Now that we know, getting big and Jacked not only is cool but also helps you hit bombs or throw hard in rotational sports. Let's explore why Hypertrophy is essential for strength and why strength is vital to produce maximal forces.
What is Strength? Strength is the ability to produce external force by muscle contractions.
Suppose we think about this definition and me being pedantic. Many people assume that sporting movements such as a Golf swing have significantly higher forces than a bench press. This is, in fact, not true; they will have a higher velocity. If I told you to produce a High force against a penny vs. your 1rm Bench Press, the magnitude of muscular strength against the penny would be much lower. The Magnitude of resistance is the factor that determines force and Velocity. If you’re doing the same movement, the higher the weight will have a slower velocity but greater force.
As we stated earlier, Strength is the ability to produce external force by muscle contractions. Starting with this definition, let's dive into the mechanisms, so we understand a bit deeper what the adaptations to strength are and to differentiate from Hypertrophy.
Athletes will generate different maximal forces when they perform similar movements, hopeful this is obvious but, why? It boils down to the maximal force capabilities of individual muscles (hypertrophy) and Central factors. These Central factors are specifically neural coordination (intra and intermuscular Coordination).
Let's dig a little deeper into the Peripheral factors, precisely the force capabilities of individual muscles. It is now well known that muscles with a large cross-sectional area produce higher forces than smaller muscles. This is because muscle force production is limited by the number of actin and myosin filaments. When we Hypertrophy a muscle, we increase the number of these filaments—allowing the athlete to produce Higher forces. Hopefully, this ties it together to gain muscle mass and gain strength and make greater force.
I promise I will stop now, but you should get Jacked.
This is also why a mass of an athlete in golf/baseball might contribute to their clubhead speed or bat velocity. As they are not in weight restricted sport, there are no weight classes. World record-holders in weightlifting have a high correlation of r=0.93 between performance level and bodyweight. This means the bigger you are between equally trained athletes. Hopefully, we have tied together that, Size and Hypertrophy contribute to strength. We now need to understand better why strength is essential.
The other primary consideration when we are training for strength is the Neural factors or CNS. The CNS is vital because it controls how individual muscle fibers in a muscle are activated. Meaning the more fibers that we can coordinate and activate, the higher the maximal force in a skill will be, which is a skill that can be trained. This is why strength training itself is so necessary.
There are three systems in which the CNS can be trained to produce higher forces. The recruitment of Motor units, rate coding (the change in the firing rate of motor units), and synchronization of these motor units being activated. Motor units can be classified as type 1 slow twitch or Type 2 fast-twitch fibers. Type 1 we don’t care about because we aren’t endurance athletes. We care about Type 2, characterized as brief periods of activity, large power outputs, high velocity, and high force development rates. So virtually everything that goes into hitting bombs.
I don’t want to get into the mechanisms too much, as that is boring. However, through strength training and not hypertrophy training, these capabilities improve to produce greater force through muscle contractions.
We have learned that muscle mass is a large contributor to your strength levels and strength training improves these neural factors. You then would think that you would want to gain strength indefinitely as the more force you can produce, the higher your club Head Speed and bat velocity will be. However, that is far from reality.
This is because time is a significant constraint on producing maximal force; Time to peak force in an isometric testing setting is approximately 0.3-0.4 s. If we think about this from a sporting perspective, a Javelin delivery takes 0.16-0.18 s.
For example, peak forces of a shot put of a 21-meter throw (which is world class) is in the range of 50-60 kg, which these men can also Bench press 240 Kg or around 120 KG per arm.
The explosive strength deficit (ESD) shows the percentage of an athlete’s strength potential that was not used in a given attempt. For our example above, the ESD is about 50% because he can bench 120 KG per arm and produces 50-60 kg per arm to deliver the throw, which means that there are two ways to increase the force output at delivery explosive movements.
Increase total force or
Decrease ESD
Increasing force can be beneficial at the beginning of a career. Using the same example, let's say that the same Shot-Putter earlier in his career was bench pressing 50 kg and now can Bench press 150 kg. That is an essential gain because, as we learned earlier, we will never produce maximal force with that fast of movement. There will always be a Strength Deficit present in explosive movements. He will then produce a greater force on the Shot-Put because his force output started low and increased significantly.
However, an important thing to remember is that going from 240 kg to 300 kg is not the same because the total force was already very high. He would be wasting his time with very little or zero payouts in performance. He may not see an improvement in his Shot-Put performance simply because of the delivery phase’s short duration. However, he will be able to brag to his friends about his bench Pressing big weights.
