At surface level sure this is a triggering statement. Speed is king right?? That would be the safe answer but it's not the right one. The problem seems to be how people define strength.
Here are the common arguments I heard in regards to the statement "Strength is King"
+ If strength were king powerlifters would be the fastest athletes
+ Too much strength will make athletes slower
+ Most of the weight room warriors ride the bench
+ Athlete 1 squats more than athlete 2 and athlete 2 runs faster.
Most of the arguments favored speed or power being king. Click HERE to view the tweet. Before we break this down I want to start by listing what IS NOT Strength.
STRENGTH IS NOT THE WEIGHT ROOM OR AN EXERCISE. STRENGTH IS NOT A MEASUREMENT RATHER EXPRESSION.
The key is establishing what strength is and creating context of the tweet.
This article will outline:
Strength Defined
Strength Assess
Strength Trained
Strength Defined: The ability to generate and or accept/resist force appropriately
Force= Mass x Acceleration (F=MA). If we focus on force, we quickly can eliminate the argument that too much strength would make an athlete slower. It's not possible to increase force output and get slower. Bigger, faster, stronger. If you get bigger and slower, thats not strength's fault because strength is not size. Part of the equation is literally acceleration. The other side to this debate was positions. And I heard a lot of back and forth about technique being more important etc.
"Technique is literally a force multiplier. Without force, there is nothing to multiply"- Coach Fahey (Click HERE to see the tweet)
I work with a lot youth and high school athletes. We obviously work on both technique and strength. On a wall, sure I can teach and put them in good positions. But when we start speeding things up forget about it they melt. The reason they can't hold or maintain positions is they simply aren't strong enough to do it. So when we think about F=MA what is M??? Depends what sport you play and that leads us to assessing strength.
Strength Assessed: Sport specific ability to generate and or accept/resist force appropriately.
I heard a lot of arguments comparing powerlifters to running backs arguing that a powerlifter is stronger and if strength were king, they would be faster. First of all, that argument is invalid because it ignores body weight to power ratio, it ignores height differences, foot size, limb length etc. But most of all it ignores the fact that each sport has its own unique skills and demands. Assessing strength is sport specific. Olympic sprinters by definition are all strong. You can't run fast without producing the force needed to move fast and having the rigidity and stiffness in the right places for the forces to transfer into sprint speed. Yes technique plays a big part. A baseball player can display strength through rotational power at bat, or through arm velocity on the mound. Yes skills such as kinetic linking and hand eye coordination come into play but it's the nature of the sport. Remember strength is not the weight room or an exercise it is simply a physical ability to express or generate force by accelerating a mass as fast as they can specific to their sport. For most field athletes you can also assess strength in change of direction (COD). I posted my preferred method to test COD HERE. 5-0-5 is a much less technical test to use that the 5-10-5. We want to eliminate variables, technique in this example, anytime we can so we can better assess strength or ability to accept and create force. Overall, for field athletes, we can all agree that relative strength is very important. If we can't transfer the weight room to the field what's it matter? It is clear and undeniable to increase relative strength you need to increase absolute strength. How you increase absolute strength is your choice but that is the concept.
Strength Trained: Resistance Training and Plyometrics
We have defined strength, established how to assess strength and now how to train or increase strength. The obvious answer is the weight room. A lot of people argued that athletes that squat the most don't run the fastest and jump the highest. Thats because strength is not an exercise or measurement. We use exercises to increase strength or the ability to generate/accept forces. Each exercise in the weight room in itself is a completely separate skill. Lebron James is Lebron on the court but he's Charlie Brown in the weight room. We all are also operating with different body weights, levers and levels of proficiency. It would be a better comparison to compare an athletes sprint speed and jump height as it correlates to his or her performance increases in the weight room but not athlete to athlete. Too many variables. The reason we goto the weight room is to use the tools to increase strength or increase our ability to express/generate and accept/resist forces. I included plyometrics for one simple reason, it's our bridge from weight room to field of play. It marries the concept of increasing absolute strength as well as relative strength. How you do that is your business. Proper way to increase strength is to surf the curve. Move various loads at various speeds. Again how you do that is your business.
If peak power is generated from 30-80% what happens if you increase someone's 100%?? You increase their power output. The equation is Power= Work/Time. If you raise the ceiling, you raise everything including the floor. Maximal or absolute strength is your ceiling. Increase it and appropriately develop rate of force development and you get a better athlete assuming sport skill at least remains the same.
Strength is the foundation, everything is built ON TOP of your ability to generate and or accept/resist force. John Davis shared this image created by Coach Al Vermeil. Click HERE to see the tweet.
Note what's under strength. Tim Kettenring may know a little about this. Click HERE to check his page out.
Last thought, nothing is the end all be all. It's all important. After these debates I came away with a better understanding of what strength is and I wanted to share. I do not aim to be right, I just aim to have a deeper understanding. Thanks for reading if you enjoyed this please share.
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