This is excellent. I don't even think many coaches who use "specific" or "specialized" training truly believe in it themselves. It's all about catering to sport coach whims or creating a personal brand and marketing your dogma to separate yourself from others.
That's an interesting Q, how many really believe in it vs how many have to cater to the sport coaches' whims. But either way, it's definitely the norm out there. I may be wrong but I think there's a place for some of it. But until the players are conventionally strong, only at low intensities and relatively easy, as warmups or something non-strenuous to do on non-lifting days for active recovery.
I agree it's the norm, and I don't think you're wrong. There is a place - I typically include them as accessories and emphasize them more with athletes who are already strong and getting ready to peak. An area I also deviate from your former colleague on. I think the mistake is when coaches replace and avoid quality strength training under the guise of specificity and handicap athletes' strength, power, and resilience development. I work mostly with track athletes so I'd be interested in your opinion - do you think there is a point of diminishing returns on strength work, and if it occurs earlier or later with different sports?
Great Q, but I'd be speaking outside my experience if I tried to give specific numbers. What I have done, with hundreds of athletes and a 100% consistent pattern, is taken them from not strong to strong (or at least a lot stronger than they were), with zero specialized sports/position specific work, and they went back to their sport or event better than when they left it either the very first time, or within 2-3 exposures of getting used to it again after taking months off JUST to get stronger. The combination of this consistent pattern with a large sample size, along with the theoretical argument in the articles, makes me very confident about it. However, even when I worked in D3 S&C, and some pretty serious crossfitters, I never got to the point yet of dealing with diminishing returns - they weren't strong enough yet. Based on logic, I strongly suspect it does vary as you suggested by sport and position within the sport, where applicable, i.e. it's not just "football" but will be different for a cornerback than a defensive end and different for a running back than the center. Likewise for a 10,000k meter runner vs a miler vs 800m vs 100m. But it would take more experience and not just logic, to discover what the expected ranges for various sports and positions are.
This is excellent. I don't even think many coaches who use "specific" or "specialized" training truly believe in it themselves. It's all about catering to sport coach whims or creating a personal brand and marketing your dogma to separate yourself from others.
That's an interesting Q, how many really believe in it vs how many have to cater to the sport coaches' whims. But either way, it's definitely the norm out there. I may be wrong but I think there's a place for some of it. But until the players are conventionally strong, only at low intensities and relatively easy, as warmups or something non-strenuous to do on non-lifting days for active recovery.
I agree it's the norm, and I don't think you're wrong. There is a place - I typically include them as accessories and emphasize them more with athletes who are already strong and getting ready to peak. An area I also deviate from your former colleague on. I think the mistake is when coaches replace and avoid quality strength training under the guise of specificity and handicap athletes' strength, power, and resilience development. I work mostly with track athletes so I'd be interested in your opinion - do you think there is a point of diminishing returns on strength work, and if it occurs earlier or later with different sports?
Keep up the good work!
Great Q, but I'd be speaking outside my experience if I tried to give specific numbers. What I have done, with hundreds of athletes and a 100% consistent pattern, is taken them from not strong to strong (or at least a lot stronger than they were), with zero specialized sports/position specific work, and they went back to their sport or event better than when they left it either the very first time, or within 2-3 exposures of getting used to it again after taking months off JUST to get stronger. The combination of this consistent pattern with a large sample size, along with the theoretical argument in the articles, makes me very confident about it. However, even when I worked in D3 S&C, and some pretty serious crossfitters, I never got to the point yet of dealing with diminishing returns - they weren't strong enough yet. Based on logic, I strongly suspect it does vary as you suggested by sport and position within the sport, where applicable, i.e. it's not just "football" but will be different for a cornerback than a defensive end and different for a running back than the center. Likewise for a 10,000k meter runner vs a miler vs 800m vs 100m. But it would take more experience and not just logic, to discover what the expected ranges for various sports and positions are.