The Old Canard about Weightlifting: Maybe Not so Fast

[greybeard]

Day was in every sport that all the skill players, that meant everybody on a basketball court, were warned off weightlifting, would ruin your shot, yadayadayada. Now, everybody has sworn that buggaboo off. Perhaps too quickly.

Here's the deal. What is it besides great bodies that makes great ballplayers emerge at early ages? They figured it out better than the rest of us and made it look easy because part of figuring "it" out was that it was easy. In other words, they used their bodies as laboritories and were able to figure out how to coordinate a variety of tasks with what was going on with the rest of the body to make the machines in the body work in sync and produce repeatable and reliable results.

Well, maybe you don't agree with this, but just accept the postulate for a moment (come on grey, not another impenetrably long one, its Xmass, be nice). Okay, I'll get to the point. So, our great ballplayers are smart because they figure things out, they figure out what works efficiently and easy.

Now, can you break that line of intelligence? Why not. You make someone do thousands of reps that operate on exactly the opposite premise, you know, in order to "isolate" a particular muscle group in order to make that group stronger, you break the ability that made the athlete great--the ability to figure out how to use muscle groups in sync. So, everyone knows that collapsing the chest and head down when you are doing a curle makes it easier. But, what trainer would let an athlete do that. They want that bicep to pop, by gosh, not for the work to be easier smoother, just the opposite.

So, confusion sets in and the ability to continue to grow athletically, to continue to figure things out on the paridigm of what is easy gets muddled, and you get great ballplayers being unable to make foul shots.

Worse still, if we assume, and we should, that that same ability to figure things out applies to the greater context of what is happening on the floor, the way the energy is flowing and to fit into it or disrupt it, is also muddled.

Just a theory. I kept it short (for me at least).

[dukepsy1963]

when I was growing up my dad said that the best boxers were usually not "muscle bound." Their muscles, he said, were there, but their bodies were smooth for the most part. I think he was generally right.

He tried to introduce me to activities that developed coordination and body sense like swimming, speed bag, tennis, bicycling, etc. Jogging was not in vogue when I was a kid.

I should add that while he was an athletic man, his son was not and tended to excel in other things.... I can still do the speed bag however. My high point at Duke (athletics-wise) was knocking out a guy in physical education boxing class who outweighed me by 20 pounds! That was it for me...the zenith of my athletic career.

It's been downhill ever since then....

[jma4life]

Look, if you sit in a weight room and train like a bodybuilder, then yea, that's going to make you a worse athlete and will also ruin your technique in your sport. You will regress in skills and in speed, quickness, jumping ability and coordination.

On the other hand, if you follow intelligent training and use weightlifting not as your primary method of training but as a supplement, you will more than likely benefit.

What does intelligent lifting mean. First of all, you are not going to do curls or other lifts that isolate body parts. Instead, you're going to use multi joint compound movements.

Secondly, you're not going to do thousands of reps per session. These guys aren't body builders, they're athletes. For a given exercise, no more than maybe 70 reps including warmups.

The bottom line is that provided weights are used correctly (and most though not all s & c programs at big colleges know what they are doing), they will enable athletes to jump higher, become stronger, quicker and faster. As long as the athletes continue to play their sport, then their skills and coordination will not diminish.

Now, there are certainly some athletes who focus too much attention on the weight room at the expense of improving their skills. I've often felt that Demarcus would be better suited working on his dribbling and shot non stop rather than training with navy seals. But with a proper balance of training, weightlifting can be tremendously helpful.

[dukepsy1963]

genes, genes, genes... I got artistic ones that made things easy in that area.
I thank my mom and a host of musicians in past generations for those.

You don't have any choice with respect to those, whether tis athletics or music, etc........

[greybeard]

Look, if you sit in a weight room and train like a bodybuilder, then yea, that's going to make you a worse athlete and will also ruin your technique in your sport. You will regress in skills and in speed, quickness, jumping ability and coordination.

On the other hand, if you follow intelligent training and use weightlifting not as your primary method of training but as a supplement, you will more than likely benefit.

What does intelligent lifting mean. First of all, you are not going to do curls or other lifts that isolate body parts. Instead, you're going to use multi joint compound movements.

Secondly, you're not going to do thousands of reps per session. These guys aren't body builders, they're athletes. For a given exercise, no more than maybe 70 reps including warmups.

The bottom line is that provided weights are used correctly (and most though not all s & c programs at big colleges know what they are doing), they will enable athletes to jump higher, become stronger, quicker and faster. As long as the athletes continue to play their sport, then their skills and coordination will not diminish.

Now, there are certainly some athletes who focus too much attention on the weight room at the expense of improving their skills. I've often felt that Demarcus would be better suited working on his dribbling and shot non stop rather than training with navy seals. But with a proper balance of training, weightlifting can be tremendously helpful.

I'm not suggesting throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It seems that you've had constructive experience with weightlifting as part of training. When I was a kid, which was a long, long time ago, our coach, mine and Matt Laurance's, had players weight lifting in the off season. Doing isolmetrics too, using a crazy gizzmo consisting of a board you stood on, with a thing that would catch a link of a chain, and a chain attached to a wooden dowel the size of a closet rod. But, I digress.

My point is a subtler one. See, whether you know it or not, we all have misconceptions about how to use parts of our body in coordination with other parts to perform a broad range of tasks, many elemental that are pieces of important sports-performance movements.

When I say all, that includes many top flight athletes, only they usually at least begin with a brilliance regarding such matters that most of us do not develop. How we go wrong and, more importantly, how we discover how we are doing things and how we might do them better is an interest of mine (you think).

