Dear Thinker,

Concerning Olympic lifts vs. throws and jumps...I agree with you in the fact that throws and jumps are superior especially for football players. But do you think that doing, say, medicine ball throws, is enough weight to apply a great enough of amount of force to increase the athletes rate of force development. Also, I think that it is more important to strength train using pulls and squats, mixed with sprints and resisted sprints. Yet, I see very few programs at the collegiate level training consistently over 80% with a lot of volume under 80%. While many coaches will say the max effort method is too "dangerous" for the athlete, they will still have an athlete training the snatch, clean and jerk. The weights the majority of these athletes are using in the Olympic lifts lifts are not great enough to elicit the highest amount of force production.

Steve,

Terms such as rate of force development (RFD), maximal strength, force production, training percentages, and so on, analogous to facets of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, are in fact, relative and are not meaningful until compared to a secondary fixture.

In the case of sports training, this fixture is the competition exercise - the specific work regime of each individual.

This is why I have long since abandoned the debate over exercise selection that does not fall within the realm of special physical preparation.

The framework of thinking associated with powerlifting vs Olympic lifting vs High Intensity training and so on, actually has little relevance towards training objectives other than powerlifting, Olympic lifting, strongman, and bodybuilding.

The discussion of RFD, maxium strength, training percentages and so on, may only intelligently be initiated after a specific competition scenario is described.

All that matters is that sport's results improve. The problem is that the monitoring process utilized by the corporate level of collegiate coaching is 180 out from what's relevant.

Training monitoring must assess drills that register high in transference to the competition exercise.

The current emphasis and contents of record boards on weight room walls, and the contents of most weight rooms, are an excellent example of how misguided the profession is in its monitoring efforts.

The problem is further compounded by the fact that sport coaches are just as uninformed in sport science as their strength coaches and thereby rely upon the monitoring of the same misguided drills that strength coaches hang their hats on.

This has everything to do with the fact that the industry is built upon the misguided foundations of exercise science/physiology.

Sport science/physiology is what is fundamentally important and precisely what this country's sport system and academia are deficient in.

The exercise science/physiology mindset is associated with questions such as:
- which forms of training are more appropriate to develop RFD and maximal strength.
- what's better for football, Olympic lifting or powerlifting
- what are the best conditioning drills for football

The sport science/physiology mindset is associated with questions such as:
- which forms of training are more appropriate to develop RFD and maximal strength for a guard in a 2 back, pro style offense, specific to the play sets in which the guard is pulling.
- what special strength mean(s) transfer the highest relative to the neuromuscular and kinematic structure of the pulling guard coming out of his stance referenced above
- how do you address the sequence and development of energy system training of a no huddle, hurry up, pass heavy, spread offense versus a 2 back, play action, pro style run based offense

The misinformed and misguided efforts of the coaching industry, aka the tumbling disaster known as the US sports system and related academic and certifying courses, damage no population more severely than the athletes themselves.

I enjoy providing an alternative approach to those who will listen.