Athletes and Strength Training

Athletes and Strength Training

Not too long ago, coaches would advise their athletes not to “lift weights” because it would make them “muscle bound.”  Unfortunately, this uneducated view is still popular today, preventing numerous athletes from reaching their full potential.  At worst, it could be setting them up for career ending injuries.  Let’s set the record straight.

1. Strength training is nervous system training. Here’s a brief rundown on anatomy.

   Muscles create movement. The brain tells the nervous system to contract your muscles. The nervous system contracts your muscles to create movement.  Got it? There’s more. There are two primary processes the nervous system uses to produce strength. The first is motor unit (muscle fiber) recruitment. The greater the amount of motor units your nervous system can recruit, the more force you’ll produce.  Lifting a light object, recruits fewer motor units.  Lifting a heavy object, or lifting a light object explosively, recruits a greater number of motor units.  With repeated heavy and/or explosive resistance training, you can improve your nervous system’s ability to recruit a greater number of motor units. The second process is called rate coding.  By enhancing the rate at which your nervous system sends an electrical message to your muscles, you’ll be able to not only contract a greater number of motor units, but you’ll contract them at a faster rate.  As you can see, by repeatedly lifting heavy weights, you can greatly increase your strength, which will carry over to your sport without becoming “muscle bound.”

2. Not all muscle is created the same.

   Hypertrophy is a fancy word meaning an increase in mass or girth of a muscle.  There are two kinds of muscle hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic “non-functional” and myofibrillar “functional.” Non-functional hypertrophy results in an increase in the elements of the muscle cell other than the muscle fibers (non-contractile proteins and semi fluid between the muscle fibers). Think of a bodybuilder.  They have large muscles, but their additional mass will not make them much stronger.  This kind of hypertrophy results from higher repetition training and will slow down an athlete due to the extra mass he has to carry around.  Functional hypertrophy results in an increase of the actual muscle fibers, allowing the athlete to produce more strength.  Functional hypertrophy results from lifting heavy weights for low repetitions (1-7). If an athlete becomes “muscle bound,” it’s because of an improperly designed resistance training program.

   

   Non-Functional vs. Functional

3. Injury prevention and recovery.

   Strength training increases the size and strength of tendons and ligaments. This is especially important for female athletes, as they have 6-10 times greater incidences of ACL injuries than males.  While strong connective tissue may not seem very sexy, you’ll appreciate it when you have to make sudden stops and changes of direction on the field.  Strength training can also speed your recovery from certain types of injuries, such as Achilles Tendinosis. Numerous studies have demonstrated that heavy eccentric calf raises speed up the recovery process and keeps the subjects from having to undergo surgery.  Not a bad deal if you ask me. 

4. It’s all about overcoming resistance.

   In every sport, there is at least one source of resistance that must be overcome by the athlete. While running, the athlete must overcome the external resistance of their bodyweight with every step. The stronger the athlete, the greater the force they’ll be able to generate with every step, covering greater distances, thereby increasing their speed. In other sports, there are opponents (football, judo, etc.) and implements (soccer, baseball, discus, etc.) that must be overcome repeatedly and successfully in order to achieve any measure of success.

5. Your muscles have built in safety features.

   Your body has protective reflex mechanisms whose sole purpose is to keep you from killing yourself. The one that athletes should be most concerned with is the Golgi tendon organs (GTO), which are located within the tendons. GTO detects changes in tension and the rate of changes in tension within the tendon. When the GTO’s detect a level of tension that is excessive and may injure the muscle, it will send a message to the central nervous system causing the muscle to relax. Sometimes the limit at which the GTO’s send this message to the nervous system is set rather conservatively, preventing you from displaying your full strength potential. Consistent strength training will “desensitize” the GTO activation point.

   

   Strength training should not be avoided for fear of decreasing an athlete’s performance. If the strength program is properly designed, strength and on- field performance will improve, giving the athlete a long and healthy career.