Building a general foundation of strength for H.S. athletes provides the greatest advantage in sports. Strength has direct carry over to athletic performance. Explosiveness, agility, muscle endurance, mobility and coordination are all influenced by strength. The role of a proper strength program also improves joint stability by strengthening the supporting muscles, ligaments and tendons, which reduces knee and other joint related injuries.

As H.S. athletes prepares for their sport, the focus should initially be on general strength training. Once their general strength is improved, the newly gained potential can be applied to skill based (sport specific) practice. The athlete can now transfer his/her strength gains to all of the other mentioned attributes that are critical to success in their respective sport.

This logical, science backed approach is often discounted or overlooked in most H.S. and college level athletics. You will often see misinformed coaches prescribing drills that hinder skill, while erroneously citing strength improvement. A sample of two examples of this are baseball players swinging a bat with extra weight to it, or a martial artist shadow boxing with dumbbells in their hand. First, this disrupts their skill and timing by introducing a different neuromuscular movement, and second, this drill does nothing to improve strength for H.S. athletes.

To summarize, the best approach to improve athletic performance is to increase strength in a general way (through multi-joint barbell training), then practice the sport to improve skill. They should NOT be combined.

At GN Strength & Conditioning, athletes work with us to become better at their sport, and we take that very seriously. We develop specific strength for H.S. athlete programs for pre-season and in-season athletes – which translates to success on the field, court, track or mat.