Strength and conditioning
(S&C) is a field that has come a long way in the last 10-20 years. The
original perception of what a S&C coach did was simply based around making
an athlete stronger for his sport and hopefully this also meant he had less
injuries whilst playing. The current realm of what a S&C coach does is
vast, where you will now find numerous professionals all over Australia with
post graduate and even PHD qualifications in the field of S&C.
Science has been caught up
and S&C is now a mix of somewhere between statistician / physiologist /
coach / manager & mentor / biomechanist / scientist / therapist. The
understanding of athlete requirements is now very well understood in the
training environment, and S&C coaches can offer an array of skills to bring
to the table for athlete development.
The following areas offer
some insight of where a S&C coach can have an impact on an athlete’s long
term development.
Planning
& Management
A S&C coach is the
master in planning what training and combinations of different types of training
an athlete is capable of and should be doing at any single point in time and on
a regular basis. A S&C coach uses statistical methods of measuring how much
load / strain / monotony of training / volume is placed on an athlete’s body at
any one time and prescribes an exact amount and type of training across all
areas of development (skills / recovery / strength / recovery / etc). The S&C coach is often
the individual responsible for managing all coaches and support staff to
provide the best long term athletic plan for the athlete.
Testing
& Exercise Prescription
The S&C coach goes to
great length to initially identify where an athlete has strengths and
weaknesses, and maps out a plan of attack
for the overall development for an athlete. The S&C coach has the ability
to test an athlete in a range of ways involving postural screening / orthopedic
assessment methods / load bearing ability / functional movement discrepancy /
functional flexibility / sports specific stability / repetition maximum testing
/ body-weight ratio strength / functional movement awareness / motor skill
function / activation patterning. With this information the S&C coach will
prescribe an effective training program to the athlete, which initially matches
their individual requirements and later meld this with the physical
requirements of their chosen sport. An important note to add is
that the S&C coach is aware of the rate and type of progression that is
suitable for the athlete based on their age, training experience, maturity, injury
status, current skill level, training volume, and functional capacity to
perform the training program.
Functional
Movements
When testing and
prescribing exercises, a long-term fallacy is that a S&C coach writes a
program to make the “muscles” stronger. This philosophy of training has long
been replaced with the theory that “strength, power, flexibility, endurance,
coordination, and speed” is about making the movements NOT muscles more effective, and that is how a S&C
coach will prescribe exercise. For example ‘vertical jumping ability’ is a very
important skill for a volleyball or basketball athlete, where the S&C coach
will initially assess what part of the jumping or squatting movement has room
for functional improvement, and instead of prescribing isolated strengthening
exercises for the individual muscles, the muscles and tissues are considered to
work as a system. Numerous muscles around numerous joints coordinate to
function together to produce a reactive, flexible, fast, force producing movement,
so prescription might be to perform a squatting pattern exercise like a jump
squat or power clean, instead of a leg extension. If there are areas in the
movement that are not efficient; tension in hip flexor muscles, tight
hamstrings, or inactive gluteals, exercises and stretches for those functional
discrepancies can also be prescribed for.
What
Does a S&C Program Involve?
Unbeknownst to most
athletes you don’t have to train with heavy weights and lifting platforms to
improve your functional ability. Many exercise programs I prescribe are to
athletes where they can perform 90% of their program on their bedroom or hotel
room floor! Many athletes have
discrepancies where simple individually specific stretches can work wonders
done with very minimal equipment, in a matter of a few minutes a day. The
option is there to have a full sport specific functional program performing
numerous times a week in a high performance centre, however certainly not a
necessity.
The S&C coach is a
vital part of any athlete’s program, where I have had the privilege to work
with athletes as young as 8 and as old as 85, from a local club to world class
standard improve their skills, in sports ranging from trampolining to lawn
bowls to triathlon to tennis. Every athlete can benefit
from an individual and sports specific functional assessment, and following
this a tailored sports specific exercise prescription.
Cheers,
Anthony
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