Recently, someone asked me: Generally, for athletes where it's not just about strength or vertical jump numbers, how do improvements in the weight room and speed/vertical translate to improvements in the actual sport? (Basketball was the sport he was referring to)
My reply: As for weight and vertical improvements transferring to actually getting better at the game is a very interesting question and one I'm going to write in detail about soon. But for now, I'll just say this and give you some insight to how I see it. Let's say getting your squat up 50 lbs. in an off-season could mean one less step taken in a full court sprint (totally pulled that one straight outta my ass).
Basketball is entirely acceleration. So, when the game is based on how fast your first 3 or 5 steps are, the room for improvement is quite small. And that one less step you gained from upping your squat could be moot in the actual game. But at the same time, maybe you're also jumping 2 inches higher because of the squat gains, and now you seem more athletic and college coaches who saw you as not athletic enough now see you in a slightly different light. Plus, because of all that mental toughness you gained from those brutal squat sessions, you've thoroughly toughened up and you're aggressive as hell on the court and back down from nobody. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...there are other things like the energy demands from increasing your weight room numbers getting in the way of practicing your sport effectively or maybe getting your squat up wasn't what you, the individual, needed to improve. Maybe you could have benefitted from a healthy dose of shock jumps and sprints. Maybe you needed a break from everything in the off-season (there is a reason it's called an off-season!).
Regardless, everyone is clearly an individual and their training should reflect this. One guy might shoot like Dirk Nowitzki and jump like Dirk Diggler (I actually don't know how high D-Diggs could jump, but he did have, uhh, some extra weight, um, holding him down :) ) And if that guy were to put 3 inches on his vert, he'd see some improvements in his game. Take another guy who can fly, but builds a house with the bricks he puts up on the court, and he won't be getting much better because of 3 more inches on his VJ (not to mention the time it would take to do it for a guy who's already soaring). Maybe that guy needs to forget the general training and get his butt in the gym putting up 500 shots a day to get better. So, while it would be great if I could confidently say, put so and so amount of weight on your "name any cliched compound movement that everyone says you gotta do" and you'll get "x" times better, I can't. Figure out what your deficiencies and attack. That's as foolproof as I can make it.
nice!
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