Why Strength Training is a Dead End
Part 8: Last words
Ook beschikbaar in het Nederlands
Has the time finally come? Yes indeed, we have arrived at the final part of the series! In this series I’ve taken a critical look at strength training for sport performance. It was my intention to show that its value is often completely misevaluated. Now that we hopefully are (somewhat) in agreement on this, it seems like a good time for some reflection and final words. Join me on a journey through present, past and future!
Babylonian confusion
I suspect that the haphazard application of strength exercises already starts with the terminology. ‘Strength training’ and ‘strength exercises’ imply a clear idea of what strength entails, but it should be apparent by now that this is anything but clear.
For example, we have seen strength as a fundamental or biomotor ability and as a Newtonian quantity (i.e. force). We have discussed strength in terms of the force that a body exerts on the environment and in terms of the force produced by individual muscles. Moreover we have seen that strength is sometimes simply used to refer to tissue capacity. And it gets even more complicated, considering that people often talk about the ‘effect of strength’ when they actually mean the effect of strength exercises. Confusion abounds!
In my opinion it’s time to abandon the terms ‘strength training’ and ‘strength exercises’ altogether. The only reason that I still use them myself is because they invoke strong ideas (and feelings), which can form the basis for a dialog; consider it a transitional phase. But a transition to what? What are the alternatives? These questions are worth an extensive answer, but let’s keep it brief here with two terms that — in my eyes — better reflect what sport-specific strength training should be about: complementary training and athletic development. Food for thought!
An uneasy marriage
Let’s get back to strength as a fundamental slash biomotor ability for a a bit (see part 1). It should be clear by now that this is an untenable interpretation. The crazy thing — which I already pointed out in part 2 — is that many coaches actually know this (‘strength is a skill’) but still desperately try to hold on to the old idea (‘strength is foundational’). I’m a big proponent of integrating ideas from various points of view, but sometimes ideas are simply incompatible. “Socrates was a man and Socrates was not a man.” Impossible.
This uneasy marriage between strength as something general and strength as something specific can be recognized in other points as well. For instance, according to some we shouldn’t view strength as a ‘supreme generality’, but instead we should make a distinction between more specific but still general properties such as ‘absolute strength’, ‘accelerative strength’, ‘strength-speed’, ‘speed-strength’ and ‘starting strength’. Recently I also stumbled upon the term ‘repetition strength’.
When training these properties we should ‘of course’ take into account movement patterns. That’s why we preferably do squats over leg extensions, etc. As such, a supposedly general property is implicitly viewed in an increasingly more specific context.
But why then keep on forcing the label ‘strength’ on everything and not just appreciate things as they are? Someone who squats 100 kg for 15 reps is simply able to squat 100 kg for 15 reps. Terms such as repetition strength don’t add anything to this and imply an automatic transfer to other activities, even though this is often disappointing or even completely absent. Unsurprisingly, this kind of sloppy thinking often leads to sloppy practice.
FYI: I suspect that this phenomenon is rooted in what is also known as mechanicism: the deeply held belief that the body — and in fact the whole universe — is in essence a mechanical system. And a mechanical system consists of parts without intrinsic relationships to one another; ‘strength’ is supposedly one of these parts.
This worldview has generated substantial knowledge, but — as we’ve seen several times already — has also brought about insurmountable problems. This incredibly fascinating subject is, however, worth much more than a footnote, so I’d like to revisit it another time!
A historical contingency
I think it’s worthwhile to travel back in time for a bit. After all, we often understand the present more clearly when we understand where we came from. How did strength exercises become so popular in athletic preparation? Is it because generations of trial and error has proven that they provide optimal stimuli? Or is it perhaps a somewhat coincidental result of tradition and superstition? I suspect it is the latter.
The popularity of the iron game probably started with circus figures such as Eugen Sandow, who was not only able to lift a lot of weight but also was unbelievably shredded for the time (1). Even today we would still call these people incredibly ‘strong’. And a superior athlete — regardless of his or her discipline — has to be strong as well. So let’s all start lifting weights!
