If you are an athlete who has played the same sport in high school and college and possibly even in the pros, the odds are that you experienced the same basic type of in-season training. For example, most high school teams today do high-intensity weight training, basically the same as collegiate and professional teams.
Some of the exercises may be different as you move up from high school, but for the most part, most of the exercises and exercise routines are basically the same. There may also be some differences in supplementary training or in the training of other physical qualities as for example, speed and flexibility.
You will probably be doing many of the same types of drills for agility, quickness and game plays. In fact, doing drills is the foremost method used by coaches to improve a player’s performance. Strength training is considered important but doing the drills is the heart of all the programs. Thus, it is common to find many different drills for runners, basketball, soccer and baseball players, and so on.
However, by putting a little science and creativity into the training, it is possible to improve your performance even more so. This can be done by adding technique training and specialized strength and flexibility exercises to the program. Such work and the exercises used, follow the base conditioning or strength training that is typically done on the teams.
This means that after you become well-conditioned and strong, then you are prepared to do the specialized strength exercises and specific work on technique. The better the shape you are in and the stronger you are, the more the specialized strength exercises can make a difference in your overall performance. This is a new concept that has not strongly permeated the field.
Each coach can create his own special strength and explosive exercises that duplicate what he wants his players to execute. In this way the athletes can develop a feel for the skill or action or simply respond in the manner desired. This is the key to improving performance on the field because the exercises should duplicate game skill conditions.
Specialized strength and explosive exercises are used most often to improve technique and the ability to execute the skills involved in the sport. They should be the heart of every strength and conditioning program as these exercises since skill execution is the key to the success of any team. Specialized strength and explosive exercises will do more to enhance your skills than any other method presently known.
Strength and flexibility exercises that are specialized means that they involve the same joint actions and muscles as involved in the sports skill. Specialized strength exercises have specific criteria. This includes: 1) the exercise must duplicate the exact motor pathway as seen in execution of the skill. In other words, it must duplicate a portion of or the total skill as seen in competition.
2) Specialized strength and flexibility exercise must duplicate the same range of motion over which strength is developed as it is displayed in the competitive skill, and 3) the specialized exercise must use the same type of muscular contraction as seen in execution of the competitive skill.
To duplicate one or more of these conditions for each exercise takes a certain amount of creativity. Not only must you be very familiar with the biomechanics or technique of the skills involved in the sport, but you must be able to create exercises that can duplicate one or more of the conditions established above.
The more you understand what is involved in the specific sport skills, the more readily you will be able to come up some strength and flexibility exercises that duplicate what occurs during execution of the skill in competition. When this is done, you will see the greatest amount of improvement – improvement that is not only dramatic but almost immediate.
For more information read Build a Better Athlete or one of the books in the Explosive sports series.