Author - Alex Adams

A common question that is asked amongst technical coaches and S&C coaches. No, an athlete can never be strong enough. However there are some drawbacks to this concept, as it is important that an athletes and coaches recognises the distribution of their training content for the different physical qualities required in their sport performance.

For example, strength, speed, endurance, mobility, tactical and technical training (not exhaustive list) are all fundamental qualities required for optimal performance in any team environment. It is vital an athlete ensures they spend the correct amount of time developing ALL qualities that will influence their performance the most. Some developing athletes may spend 80% or more of their time developing pure strength qualities and not consider their speed drills, technical drills or mobility drills. The desired outcome will not be performance related.

If an athlete neglects an area of their training and only focuses on strength gains then the overall performance of the athlete may not improve. If performance doesn’t improve in correlation with the strength gains it is not because they are too strong it is more likely they have not distributed their training time effectively. If you periodise a coaching plan in which all areas are targeted, along with strength gains, it is conceivable that the new strength levels would be far more transferable to the performance itself.

This example taken from David Joyces’ ‘High Performance Training for sports’ may make the concept a little easier to consider:

Imagine a young shot putter with an incline press 1RM of 75kg who throws a shot put of 14kg, resistance therefore of approx. 20% when compared to the press. We can therefore say the athlete has a relatively low level of strength and that strength will improve fairly easily with dedicated training. With improvements in strength we would predict a proportionate improvement in throwing distance would result. Over time, the athlete trains to a 1RM increase of 150kg, now the athlete is relatively strong and the weight of the shot represents only 10%. He or she now has a reduced disadvantage and can throw much further. If the athlete continues to push for strength gains (e.g. 1RM of 175kg) they will be harder to attain and may not see the same results on throwing distance, training time may better spent trying to improve technique or mobility.

Other misconceptions in strength training specifically may also be ‘the quads are too strong for a sprinter’ or ‘the shoulder internal rotators are too strong in swimmers’. This is not the case, actually the antagonist muscles are not strong enough to now cope with the strength and power of the dominant muscle groups. If you improve strength levels of the weaker antagonists then research has shown this can likely improve limb speed (Jaric et al, 1995).

Remember sports performance is a reflection of a range of different bio motor abilities. Not just one. Stay strong, but keep the bigger picture in mind.