DEAR STRENGTH COACH, YOU’RE FIRED

A YouTube video recently popped up on my screen titled NFL Strength Coach Debunks Everything.

You had me at debunks.

I love to debunk, love debunkers, and certainly love me a good debunking. It exposes the errors of long held beliefs, and the strength coaching profession is a classic example of believing in some weird shit that just ain’t so.

So after listening to this interview with long time NFL Strength Coach Mark Asanovich, it was obvious his thoughts would not only piss off a lot of strength coaches and athletes who just like to jack tons of steel, but answer the question: “Are strength coaches necessary at all?”

In Muscle Growth With The viiivPRO (highly recommended read), I reference The Problem of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Review by PJ Rasch (1955), The Problem of Muscle Hypertrophy: Revisited by Buckner et al (2016), and Exercise-Induced Changes in Muscle Size Do Not Contribute to Exercise-Induced Changes in Muscle Strength by Leonneke et al (2019).

All of these papers show us one thing: to this day there is still no evidence that a change in muscle size contributes to a change in muscle strength. NO EVIDENCE!

Yet, we continue to teach athletes to lift weights to get bigger muscles so they can become stronger.

Not so.

Now couple the above with this according to Coach Asanovich:

“There is not one bit of scientific literature that links an increase in strength to an increase in performance. It’s assumed.”

So if increasing muscle size with weight lifting doesn’t increase strength, and getting stronger doesn’t increase performance, why do athletes need strength coaches?

They don’t.

Furthermore, why do athletes even need to lift weights?

Well, they don’t, and probably shouldn’t. 

No need messing up a good thing, and weight lifting is good at doing just that. Have you seen a modern day weight room? It’s an injury laboratory. (See Can Athletes Weight Lift Too Much? Tom Brady's Workouts Trigger a Debate, which revisits a historic concern in sports history about the potential adverse effects of weight lifting for athletes.) 

“When I was a traditionally-based practitioner,” Coach said, “I had injuries in the weight room as a result of the training I was prescribing. I was hurting kids.” 

He explained how weight lifting creates internal shearing forces which create minor injuries that accumulate over time, and even though those minor insults may not be obvious immediately, eventually they will show up on the field of play.

Is it any wonder it seems like modern day athletes are injured all the time?

Doesn’t matter though, the strength coaches certainly don’t want to hear it.

“The coaches will say the injury happened on the field, but it didn’t, it started in the weight room. They’re still not making the connection,” Asanovich stated.

I’ll make the connection. There’s a much better way. It’s called GET OUT OF THE WAY!

Athletes are born. They can, and will do what most others can’t without any intervention whatsoever from a strength coach. To be as successful as possible, athletes need just a few things: optimize their skills, be as powerful as possible, and avoid inflammation.

1. Improving skill comes from many reps of actual games skills at game speed. That’s what team coaches and practices are for. The coaches help optimize technique to be repeated over and over again in practice at competition speed. No equipment necessary. No  strength coach needed.

2. When it comes to improving power, or “speed strength,” lifting weights is a far less effective approach. In fact, it’s a waste of time. The greatest improvements in the ability to voluntarily activate musculature come from exposure to high loads. The highest loads can only be achieved with an isometric effort in the strongest angle of the range of motion, and compared to concentric and eccentric contractions, isometric contractions yield far greatest improvement in voluntary activation, neurological efficiency, and strength. (Read the science in viiivPRO Makes Weight Lifting Obsolete?)

But there’s more to consider:

Getting to the highest loads quickly — rate of force development — is what’s important. Motor unit recruitment, maximum firing rates, and contraction force are all highest when producing a fast contraction. Many strength coaches continue to erroneously apply this concept in the form of quickly heaving barbells up and down repeatedly. (Read the science in Eighty-Five Seconds Too Long)

What they may not understand is that there does not have to be movement to achieve a high rate of force development. That is the beauty of isometrics — tremendous force and load can be created within 5 seconds, and just that small amount of time will yield far greater changes in neurological efficiency than weight lifting could ever dream of. Oh, and one other thing: All-out isometrics are the best way to protect the largest and strongest motor units which tend to go first contributing to “losing a step.”

Remember, it’s not about the load you can move, it’s about the load you can create quickly against something that doesn’t move. 

3. “My job in the NFL,” said Coach Asanovich, “was to protect my players from the rigors of sport, not add to the rigors of sport.” That’s smart. So my question is: Why not take this guiding principle all the way to the least rigorous end of the rigorous spectrum?

Inflammation does not enhance performance. Practice creates inflammation. Playing the game creates inflammation. Isn’t that why athletes are always soaking in those ice baths? And then the strength coach wants to see the athlete for the weekly weight lifting program that creates inflammation? Does this make sense?

Unfortunately, inflammation — otherwise known as hypertrophy — is the same whether you lift heavy or light loads, so don’t even try to tell me 15 reps of a lighter weight is less inflaming, because it’s not. (Read the science in Muscle Growth With The viiivPRO)

With isometrics there is no motion. There are no shearing forces. There are no micro tears. There is no injury. THERE IS NO INFLAMMATION! A short burst of maximum effort provides all of the benefits an athlete needs without any downside. There is NOTHING to recover from. In fact, it produces an energizing effect, instead of fatigue.

Talk about not adding to the rigors of sport!

Consider this a challenge; a call to action for every strength coach, team coach, owner, general manager, university president, scout, athlete, etc. I’m looking for just one of you who will at least consider having a conversation about the implementation of a new approach to athlete performance programs. 

Do you have the courage to shun tradition? To be innovative? To be unique? To be a leader?

I can promise that your athletic teams, programs, and players will thrive once out from under the traditional way of strength coaches. Why not take a chance? As Coach Asanovich said:

“If you had a team that embraced a scientific way of doing things I think they would clean up.”

The science for this approach is clearly there.

Dear Strength Coach,

We’ve found something better and wish to go in a new direction. You’re fired.

Best Wishes,

The Athletes