WTF are we doing in the weight room?

Its amazing how three capital letters can summarize how I feel sometimes when I see these programs that are put together for athletes.

Well lets back track a little. Im getting a quick lift in today. Have a big 7's rugby tourny tomorrow and need to make sure I still have some energy left in the tank. I happen to see the board and this is what I come across:

Chest-
Bench 15,12,10,8,6,4,2
Incline (same)
Incline Flys 4x8
Pushups x100

Shoulders
Lat and front raise 3x15
...and some other nonsense.

I actually took a picture but don't feel like linking it.

Anyways, heres my gripe with seeing this shit.

What ATHLETE needs this sort of training? And before you answer think of where Im coming from. An athlete needs to develop the muscularity to to become better at their sport. Now, I know exactly which sport this 'workout' belongs to but thats neither here nor there. The point Im getting to is how would this workout benefit any athlete in the existence of sport?

Got an answer yet?

I sure as hell don't.

Training chest and only chest, as far as Im concerned, is good for 2 people; Bodybuilders and those who only care about looking good naked. Thats it. This sort of workout should never touch an athletes regimen much less a high schoolers or jr. high.

Especially considering the sport, or any sport for that matter, an overdeveloped chest is usually more a problem than a good way to train. Try having a kid do a pullup, or a simple row, or hell even just walk upright for more than a few steps. Its difficult to find this outside of a gymnast these days. Piss poor posterior strength and shitty workouts.

So whats the fix?

Well for one no workout should just focus on one muscle group in athletics. Time is valuable and that time needs to be spent honing their abilities. If we train 1 or 2 muscles groups a day we WILL need to train 6-8x's a week to hit everything. Thats a lot of hours spent just doing isolation work when combo lifts and functional movements can clear that all out in a hurry. Unfortunately I still see this quite a bit. Apparently a coach or athletes reads a cute little article about their favorite bodybuilder or fitness buff and wants to do that workout. I usually goes something like this day to day;

Chest/tris
Back/Bis
Abs/cardio
Legs
Shoulders/arms

Once again if you're only concern is looking good naked then knock yourself out. Hell in another decade that probably will be my workout. But I figure until they cart me off the field and out of the ring on a stretcher that day is still a long ways off. So anyways back to the topic...

Stick to the basics! Especially with younger underdeveloped athletes. My favorite splits are like this;

Upper/Lower   (Squat, single leg, glute ham / Bench, row, pushups, pullups)
or
Push/Pull  (Bench, squat, pushups / Floor pull, row, pullups)
or
Combo (upper/lower same day all inclusive)

All of those splits are typically 2-4 days a week. You can make the split days up to 6 days but combo are best limited to 3 maybe 4 a week to allow a recovery day. Once again the point is that strength in the weight room should transfer to the game. Not just lift for the sake of lifting.

A good S&C coach from a long time ago once told me "You need to train to be good at your sport, not train to be a good lifter." This message apparently does NOT get around much.  Especially considering the workout I just posted at the beginning here.

Now if you go back to those splits I mentioned things can get a bit more complicated. Did you know that you can get stronger without just using conventional lifts? Oh yes, its true. It happens quite a bit actually.

An example to increase leg strength and power just simply do full intensity sprints uphill or bleachers. As long as theres sufficient rest and intensity is near max the body will adapt and grow stronger. Similar to doing things such as playing the game more or doing similar tasks that emulate the game situation. As long as these tasks are performed to full intensity with some rest the body will adapt and grow AND continue to develop USEABLE skills.Then theres the topic of plyos, jump training (yes they are two different things), throwing, playing, etc.etc. but thats for a later date.

So just think of this next time you're cranking out that 8th set of 45lb barbell curls with your 140lb buddy ask yourself "Is this shit really going to make me a better athlete?" If you even have to stop and think, without any doubt, hell, if you need to even ask that question, then the answer is more than likely NO. Everyday you put something together always check it with the question "will this make me better?". And at the end of the day if you dont feel like you have gotten something accomplished then you really need to get back on that drawing board.