Strength and conditioning: what is it?

What is strength and conditioning? This is a really common question I hear. It does seem to be a term used amongst athletes, coaches and fitness enthusiasts these days but what is it?

When it comes to sport, strength and conditioning is generally used to improve performance and reduce risk of injury from sporting and daily demands.

Now that sounds pretty simple but in reality, there is much more too it than meets the eye!

When I start working with an athlete or team, the first step is to build a needs analysis. Speaking to coaches and players is good place to start but it’s also important to look at the research and build a detailed picture of the physical demands, the common injuries that occur and the psychological demands. Yes it’s important to train for your sport but at the same time, it is vital that we look at the individual athlete we have in front of us.

What do they need to develop athleticism? How can we help them to move better in fundamental movement patterns? How can we complement their sport performance? What are the player/team/coaches goals? These are all important points to consider in a programme.

Pre-season testing

Once I have built a clear picture of where we need to be in XX days/weeks/months/years, I can then work backwards and plan how we are going to get from point A to point B. What will we need to do along the way in order to achieve this? This might involve strength and power training in the gym, speed and agility training on the court or interval sessions on the field. It all depends on your individual goals! We want a training transfer from these methods so that the athlete’s sport performance improves.

I aim to use training methods that have underpinning scientific evidence to support its use, but also ‘practice based evidence’ from coaching experience.

My goal is to KEEP IT SIMPLE! For example, to quote Vern Gambetta (World leading performance coach), “TRAIN FAST TO GET FAST!”

I hope that gives you an overview of what strength and conditioning is! Please comment below if you have any particular questions about training methods I use with my athletes.

Thanks for reading!

Rob