Too many athletes are one-dimensional in their strength and skills work.
They either focus exclusively on the sport and neglect any strength or skill work, or they lean too heavily into the strength side of performance.
To achieve the highest level of performance possible, it’s crucial to have a well rounded and structured approach to athletic development.
Back when I was still playing competitively in high school and college, I found myself in the latter group of athletes. Spending too much time in the weight room, simply trying to push heavier and heavier weights to gain more and more muscle.
Now don’t get me wrong, strength and muscle mass is an important piece of athleticism (and something many young athletes lack). But that’s all I was focusing on when I would have been much better off focusing on other athletic qualities at a certain point.
Unfortunately, I was never taught the principles and lacked the knowledge of what turned a good athlete into an elite athlete. And this is a commonality amongst most young athletes today.
That’s why I want to go over the athletic qualities that turn athletes of any level into elite performers that outshine their peers.
This all comes down to what I consider to be the 6 foundational qualities of athleticism:
- STRENGTH
- SPEED
- POWER
- AGILITY
- MOBILITY
- ENDURANCE
We’ll briefly go over each in this post, with more detailed breakdowns in the following weeks.
STRENGTH
What is Strength?
Strength is simply the ability of muscle mass to produce force against a resistance. Think of this as the foundation of all other athletic movements.
Strength can be broken down into 2 subcategories:
Types of Strength
Absolute Strength: the total amount of force one can exert (1RM Deadlift)
Relative Strength: the amount of strength relative to body size (Pullups for Max Reps)
While both types of strength are useful for athletic performance, relative strength is usually the one that benefits athletes more-so. Just think, you’re moving your bodyweight alone for most athletic movements.
That being said, increasing absolute strength will no doubt increase relative strength as well so a mix of both is beneficial to include in your programming.
Importance of Strength
As stated earlier, think of strength as the base for all other athletic qualities. By increasing the amount of force you are able to produce, you’ll be able to move quicker, produce more power, and reduce risk of injury.
There are many ways to develop strength but usually this is built with compound movements utilizing heavy weights and low reps.
Think of a back squat for 4 sets of 3.
NOTE: Strength shouldn’t be confused with muscle mass. While an increase in muscle mass can lead to an increase in strength, this isn’t always the case. Think of a bodybuilder vs a powerlifter. The bodybuilder has more muscle mass but not nearly the strength of the powerlifter.
With our athletes, we utilize many methods to develop strength but one of our main methods to develop strength that translates to performance is the triphasic method. I won’t go into that now but we will explain this in future posts (with practical advice) so if you want to be notified when that comes out, type in your email in the form below.
SPEED
What is Speed?
Speed can simply be thought of as maximum velocity. True top speed is usually only maintainable for five seconds or less and relative speed can be thought of as the pace you can hold for longer durations, but this starts to bleed into the endurance category.
Types of Speed
When training for speed, it can also be broken down into 2 focuses:
Acceleration: the time it takes for an athlete to reach top speed from a static position
Top Speed: the maximum velocity an athlete can reach, regardless of time to get there
The type and amount of speed an athlete needs depends on their sport, or even position – think lineman vs wide receiver.
For basketball athletes, acceleration will be more of a focus due to the constant change of direction required by the sport. For short distance runners, top speed is of course going to be the thing that that athlete benefits more from.
How to Improve Speed
When it comes to improving acceleration, we like to use different starting positions to better mimic the positions of your specific sport. But most often, these will be shorter distances to keep the focus on the acceleration portion of the run.
To improve top speed, this is a bit simpler. Simply run at maximum velocity. Now of course there can be slight variations to the specific drills, but this is the best way of improving top speed.
I also want to note that mechanics play quite a large role in an athlete’s ability to accelerate and reach top speed as well, which is why it’s commonly used as a prep for these days. But again, that’s a topic for another day.
POWER
What is Power?
Power is the ability to produce large amounts of force in a short period of time.
Think of this as the middle point between strength and speed (it quite literally is when looking at the force-velocity curve).
Importance of Power
When Zion Williamson goes up for a dunk, he’s displaying an extreme amount of power. The amount of force he has to produce in a fraction of a second to jump as high as he does is freakish and can be attributed to his ability to produce power.
You can also look at MMA fighters. Everytime they throw a punch, they are producing a large amount of force faster than most people can react to it.
Developing your power output also helps speed and agility performance as these both require force to be produced in quick bursts.
