What is Strength and Conditioning?

Ok guys and girls, welcome to my first proper article for Macro Man. In my only other article so far I wrote a little information about myself to explain my background and how I got where I am today. If you haven’t read that yet, feel free to browse through it.

 I thought I’d start off with something simple – my opinion on what Strength & Conditioning (S&C) is:

“Strength and Conditioning is the physical and physiological development of athletes for elite sport performance. The role of the S&C coach is to bridge the gap between the theory of training and applied training, helping athletes to become faster, stronger and more flexible and to build their muscular endurance so they perform better and remain injury free.”

Done. Next Question? I joke. Let’s expand a little.

A lot of people think that being an S&C Coach is the same as being a personal trainer – there are similarities, I will admit, but that is not completely correct.

A personal trainer is employed to improve the health, fitness and livelihood of the general public, most often for aesthetic purposes; people seeking the beach body look, some looking to simply lose weight or improve cardiovascular fitness for health reasons, or, for the average young male, to be able to confidently get the guns out when the sun’s out!

S&C Coaches however are here to help people improve their physical performance at their chosen sport or activity. This comes in many forms; building strength and power, increasing speed, improving performance throughout the energy systems, and, potentially the most important, decreasing the risk of injury.

When I speak about building strength and power, I don’t mean turning athletes into muscle-bound bodybuilders. I mean helping athletes to improve their performance through strengthening the muscles in the motions most applicable to their sport, or improving the performance of the muscle groups that will have the highest carryover to their performance.

For example, at Harlequins we place a large emphasis on movement quality rather than just the amount of weight being lifted. This way we are activating the appropriate muscle groups, and decreasing the risk of injury.


Does doing a barbell squat or trap-bar deadlift have carryover? I believe so as it can positively improve the amount of force produced, and therefore apply more force through the floor when trying to reach top speed.

Next up, when I mention increasing speed, I’m not just talking about taking a million pitter patter steps in twenty metres using a speed ladder. I’m talking about improving mechanical efficiency so that maximum force is being exerted with every step and energy isn’t being wasted with wayward arm swing or leg movement.

“Speed, to improve it - basically, by focusing on the start and basic mechanics.”

Improving energy system performance is a little more complicated but to simplify it as best I can, it’s not always necessary to work out until you puke! This is quite often actually a detriment to results believe it or not. Neither is CrossFit necessarily the answer … but we won’t get onto that now. That’s a rant for another day (before you all hate me, I have nothing against CrossFit – I believe it’s doing wonderful things for certain population groups, however I don’t believe it is the be all and end all for exercise).

What I mean about energy system performance is understanding the needs requirements of your chosen sport, and training in a way that will enhance your performance for that type of activity. For instance, American Football Offensive Linemen are never going to cover 5k in a game, especially in one go, so why ask them to run 5k as a testing measure? Is there a need for aerobic base training? I believe so (contrary to a former article of mine). But is it all that needs to be done? No. Let’s get specific and see the gains.

With regards decreasing the risk of injury, there is no real downside to this in my opinion. Players of any sport at an Elite level are pushing their bodies to the limit regularly, and in order to keep them playing we need to keep them healthy. Simple.

Ok. So I think I’ve now pretty much covered what I believe S&C is, and what the role of an S&C Coach is. This should help you to understand my perspective when I write future articles for this site, and will also hopefully allow you to truly appreciate this industry.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you come back to read more such as upcoming articles on different recovery techniques, speed training and mechanics, and many more. 

This article was written by Rob Nitman. BSc. ASCC.

You can get hold of him here:

http://nitmanperformancetraining.com
nitmanperformance@gmail.com
Twitter – @NitmanPT
Facebook – Nitman Performance
Instagram – @nitmanperformance

References

1. Http://www.eis2win.co.uk/pages/Strength_and_Conditioning.aspx. Accessed 09/12/2014
2. Yetter, Mike. & Moir, Gavin. L. The Acute Effects of Heavy Back and Front Squats on Speed During Forty-Meter Sprint Trials. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 22 (1), 2008.
3. Mannie, Ken. Speed Improvement: Its Machinery & Mechanics. Coach & Athletic Director, 70 (7), 2001.