I'm Stronger Than Ever. Why Aren't I Faster?

Understanding when strength stops being the primary limiter to performance. 

My favourite exercise in the gym is a ¼ squat from the pins.

As a 62-65kg sprinter I can lift over 320kg on a good day and have managed 335kg on a great day.

Even now, at 55 years of age, those numbers still surprise some people.What surprises them even more is that there doesn't appear to be much relationship between my best lifting days and my fastest sprint times. 

A quick look through my training diary tells me that whether I squat 280kg or 335kg, my sprint performance remains remarkably similar. I've known that for years, but it still raises an important question. If strength is so important, why doesn't getting stronger always improve performance?

The obvious answer would be that strength doesn't matter.

Except that's clearly not true either.

Most athletes I work with would benefit from becoming stronger, sometimes significantly stronger. I work with runners, swimmers, sprinters and field athletes and the majority are nowhere near the point where additional strength stops helping performance. In fact, one of the more common things I see is athletes underestimating how important strength remains as they get older.

Strength helps us produce force, tolerate training loads, maintain muscle mass and remain physically capable of handling the demands of sport. As we age, those things become increasingly important rather than less important. That's one of the reasons I struggle when people try to frame strength and conditioning as optional for Masters athletes.

The question is not whether strength matters but rather is strength is still the element limiting performance.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that athletes rarely tell me they feel weak. What they tell me is that they feel slower, less explosive or less reactive than they once did. They tell me they don't accelerate the way they used to, don't jump the way they used to or simply don't feel as powerful as they remember feeling.

Many of those same athletes are still reasonably strong. Sometimes very strong. A sprinter needs strength, but they also need the ability to apply force quickly. A jumper needs strength, but they also need speed, timing and coordination. A swimmer needs strength, but they also need efficiency and the ability to repeatedly express force throughout a race. Performance is rarely determined by a single physical quality.

I think this is one reason athletes become attached to strength work. We can see it improving. The bar goes up, the numbers improve and we know we're making progress. Performance isn't always that straightforward. 

A sprinter can add 20kg to a squat and run the same time. A swimmer can become stronger without swimming faster. A jumper can improve their gym numbers without adding distance to a jump. That doesn't mean the strength work was wasted. Far from it. It simply means strength isn't always the factor limiting performance.

Research examining Masters athletes suggests that while both strength and power decline with age, power often declines more rapidly. Many athletes notice changes in acceleration, explosiveness and jumping ability before they notice major reductions in maximal strength.

This is also why I think strength and conditioning gets unfairly reduced to lifting heavier weights. Strength is only one quality we can develop. Power, rate of force development, stiffness, coordination and resilience can all be influenced through intelligent strength and conditioning. In many cases, once an athlete has built a solid strength foundation, these become the areas that deserve greater attention. 

I've certainly seen that repeatedly over the years. Athletes remain relatively strong but no longer move with the same sharpness they once did. Their gym numbers may not have changed dramatically, yet acceleration becomes harder, jumping becomes harder and the ability to express force quickly begins to decline.

That's not necessarily a strength problem. More often it's a power problem, a rate of force development problem or simply a movement problem. Importantly, they're still strength and conditioning problems.

This is where I think discussions around "strong enough" sometimes go wrong. Strong enough doesn't mean strength stops mattering. Strong enough simply means maximal strength may no longer be the quality most limiting performance. I have an athlete at the moment who can hip thrust three times her body weight. However because of other anatomical needs, we have removed the hip thrust from per program. Has she become  slower? No. Quite the opposite. Her times have improved. But removing it has allowed us to focus more on the areas that were limiting performance.

An athlete still needs strength training. They still need the physical robustness that strength work provides. They still need the force-producing capacity that underpins athletic performance. What may change is the emphasis.

The athlete who struggles to squat bodyweight probably needs more strength. The athlete who already possesses substantial force-producing capacity may benefit more from improving power, rate of force development, movement efficiency or the ability to express force more effectively in their sport. Both athletes still need strength and conditioning. They're simply solving different problems.

The longer I coach Masters athletes, the less interested I become in asking how much stronger an athlete can get. What drives me more is identifying the quality most likely to improve performance right now.

Sometimes that answer is strength. Quite often it is. At other times it may be power, explosiveness, movement efficiency, technical execution or simply staying healthy enough to train consistently. The athletes who continue improving over long periods are rarely the athletes chasing a single quality forever. More often, they're the athletes who continue developing the qualities that matter most at the time.

That's why I don't think "strong enough" is really a number. It's a moving target, and for many Masters athletes recognising what quality deserves attention next can be just as valuable as adding another five kilograms to the bar.

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