Methods of Improving Power Output
When training for power, there’s many methods that can be performed and each can benefit a slightly different spot on the force-velocity curve depending on load and speed.
Olympic lifts are tremendous at developing the ability to produce higher amounts of force in shorter periods of time. For example, a lineman who has to be quick on the snap but forceful to move his opponent would benefit from training in this style.
Plyometrics are also another training tool that has numerous benefits. Plyometric training allows you to better utilize the stretch-shortening cycle which in turns leads to faster and more explosive movements. Imagine a basketball player loading up to grab a rebound.
Ballistic movements, such as medicine ball throws, also teach the body to generate force quickly to move lighter loads. This is commonly used with baseball athletes.
There’s many ways to train for power and this is the quality we enjoy training the most (hence our name). So if developing elite power is something that you are looking for, tap the button below to schedule your free session.
AGILITY
What is Agility?
Agility is the ability to rapidly change your body direction. It is the sum of many other athletic qualities such as power, speed, strength, and mobility (if you lack one, it can drastically affect your ability to react on the court or field).
Essentially, agility breaks down to the ability to decelerate, alter body positioning, and accelerate to change direction as quickly as possible.
One of my favorite examples of an athlete displaying elite agility is Kyrie Irving. He’s considered one of the best ball handlers of all time and this is due to his ability to play low, read defenders, and maneuver around them to make a play.
Breakdown of Agility
When it comes to training agility, we break it down into two phases:
Change of Direction: predetermined change of direction drills with no reactive component
True Agility: change of direction with a reactive component (can be verbal or physical)
Some people will say they are two separate things but I like to think of it more as a progression.
How to Improve Agility
Just like speed, agility is very dependent on mechanics. Going back to the Kyrie Irving example, part of his ability to change directions quickly and efficiently can be attributed to his ability to play low to the ground. His body positions when changing directions allows him to shoot out quicker than the defender.
Agility training should be fairly sport specific. The movements and change of direction patterns a wide receiver might perform will be quite different from the movements a basketball athlete should be expected to be proficient in.
Instead of performing ladder drills, think of the movement and change of direction patterns that you perform most on the court/field. For football players, this might include many 90 degree cuts, while for basketball players its typically arcs and curves.
MOBILITY
What is Mobility?
Mobility is the ability to control the body through a specific range of motion.
How is it Different from Flexibility?
While it is similar to flexibility, they are not the same. Whereas flexibility is passive range of motion, mobility is range of motion that you can control. Think strength through range of motion.
While too much mobility can become an issue for some athletes (rarely the case), most athletes would benefit from some specific mobility training.
Importance of Mobility
Elite athletes that exhibit great mobility are able to get into better positions and therefore move more efficiently.
This will improve nearly all other qualities by allowing you to move more efficiently and decrease the risk of injury.
How to Train for Mobility
When training for mobility, think of the needs of your sport and the positions elite athletes exhibit. For example, baseball athletes will need more shoulder and thoracic mobility than most football players require.
There are numerous ways to train for mobility, but remember, the goal for athletes is not just to improve mobility but to then translate that to athletic performance.
To do this, I like to use a framework of thinking inspired by NBA trainer, Paul Fabritz, to guide our mobility training.
In short, this is what it comes down to:
- Building passive range of motion
- Building strength through range of motion
- Developing explosive strength through range of motion
- Developing reactive power through range of motion
This is something that most athletes ignore but is a quick and relatively easy way to improve their performance drastically.
ENDURANCE
What is Endurance?
Endurance is the ability to perform movement at a certain level for a given amount of time. The better your endurance, the longer you’ll be able to play at a high level.
While endurance is no doubt important to sport performance, it is the quality we focus the least on. Simply because most athletes that are playing their sport consistently will develop endurance through their sport.
Endurance training can be broken down into many different subcategories with each benefiting performance in a slightly different way.
For example, a sprinter needs endurance but a different type of endurance than a marathon runner. Same goes for a baseball player vs a basketball player.
But luckily most athletes will get enough endurance training alone through their sport alone, so I’ll leave it at that for this post.
CONCLUSION
Training for sports performance is a multifactorial process that most young athletes just simply don’t understand or were never taught. Too many athletes focus on one or two qualities which can lead to stagnation and them never reaching their full potential.
By understanding the qualities that make up a great athlete, more people can design training programs to better help the individual excel at their sport.
This can be difficult to put into one complete plan so if you are an Orlando athlete who wants this all done for you and you are willing to put in the work, tap the button below to set up your free session and start getting results.
