How does strength training affect athletes?

When we think of strength training, especially in the traditional sense, images of raw muscle strength and muscle hypertrophy are some of the first that come to mind, but the reality of strength and it’s many components is far more nuanced when training for athletic success. Athletes need a much larger range of charachterisitcs through their training with explosive movements requiring them to not only have increased strength quantities, but also adequate rates of force developement (The amount of time it takes for muscles to contract), decreased amortization phases (The time at the “bottom” of any reversal. For example the time it takes to reverse the direction of your momentum from going down to exploding upward during a vertical jump), and increased tendon stiffness. (This allows tendon connecting bone to muscle to have a greater pull and “as tendon stiffness increases rate of force developement should improve, because force transmission from muscle to bone would be more rapid” (Burgess et al. 2007).

What is tendon stiffness?

Tendon stiffness is a key component for athletic potential and in a 2007 research study published in the Journal of Strenght and Conditioning Research done at the University of Salford tendon stiffness was found to be responsible for up to 21% of jump height variance (Burgess et al. 2007). Tendon stiffness is the measure of stiffness in the connective elements of tendons that provide a link from our muscles to our bones. When we have loose tendons, our muscular contractions that are aimed at increasing explosion can be wasted as our tendons aren’t able to fully transmission the contraction to the movement of our bones. Think of the tendons like a hinge connecting a door to a wall. If the hinge is loose when we slam a door it will take longer to close as it wiggles and wastes energy trying to maintain the stability of the door while a tight, stiff hinge slams the door shut with minimal energy wasted. By increasing the stiffness in our tendons we can retain the energy of our muscular contractions and create strong explosive movements. The increase in jump height correlated with increased tendon stiffness makes logical sense as stiffer tendons will have a greater pulling force on our bones after muscular contractions. If this pulling force is greater, a greater percentage of our muscular capability will be available to use, increasing the effects of muscular training and increasing athleticism.

How can we increase tendon stiffness?

Isometric contractions have been linked to increases in tendon stiffness and the bodies abiliy to maintain force through the transmission from muscle to bone. Isometric contractions involve holding a position with no movement or pushing against immovable objects with maximal intents. During these contractions the length of the muscle-tendon units is held at a near constant leaving the leftover tension to be subjected to the tendons, cuaing adaptations that strengthen and stiffen these elements. Isometric training has been shown to increase tendon stiffness up to 61.6% with these increases in stiffness correlating to “significant increases in jump height” (Burgess et al. 2007).

How can we implement isometric contractions?

By pairing isometric contractions with muscular developements that increases strenght and rate of force developement while decreasing amortizatiion phase we can optimally train our bodies to create explosive movements that maintain our muscular contractions and minimize wasted energy during energy transmissions. In Change Performance’s online programs overcoming isometrics (puhsing against immovable objects), are incorporated alongside these muscular devcelopements to create the best athletic developemenets possible.

Sources

Burgess, Katherine E et al. “Plyometric vs. isometric training influences on tendon properties and muscle output.” Journal of strength and conditioning research vol. 21,3 (2007): 986-9. doi:10.1519/R-20235.1