I don't know if you interact on the comments but I enjoyed reading!
I agree to be sport specific means to work more at the specific sport in hand. However, do you think that developing strength, power, speed, endurance, overall fitness, etc as an accessory that does not overly impact sport specific training, would be beneficial?
I appreciate the exercises to complete these tasks can be taxing but for example during pre-season training would it be preferable to work on sport specific (triple jumps for example) or developing strength/decreasing fat free mass, etc?
PS the balance exercises are ridiculous but if a bosu ball comes flying onto a rugby pitch a lot of athletes will be prepared haha
I absolutely believe that developing all those fitness qualities are necessary for sport. I think what we see is that once people reach a certain "minimum threshold of training", that there is going to be diminishing returns and carry over to sport (this only happens in the 1% of athletes.) That doesn't mean don't do it though! At the elite level, a 1% difference can be a really big deal.
When I work with youth athletes in the gym, my approach to programming is working on and developing all the qualities you listed (strength, power, speed etc). Once we build and improve on that foundation, they obviously still need to build and optimize the skills of their sport - but that's for them to work on AT their sport. If I'm in the gym with a rugby player, I'm not trying to pretend I can simulate something they'd see on the pitch - BUT, if I was programming cardio for my rugby players, I'd make sure to consider what the game requirements are for their cardio.
If we take a look at data from this study (https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijspp/9/6/article-p925.xml), it breaks down NRL and Super League running profiles by position. What's important to me is that total distance covered by position matters (5km vs 8km in forwards vs halfback, stand-off,
and hooker). So my cardio programming needs to be different positionally alone.
Then, to best benefit the rugby players, I'd have to look at the breakdown of their running. From that same study, we see a roughly 7:1:0.7 ratio of low speed running, to medium running, to high speed running. This tells me that my conditioning needs to try and replicate this as close as possible.
So tl;dr - there isn't sport specific exercises, we should train to maximize the fitness qualities like you said. But there is sport informed programming, like the example I've provided here about ensuring our programming matches sport demands of our athletes.
Whole heartedly agree and I wasn't aware of that study but as you say it's important to identify the unique requirements of the sport, down to elements like position and presumably level of play. Be interesting to work with a team and look at the data some teams collect reference distance, speed, power, strength and movement time.
That helps a lot to frame and guide how differing athletes can have individualised programming. I tend to delve into the movement requirements/demands and gradually target that adaptation when dealing with injured populations. But I don't see many people from a coaching perspective because I'm an osteo but am interested to get an S&C qualification to work in that world more so.
I think this information/approach is important in the rehab side of things too, regardless of profession. If we have an injured athlete coming to us and we are responsible for getting them back to return to play - we can at minimum provide information to them about some standards they should be aiming to hit/work towards before being "cleared" back to play!
I don't know if you interact on the comments but I enjoyed reading!
I agree to be sport specific means to work more at the specific sport in hand. However, do you think that developing strength, power, speed, endurance, overall fitness, etc as an accessory that does not overly impact sport specific training, would be beneficial?
I appreciate the exercises to complete these tasks can be taxing but for example during pre-season training would it be preferable to work on sport specific (triple jumps for example) or developing strength/decreasing fat free mass, etc?
PS the balance exercises are ridiculous but if a bosu ball comes flying onto a rugby pitch a lot of athletes will be prepared haha
Appreciate the kind words!
I absolutely believe that developing all those fitness qualities are necessary for sport. I think what we see is that once people reach a certain "minimum threshold of training", that there is going to be diminishing returns and carry over to sport (this only happens in the 1% of athletes.) That doesn't mean don't do it though! At the elite level, a 1% difference can be a really big deal.
When I work with youth athletes in the gym, my approach to programming is working on and developing all the qualities you listed (strength, power, speed etc). Once we build and improve on that foundation, they obviously still need to build and optimize the skills of their sport - but that's for them to work on AT their sport. If I'm in the gym with a rugby player, I'm not trying to pretend I can simulate something they'd see on the pitch - BUT, if I was programming cardio for my rugby players, I'd make sure to consider what the game requirements are for their cardio.
If we take a look at data from this study (https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijspp/9/6/article-p925.xml), it breaks down NRL and Super League running profiles by position. What's important to me is that total distance covered by position matters (5km vs 8km in forwards vs halfback, stand-off,
and hooker). So my cardio programming needs to be different positionally alone.
Then, to best benefit the rugby players, I'd have to look at the breakdown of their running. From that same study, we see a roughly 7:1:0.7 ratio of low speed running, to medium running, to high speed running. This tells me that my conditioning needs to try and replicate this as close as possible.
So tl;dr - there isn't sport specific exercises, we should train to maximize the fitness qualities like you said. But there is sport informed programming, like the example I've provided here about ensuring our programming matches sport demands of our athletes.
Whole heartedly agree and I wasn't aware of that study but as you say it's important to identify the unique requirements of the sport, down to elements like position and presumably level of play. Be interesting to work with a team and look at the data some teams collect reference distance, speed, power, strength and movement time.
That helps a lot to frame and guide how differing athletes can have individualised programming. I tend to delve into the movement requirements/demands and gradually target that adaptation when dealing with injured populations. But I don't see many people from a coaching perspective because I'm an osteo but am interested to get an S&C qualification to work in that world more so.
I think this information/approach is important in the rehab side of things too, regardless of profession. If we have an injured athlete coming to us and we are responsible for getting them back to return to play - we can at minimum provide information to them about some standards they should be aiming to hit/work towards before being "cleared" back to play!