Sports performance is a massive topic. When you consider everything that can impact on an athletes performance it can become a little overwhelming. Whilst some strength and conditioning coaches believe they are more important than they actually are, it’s important to know where you can be most effective. In Budapest, 2017, The World Swimming Championship 50m freestyle final finished within 21 seconds. The placing where decided by literally milliseconds. With the margins so small, knowing where you can effect change is vital.
Start At The End
Before you look at where you can be most effective, you need to know where you are going. What is the end goal? Once you know this, you can start to break down what it takes to be achieved. Sticking with swimming, If you want to win gold, you need to be able to swim 50m within 21 seconds. Now you’ve got that point, work backwards. How is this achieved, are there different sections in the race, do you need to be able to go a certain speed, what characteristics enable you to go these speeds. If in doubt, keep asking “but how can I do that”.
Choose The Factor Strength and Conditioning Can Most improve
Again, I am going to stick with the swimming. So you need to swim 50m in 21 seconds? From research, we can find that the start (time to 15m) can account for up to 30% of the final race time. 30% is massive! We can also find out that strength, power and rate of force production can greatly improve start time.
As a strength and conditioning coach, you now have 30% of the race you can make a difference to! The next step would be to assess what makes up and good start and where your athlete is lacking. From here, you can start to devise a plan of action to attack these weaknesses.
Is This Relevant For Personal Training?
Yes, of course it is! Just because you’re not shooting for a gold medal doesn’t mean you don’t have an end game. Every Personal Training Client in Berkshire will receive a FREE CONSULTATION.From here, our coaches will develop a plan of attack, working backwards from the end goal allows us to build a suitable training plan to get you there.