Strength Training For Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention: It’s not about t

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TweetStrength Training For Performance Enhancement and Injury Prevention: It’s not about the Bench Press!


I'm going to take a moment to revisit principles that should be viewed as simplistic but are unfortunately still being overlooked and neglected by athletes and coaches. These facts should be viewed as cornerstones of a quality athletic development training system.

To my extreme dismay, the bench press is still one of the most heralded strength training exercises for athletes of all ages, abilities, and experience levels. The bench press is just ONE of several great upper body exercises, and it is not the most important area of the body to emphasize if you want your athletes to be dominating.

The most important area for your athletes to emphasize is their center of power, which is the lumbo-pelvic-hip-complex, or more commonly referred to as the core and the posterior chain.

The posterior chain is made up of the gluteal muscles (the butt), hamstrings (the back of the legs), and spinal erectors (the low back area). The posterior chain runs from the back of the knees to the middle of the back. The core includes the low back muscles and the abdominal muscles on the side and in the front of the torso.

Think of the lumbo-pelvic-hip-complex, or posterior chain and core, as your athlete’s engine. The stronger the LPHC, or engine of the athlete, the more powerful the athlete can be. This means your athletes will squat more, deadlift more, run faster, jump higher, and be more explosive. If the LPHC area is weak in your athletes, the athletes will never perform to their potential and will also be at a higher risk for injury (especially injury to the knees, hips, and back).

Great exercises to work the lumbo-pelvic-hip-complex are pull-throughs, squats, wide grip deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts, lunge variations, single leg squat variations, box step ups, heavy sled pulls/pushes variations, rotational core training with med balls or cable column, bridgework (hip extension), band work (working hip rotator cuff), loaded traditional core work, tire flips, glute ham raises, reverse hyper extensions, Olympic lift variations, and much more.

Athletes will train for tests, and they will care about what their coach emphasizes as important. Believe me, every athlete that trains with me starts off bragging about the bench press. All of my athletes very quickly start bragging about their Olympic lifts, deadlifts, squats, sled pulls, 10 yard dash and pro-agility times, and their vertical jumps. These tests and exercises are far more important to, and indicative of, improved athletic performance that will matter on the field, court, or mat. This won't just happen on its own over night. Coaches have to select tests that emphasize the important exercises, and continually de-emphasize overblown exercises like the bench press through continued education and coaching.

If you as a player or coach want to gain a performance edge on the competition while reducing injury potential, you need to emphasize the LPHC in your training. I’m not saying to “throw the baby out with the bath water” and eliminate the bench press. If you think that, you aren’t listening. I’m just saying the LPHC is first place you should worry about being the strongest, and the place to devote the most training time to.

[Ryker77]

Tweetbut don't you hate it when the first question from a non-bb is "how much do you bench?"

I don't think anybody has ever asked how much can you deadlift.