A tempting rhetoric, were it not that ‘strong’ in different contexts in fact refers to completely different things (see also part 4). A confusion of the tongue once again. Add into the mix that weight training doesn’t require training partners and is amazingly easy to quantify (no other activity comes close in this regard), and we have a recipe for success.
Therewith — I suspect — the law of the instrument came into effect. Abraham Kaplan explained it as follows (2): “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.” In this case the hammer is a metaphor for our trusty strength exercises. Another Abraham (Maslow) phrased it a bit more subtle (3): “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” To a degree we probably all ‘suffer’ from similar tendencies, but in the realm of strength training this may have played a particularly big role.
In short, I think that the popularity of strength exercises in athletic preparation is a historical contingency or coincidence. Admittedly, I do believe that trial and error has demonstrated that the iron game is one of the best methods for achieving muscle growth, but this (rightly so) is rarely the main goal of sport-specific strength training.
I also wonder whether strength training as we know it in the West is as popular in other parts of the world. China for example is an Olympic superpower, but as far as I know they achieve their results without our ideas about strength training. Perhaps there’s an expert among the readers who knows more about this? I’d love to hear from you!
FYI: An interesting parallel can be found in endurance sports, where training traditionally is performed according to the ‘80–20’ principle: 80% of training is performed with lower intensity, while 20% is performed with higher intensity. This tradition can count on solid scientific backing however (4).
(R)evolution
The fact that strength exercises before too long mainly lead to improvements in strength exercises (rather than in the intended sport), is well known among progressive strength coaches. Therefore they have been expanding their ‘toolbox’ with all kinds of accessory practices, such as sprint training and plyometrics. In recent years we’ve also witnessed a surge of interest in ‘movement practice’ as championed by (the very talented) Ido Portal for instance. How we’re still supposed to rally all this under the flag of ‘strength training’ is beyond me and one could say that strength training is facing an identity crisis.
More importantly though, a toolbox with 100 different tools is still far from a vision. After all, the art of good coaching is using the right tool at the right time (and simply ignoring a lot of ‘tools’). Thinking in terms of biomotor abilities — in whatever form — is a gross oversimplification of a complex reality and thus cannot help us here.
That’s not to say that this mode of thinking has been worthless though. On the contrary, I think it has been of great value: it ensured variation in our training and variation is better than no variation (5). But models should evolve and sometimes even change radically. The Bohr model for instance was very valuable for physics in the beginning of the previous century, but when it was replaced by better quantum physics models our knowledge advanced by leaps and bounds. Something similar could happen in sports, with for example a Grand Unified Theory of sports performance (6).
Very last words
Will this awareness spread to the mainstream? Not anytime soon I suspect. Entire professions, interest groups and scientific journals in fact lend their existence to the concept of strength. And if even respected organizations such as Dutch Topsport Topics declare that “The statement that strength training increases strength is of course kicking in an open door”, then this is outright pitiful. Adapting is not impossible, but it is difficult and will encounter violent opposition.
Until then there fortunately are plenty of talented and open-minded coaches and scientists who aren’t married to a theory and simply strive to deliver the best work they can!
References
- Stokvis, R. & Van Hilvoorde, I. M. Fitter, Harder & Mooier. De onweerstaanbare opkomst van de fitnesscultuur. (De Arbeiderspers/Het Sporthuis, 2008).
- Kaplan, A. The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science. (Chandler Publishing Co., 1964).
- Maslow, A. H. The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance. (Harper & Row, 1966).
- Seiler, S. What is best practice for training intensity and duration distribution in endurance athletes? Int. J. Sports Physiol. Perform.5, 276–291 (2010).
- Kiely, J. Periodization paradigms in the 21st century: evidence-led or tradition-driven? Int. J. Sports Physiol. Perform.7, 242–250 (2012).
- Glazier, P. S. Towards a Grand Unified Theory of sports performance. Hum. Mov. Sci. (2015). doi:10.1016/j.humov.2015.08.001
