Athletes in any sporting discipline follow routines every day in order to stay in peak condition and to better performance in competition. While you may be in great shape from your daily practices and workouts, have you also found that overcoming your plateau seems to be a constant concern? This can often keep you from performing at your best, since it is both physically and psychologically challenging.
Ironically, these obstacles come about because you are dedicated to your practice, and you have conditioned your body to adapt to endurance changes more easily. Other issues that will also affect trying to break through to your next potential also include:
• Muscle memory
• Sport focused conditioning
• Lack of movement variation
• Psychological inertia
Each of these points can influence your training without even realizing it, and that is one reason that strength training workouts for athletes can make such a big difference in overall performance for any type of sport.
Most disciplines will involve training routines that combine cardio for endurance and strength training for power, but they are still designed to be specific for the muscles and drive that you need to be a better athlete in your sport. As a result, part of your body conditioning becomes very muscle memory based, and this is usually within a certain range of motion. It also means that half of the supporting muscles that you need to be in top shape in order to get better at your sport are being overlooked. How do you remedy this?
Strength Training Workouts Even The Playing Field
As a great example of how effective strength training workouts can be, looking at distance runners can be a helpful start. Most of the conditioning is based on endurance and speed, with a strong focus on building leg muscles. The result is also that upper body can be overlooked, and resilience plateaus are reached as the body becomes acclimated to practices.
With strength training workouts, the runner is now being challenges to build muscles in parts of the body and in ways that are not familiar. This practice not only resets physical responses, but also changes the mental approach to workouts. As a result, improvements are seen by building ancillary muscles which also drive the runner, and by sharpening the mental focus to be prepared for more unexpected movements. This can further improve performance.
Although athletes have a better overall body composition than most other people, this does not always mean that they are in whole body ideal shape. Continuing with the example of a distance runner, the idea of building upper body to increase endurance and speed also comes into play. More power in the arms not only helps to drive the runner forward at a faster rate, but the increase in mass also causes better endurance through increased cardiovascular action when competing.
This example carries across to every sport, from tennis and football to basketball. When your body is balanced, and when you push yourself in one form of working out, it carries over into whichever sport you compete in. Many athletes are finding that strength training not only helps to challenge them to become better at what they do, but also gives the body a chance to actually perform to its fullest, instead of just in the range of motion that it is accustomed to.