It occurred to me that much of the instruction that we get in the gym about how to build muscle is precisely backwards from how we would go about performing those same tasks to make them "easy", rather than muscle building. Repeat them enough and we, all of us, become dyslexic--really get confused about what is easier. In fact, swimming in the confusion is part of the way out, but that is for another time.

What can be for current time is an awareness on the part of trainers and trainees that there is a potential problem being created here that should be addressed. If, for example, one works the hamstrings to strengthen them and then immediately moves to working the quads, there is a good chance that doing the latter will be hampered, one will have to work harder to do the quad work, because the hamstrings, consciously or not, are still contracting, doing work in opposition. Only seems reasonable. Might even enhance the quad workout since the quads will have to work harder to lift 50 lbs if the hammies are working in opposition than if they were relaxed.

However, if a basketball player breezes through lower body work in this fashion throughout the off season and maybe even during the season, will the hamstrings work in opposition when the quads want to help the body elevate?

In other words, if Shammrog really wants to dunk a basketball, does he not have to address this quanundrum? And, if Shammrog must, don't we all on DBR. And, if everyone on DBR must, the implications for the basketball players and fans in this country are huge. I put it to you that we have just caught a glimpse of the tippy tip of the iceberg, which could, if Shammrog is to achieve his goal, turn out to be huge.

It's the way it works in science; Shammrog is the equivolant of Sir Isaac's accorn, or was it an apple. Say goodnight, Greybeard. "Goodnight, Greybead."

[dkbaseball]

To some degree it depends on the athlete and how much natural strength he has. When I came to Duke I had baseball skills out the wazoo, but I was small and weak and had a below average high school fastball. I started lifting to make significant strength increases -- contra all the conventional wisdom of the time -- and jacked up my arm and bat about ten percent, which made all the difference in the world. Though I never could get the fastball into the 90s, I was quite competitive at Duke, and have the program's 6th best career ERA.

I just don't think you can be competitive in sports today without lifting, unless you have tremendous natural strength. Heck, even in golf, which is supposed to be all timing, rhythm and touch. PGA players are all in the weight room now chasing after Tiger (who apparently can bench 300).

[greybeard]

To some degree it depends on the athlete and how much natural strength he has. When I came to Duke I had baseball skills out the wazoo, but I was small and weak and had a below average high school fastball. I started lifting to make significant strength increases -- contra all the conventional wisdom of the time -- and jacked up my arm and bat about ten percent, which made all the difference in the world. Though I never could get the fastball into the 90s, I was quite competitive at Duke, and have the program's 6th best career ERA.

I just don't think you can be competitive in sports today without lifting, unless you have tremendous natural strength. Heck, even in golf, which is supposed to be all timing, rhythm and touch. PGA players are all in the weight room now chasing after Tiger (who apparently can bench 300).

Agreed. Terrific story, by the way. Pitching a baseball has got to be one of the most complicated athletic feats in sport. Many, many different machines at work in sync; need to be able to relax the appropriate muscles to allow angle expansion to occur as a result of centrifical force. Lower and core body strength to be able to create that force and upper body strength to keep your arm from injury due to the torque and to maintain integrity in the final, excelerating machines in the pitch. Sound about right? Can't be.

[cato]

I just don't think you can be competitive in sports today without lifting, unless you have tremendous natural strength. Heck, even in golf, which is supposed to be all timing, rhythm and touch. PGA players are all in the weight room now chasing after Tiger (who apparently can bench 300).

Precisely. I can't imagine a sport (or game, if you don't consider golf to be a sport) that requires more body control than golf. And the greatest player of this generation is the guy who essentially introduced weight lifting to the game. That said, it is safe to assume that his trainer is a cut above the juiceheads at LA Fitness.

[MarineTwinsDad]

Two other athletes come to mind: Michael Jordan and Evander Holyfield. I've read comments by MJ regarding his practice of working out with weights the in the morning before games. Holyfield was the champion and undefeated for years, but used weights to sculpt as well as strengthen.

[greybeard]

Precisely. I can't imagine a sport (or game, if you don't consider golf to be a sport) that requires more body control than golf. And the greatest player of this generation is the guy who essentially introduced weight lifting to the game. That said, it is safe to assume that his trainer is a cut above the juiceheads at LA Fitness.

Interesting, I think that the jury is still out on weight lifting and golf. Fitness, core strength, leg strength as a product of cardio, definitely. But, at the end of the day, I'm not sure about this weight lifting thing. Also, from what little I've watched of such matters on the golf channel, any strength training is carefully, carefully choreographed for the golf swing.

It is, after all, a swing, not a hit. And, let us not forget, these guys perform a movement that requires virtually every major and minor muscle group in the body to work in amazing synchronicity, and perform those movements in off the charts proficiency well before they ever arrive in the weight room.

So, whatever it is that I've been talking about, pro golfers seem to have it covered big time.

Whether the weights in the end, especially if they involve building arm strength, even just the forearms, work as a plus or a minus when these guys are hitting short wedges, or in between "feel" shots for all the marbles, remains anyone's guess. Right now the Tour is a power game. You hit it close to 300 off the T or you don't compete, unless your name is Fred Funk or someone like him, and there are powerfully few of those.

In the meantime, the Euros, guys like Sergio and the Swedish guy who wears that funny hat and who literally eats sand to improve elimination ain't lifting no stinkin weights. They seem to be having their way with our boys in the Ryder Cup. So, if our guys don't want to continue eating sand come Ryder Cup time, they just might need to trade their weights for a reasonably palatable colonic.