Originally Posted by
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.