arthur , inventor of Nautilus equipment, relayed an excellent

example of a small stone or grain of sand in a sock. Did you notice

how your gait changes in order to accommodate the discomfort? That

small grain of sand, although it felt huge, was enough of a change to

alter the specificity of your gait. Can you imagine what attempting

to duplicate a sport specific movement with added resistance could do

to your learning curve?

To relay another example, operating a transport truck will not affect

your ability to operate a small compact car since the two particulars

and characteristics of these vehicles are so far removed. But drive

a small compact for several years, then suddenly a Lincoln

Continental, and you will find the task more arduous, especially when

parallel parking or moving in tight spaces. The close relationship

between the two cars makes observation and perception more difficult

than that between a small car and the transport truck. Furthermore,

and as Arthur personally observed, piloting a plane and driving

a car is even more non-specific, having no detrimental effect on the

two skills.

The ideal strength training routine for an athlete is to simply

select common exercises, such as the bench press, squat, calf raise,

bent row, chin-up, etc., and leave the skill training to the sport in

question. Despite the importance of including exercises that are

geared toward the primary muscles of your sporting event (e.g.,

squats for sprinters, deltoid work for tennis players), exercise

movements designed to be specific to a muscular movement found in a

sport is a grave error.

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D. ston is the President of the International Association

of Resistance Trainers (I.A.R.T.), providing certification and

education resources for personal trainers, coaches, and athletes.

His website is www.ExerciseCertification.com, where you will find

dozens of free articles on exercise and nutrition science, including

several on proper coaching practices for athletes. Don't forget to

visit the learning resources section and pick up a book or video. We

have plenty of excerpts from each volume so you can 'test the waters'

before buying.

[One of those articles also states that modern physics and modern

physicists generally are all wrong about most things. No evidence

based upon a careful analysis of the mathematical physics being

criticised appears, however. MCS]