The Measureable Strength Trap

A common question you hear between athletes is: what’s your max in the bench? Or clean? Or snatch. Or squat. What you can lift or how many foot-pounds of force you can express on a dynamometer are often meaningless numbers outside of the environment where the numbers were produced. Quality of movement, rhythm, synchronization and connections are more important than a one-rep max. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the goal of strength training that is transfer the strength developed in whatever mode of strength training used to the actual sport performance. How is the force expressed in your sport? Can you produce and reduce the force in the time required? Force production is all about acceleration, but often the key to movement efficiency and staying injury free is the ability to decelerate and stabilize in order to position the body to execute the desired movement. A good functional training program will work on the interplay between force production, force reduction and stabilization. Choose whatever mode is appropriate for the sport. The end result should be functional strength, which is strength you can use. It might not show up the weight record board but it will show up in the record book of your performance.