The Difference Between Advanced and Beginning Athletes
Submitted by Got Strength? Blog
Beginning athletes should train like beginners. They should NOT train like advanced athletes. I see it all of the time in the gym, on forums, and in Q&A’s. Everything will be going fine and suddenly some 17 year old kid weighing a whopping 155 lbs with a copy of Supertraining will be asking about percentages of load to be used on weighted plyometrics for enhanced eccentric action or something of the like. At that point the athlete should be focused on simply gaining strength, size, and efficiency of motion.
Here’s the thing: What works for advanced athletes may not work for beginning athletes and may actually be detrimental to their development. For example let’s look at training with heavy single reps, say 90-100+% of the athlete’s 1-rep max. We’ll contrast a freshman high school football player in his first year of weight training with a third year pro who’s been in a good strength program for the past eight years and been lifting for twelve.
There’s a couple of things going on here. First and foremost is age and maturity. In this case the pro player is much more physically mature than the young player. His connective tissue, muscle mass, bone structure, and the like have physically adapted to high stress activities (heavy lifting and pro football) much more so than the young player. This player is better able to handle the stress of a near maximal attempt than the young player. Any structural weaknesses he may have will have been identified and at least somewhat strengthened by this time. A young player may have imbalances or weaknesses along his kinetic chain that have been until now relatively unstressed. Using extremely heavy weight could cause injury.
Another, and major, concern is neurological efficiency. The muscular recruitment level of the advanced athlete is going to be a night and day difference from the beginning lifter. Weight training is a skill. Sure, it’s usually performed in athletics towards other means, but it’s still a skill. The more you lift, and the more often, the better you’re going to be at it (minutia aside). Ask the pro to lift 95% of his 1RM squat for 10 singles in the same workout. Unless you’ve got a lot of time to rest, he’s going to have a hard time. He’s also going to be feeling that session for a week or more. Now ask the beginner. He’ll still have a hard time, but it won’t be nearly as grueling. He’ll also recover in a couple of days.
Now what does that tell us? It tells us that beginners need more work than advanced athletes. Imagine if the beginner had to take the same two weeks off from squatting that the pro probably would have to? He’d have a couple of days of recovery, be stronger for a few more days, and then probably a week to decline. The pro would probably just start noticing improvements a couple of weeks after the session.
A lot of people got their starts doing basic 3×8 or 5×5 routines. They got very, very strong doing it. These programs stress compound exercises, progressive overload, and frequent training. Eventually they stop working, at which point other methodologies come to relevance. Are they the perfect program for all beginning athletes? Of course not, but they do underline some great basic ideas.
Look, as much fun as it is to use all of the toys that the big boys use it’s more important to look at the real difference between the big boys and you first. What do they have that you, the beginner, doesn’t? Size, strength, skill, and maturity. Now, how did they get those qualities? It sure wasn’t jumping off a 48″ box with a 100lb weighted vest and landing on one leg, I assure you.
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