Lecture on strength training exercises that I gave as a lecture for Wilmington College students in HPE 345, Strength Programming for Sport. Taken from the text: Science and Practice of Strength Training, 2nd edition.

1. STRENGTH EXERCISES

2. A General Overview
With so many exercises to choose from in designing a program,
it is important to know the factors behind each exercise.

3. The MOST IMPORTANT exercise
 In any sport, the most important exercise is
the actual sport movement.
 If my sport is sprinting, I need to practice sprinting
the most.
 If my sport is volleyball, I need to actually play
volleyball the most.
 If my sport is arm-curling, then I need to practice
arm curls the most.
 If my sport is underwater basket weaving, well….

4. Strength Exercise Classification
 Isometric (same length)
 Joint angle specific!
 Isokinetic (same speed)
 Research and Sports Medicine
 Isotonic? (same tone…not really)
 Tension in a muscle changes as the moment arm
changes during the exercise
 Dynamic
 Concentric
 Eccentric
 Reversible

5. The most popular
 Dynamic exercises with concentric muscle
action
 Typical up/down weightlifting

6. Further Classification
 Non-specific
 Squats for a javelin thrower
 Bench press for a basketball player
 Specific
 Barbell pullover for a javelin thrower
 Push jerk for basketball player
 Primary Sporting Movement w/ resistance
 Throwing overweight javelins
 Rebounding drill with a weighted vest for b-ball

7. Strength Topography
 Strength topography is the comparative
strength of different muscle groups in the
body.
 An athlete can be extremely strong in one
movement, say bench press, but extremely weak
in another, such as a barbell row.
 Estimated ratios exist between the different
muscle groups in the body. For example, the
hamstrings should be 2/3 as strong as the
quadricep muscle group.

8. Strength Topography
Ankle: Plantar Flexion/Dorsiflexion 3:1
Knee: Extension/Flexion 3:2

9. Strength Topography
 Hip Extension/Flexion 1:1
 Elbow Flexion/Extension 1:1

10. Strength Topography
 Lumbar Spine Flexion/Extension 1:1

11. Exercise Selection for
Beginning Athletes
 Strengthen muscle groups, that, if weak can
cause potential injuries.
 Neck in wrestling/football
 Rotator cuff in throwing sports
 Hamstrings in running sports

12. Exercise Selection for
Beginning Athletes
 Train the large muscles in the core/trunk of
the athlete. Specifically, the abdominal wall
and spinal erectors should be trained.
 Lifts should be performed through the full
range of motion.
 Use only submaximal efforts, do not “max-
out”
 3 year rule….

13. Selecting Exercises for
Advanced Athletes
 Specificity becomes more important the
more advanced an athlete is.
 Training drills that are not relevant are often
discarded for the regime of an elite athlete.

14. How are exercises specific?
 The working muscles
 The type of resistance
 The rate of force development (RFD)
 The velocity of movement

15. Working Muscles
 The same working muscles used in the given
sport movement should be emphasized in the
training regimen
 Examples:
 Rock Climbers do not want to spend a lot of time
doing barbell squats
 Basketball/Football players do want to spend a lot
of time doing barbell squats

16. Type of Resistance
 Barbell (MostTypical)
 Compound
 Bands/Chains+Barbell
 Lighter bands are usually better for sports
 Bands/Cords
 Bodyweight
 Pushups, Situps, Pistol Squats

17. Rate of Force Development
 The goal of training can lean towards:
 Increasing Fmm (low velocity/high force
movements)
 This strategy is only useful is ESD is less than 50%
 (no modern coach in the west actually calculates
ESD)
 Decreasing ESD (high velocity/low force
movements)

18. A practical question:
 2 athletes of similar dimensions have equal
standing vertical jumps. They have different
Fmm abilities though. Athlete A squats 1x
their bodyweight, while athlete B squats 1.5x
bodyweight.
 For which of these athletes will improving
Fmm in the barbell squat be more beneficial?
Why?

19. Velocity of Movement
 Performance will tend to improve relative to
the velocity of the performed movement
 The book recommends training movement
velocities in the same velocity range as the
given sport
 This is very impractical, hard to emulate

20. Velocity of Movement
 Strength exercises should not be performed
withTOO light weight and high velocity, if
this is done, Fmm will not improve.
 Research shows that strength gains were
much higher in bench press when the reps
were done at 1 rep every 4 seconds or slower.
Trying to move as fast as possible limited
strength gains. (seems to contradict
Waterbury)

21. Velocity of Movement
 TrainingTempo
 Tempo is not really discussed in this chapter
 Lifting tempos are broken down into
eccentric phase, isometric phase, and
concentric phase of the lift.
 An example of tempo would be 3-0-1. This
would mean the “down” part of the lift would
take 3 seconds, the isometric part would be
disregarded, and the concentric part should
take one second

22. Tempo Recommendations
 Athletes tend not to like tempo and will often
disregard it if you don’t enforce it
 Tempo doesn’t make much sense when you
think about motor recruitment, but the
purpose of lifting is not always motor
recruitment; that can be left up to sport
specific exercises in some/many situations

23. Tempo Recommendations
 It is OK to use tempo in static lifts if you are
also using explosive exercises in your
program.
 It can be a good idea to use tempo only for
the eccentric part of the lift, such as a 5-0-1
tempo. This way you can still have the
athlete perform the concentric part
somewhat explosively.

24. Velocity of Movement
 During static lifts (bench, squat, presses,
pulls, etc.) it can be a good idea to prescribe a
lifting tempo. The main reason for this is that
it is a variable that can be manipulated
throughout the year to prevent
accommodation

25. Peak Contraction Principle
The peak contraction principle is
based on adding more resistance to
the parts of the lifts that are more
difficult
This is effective in increasing strength
but might have a limited value in
transfer to sport abilities

26. Another Method of Peak
Contraction
 In this exercise, resistance is manually applied
in the most difficult part of the movement.

27. Accommodating Resistance
 Cam Based Machines
 Chains/Bands
Attempting to maximize tension through
the whole range of motion rather than one
point

28. So What?
 I am in favor of the ‘general’ theory of
strength.
 Basically, no matter how you lift weights, you
will not be able to emulate the muscle-
tendon interaction present in most sporting
movements
 Therefore it is usually pointless to get carried
away with strange weightlifting exercises,
although it is good to switch things up for the
sake of variety

29. More General Theory
 Increase your muscle mass and power with
power lifts (squats/bench) and olympic
variants. Do your lifts slow and controlled to
increase strength. Don’t worry about the
weight room to increase speed, worry about
the weight room to increase force.
 Use sport specific exercises and plyometrics
to address rate of force development and
velocity, but remember straight velocity
cannot be improved.