You understand that gaining strength forever and Benching 500 pounds will not help your golf swing very much at some point. However, gaining strength is essential in improving your neural factors to be able to generate greater force.
In Oranchuk (2008), they conducted an eight week Strength and power program, and it’s effects on Clubhead speed, which concluded that there was a more considerable correlation between Barbell exercise strength (r=0.7) and clubhead speed (13). Meaning the stronger they got in the study, the faster their Club head speed was.
In Keogh (2009), we gain further evidence of this fact, concluding that there was a moderate correlation between hack Squat and Bench press 1 RM and Club Head Speed (11). Hellstrom (2008), Shows us that Squat and clubhead speed shower a moderate correlation of r=0.54 (9). In his systematic review, Alex Ehlert (2020) concluded a moderate correlation of r=0.41 -- 0.46 in upper and lower body strength to clubhead speed specifically (1), which gives us strong evidence that strength does matter. However, there will always be a limit but just focusing on mobility and corrective exercises is a mistake.
To tie this all together and make sure that we still understand where we are going through this journey. Mass of athletes shows a moderate correlation to driving distance and exit velocity. More importantly, they have a higher lean body mass, which means they have a higher number of filaments than their smaller people, which allows them to produce greater force to swing their club faster.
With their size, they most likely have trained for strength at some point and now can produce even more significant force because they have improved on these neural factors that we discussed. However, we learned that force production or strength is not something to enhance forever because of the Explosive Strength Deficit. So then, does the weight room not matter anymore? Can we increase the ESD?
It is important to remember that if you are small and weak, you should focus on these and likely see improvements. However, if you are already very big and strong, you should ensure that gaining strength will help your performance.
Here is what getting bigger and stronger can do:
Citations
1. Alex Ehlert (2020): The correlations between physical attributes and golf clubhead speed: a systematic review with quantitative analyses, European Journal of Sport Science, DOI: 10.1080/17461391.2020.1829081
2. Institute of Sport and Recreation Research New Zealand, School of Sport and Recreation, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand; and 2 Centre of Physical Education Across the Lifespan, School of Exercise Science, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia
3. Lovera and Keogh. “The Anthropometric Profile of Powerlifters: Differences as a Function of Bodyweight Class and Competitive Success.” The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. (2015).
4. Brechue and Abe. “The Role of FFM Accumulation and Muscle Architecture in Powerlifting Performance.” European Journal of Applied Physiology. (2002).
5. Stone, Michael & O’Bryant, et al. “Using the Isometric Mid-thigh Pull in the Monitoring of Weightlifters: 25+ Years of Experience”
6. Stone, Michael & O’Bryant, et al. (2019). “Using the Isometric Mid-Thigh Pull in the Monitoring of Weightlifters: 25+ Years of Experience”. 19-26.
8. School of Health Sciences, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. 2Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Victoria, Australia. 3NSW Injury Risk Manag
9. Hellström, J. (2008). The Relation between Physical Tests, Measures, and Clubhead Speed in Elite Golfers. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 3(1_suppl), 85–92. doi:10.1260/174795408785024207
10. Elizabeth J. Bradshaw, Justin W.L. Keogh, Patria A. Hume, Peter S. Maulder, Jacques Nortje & Michel Marnewick (2009) The Effect of Biological Movement Variability on the Performance of the Golf Swing in High- and Low-Handicapped Players, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 80:2, 185-196, DOI: 10.1080/02701367.2009.10599552
11. Keogh, J. W., Marnewick, M. C., Maulder, P. S., Nortje, J. P., Hume, P. A., & Bradshaw, E. J. (2009). Are Anthropometric, Flexibility, Muscular Strength, and Endurance Variables Related To Clubhead Velocity in Low- And High-Handicap Golfers? Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 23(6), 1841–1850. doi:10.1519/jsc.0b013e3181b73cb3
12. “Zatsiorsky, V.M. (1992). Intensity of strength training facts and theory: Russian and Eastern European approach. National Strength and Conditioning Association Journal, 14 (5). 46-57.” States that there are two mechanisms to becoming strong:
13. Oranchuk, D. J., Mannerberg, J. M., Robinson, T. L., & Nelson, M. C. (2018). Eight Weeks of Strength and Power Training Improves Club Head Speed in Collegiate Golfers. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 1. doi:10.1519/jsc.0000000000002505
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