In general, resistance training is used for the purpose of achieving one of five different goals or a combination of those goals. Those goals are typically to increase strength, increase fitness, improve appearance, body building, or to enhance athletic performance.
Before going further, however, I think it is important to explain why I use the term “resistance training” rather than commonly used terms like strength training or weight lifting. The term strength training implies the primary goal of the activity is to increase strength and that is not always the case. The term weight lifting is not always accurate because training can involve the use of such things as resistance bands, medicine balls, or pneumatic (air) resistance. In each of those examples, there is no traditional weight being used to act as a source of resistance. As a result, resistance training is a more all-encompassing description of the type of activity that will be discussed.
Just as there is a difference in the design of programs written with the goal of maximally increasing strength and those written to improve fitness, there are also differences in programs written to enhance athletic performance. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the program adjustments that can be made when the primary goal of training is to improve athletic performance.
Train Movements, Not Muscles.
In the sport of bodybuilding competitors are focused on the development of specific muscles and thus select exercises based on their ability to target a specific muscle or muscle group. The movement pattern used to train the muscle is not a consideration as long as the targeted muscle(s) are being recruited. This same thought process is common when the goal of training is fitness. There is more of an emphasis on training a specific muscle(s) than training a movement.
This is in direct contact with the thought process when developing a training program for an athlete. Exercises are selected, as closely as possible, based on how well they replicate movements found in the sport. Training the muscles is not the priority. Training the movement is. An easy example of this is in selecting exercises to train the lower body. Bodybuilders, or someone training to improve appearance, could select exercises such as leg press, hack squat, leg extension, or leg curl to train the lower body and for the stated goal each of the exercises listed would be appropriate.
