Specificity is OVERRATED: The Coach's Perspective
OUTLINE
Intro
KNOWING your athlete
Accessories
Application
Conclusion
INTRO
With the sudden sprouting of internet strength coaches, I’d like to take the time to not necessarily inform, but to give my insight and provoke thought regarding the implementation of a very fundamental training concept: the specificity principle, the most important strength principle.
First, let’s give some context to the term “specificity.” In order for an individual to improve at a skill, the individual must practice this skill. A sprinter doesn’t go on 10 mile runs, and a marathon runner doesn’t hop on the track and work on 10 meter starts out of the blocks because these aren’t specific to their goals. If they do use these cross-training methods, they’re not the main focus of their training. In most sports, the specificity principle would be introduced entirely separate to the general strength and conditioning used to prepare for that sport. For example, a quarterback hits the weight room and runs, then does sport-specific positional drills; the two don’t directly interfere with each other. The application is different for strength-based sports such as powerlifting. The lift is the actual skill as well as the basis of adaptation. Success and progress in the sport are quantified based on the amount of weight one can lift, not by a score based on a subjective skill set. For powerlifting, the maximum level of specificity is a 1 rep max squat, bench, and deadlift. Anything outside of this is less specific.
For powerlifting, I think the application of this principle should be used in moderation and should be introduced closer to competition in terms of exercise selection. Every exercise and rep scheme selected should have a purpose and should be aligned with the athlete’s SPECIFIC goals, both short and long-term. For strength-based sports, the skill itself needs variation because the adaptation to that skill has a biological ceiling that interferes with its own progression once overload is introduced. The coach must be crafty in finding that balance between sufficiently practicing the skill, and overloading the athlete to the point where they can progress without burning out.
Okay, so we’ve defined specificity and clarified that it should apply to programming sometimes, but when should it always apply? The specificity principle should ALWAYS apply to equipment, simulating meet conditions (if possible), and the soft skills of lifting. Let me explain:
Equipment: Use the same equipment in training that you will in competition (with the exception of a belt if you perform beltless cycles). Don’t squat in flats in training if you use heeled shoes in competition. Your form will be drastically compensated and it will be like learning a brand new motor pattern.
Meet conditions: Train the way you would compete in a meet. Train with stiff bars if you compete in USAPL. Train with calibrated kilo plates if your gym has them available.
Soft skills: Make sure you’re taking care of the things you shouldn’t have to think about after a while. Treat warm-ups like they’re your 1RM. Lack of execution through warm-up sets can lead to more injuries as well as lack of execution through heavier weights. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve met a 600lb deadlifter who got injured pulling 315lbs from the floor because they rushed their setup. How can you expect to hit depth on a 500lb squat if you didn’t hit depth on any of the warm-up sets leading up to it because you were rushing?
As I mentioned earlier, specificity shouldn’t always apply to exercise selection, but how do we know who it should/shouldn’t apply to and how often? Well, that depends on the type of athlete you’re dealing with.
KNOWING Your Athlete
There are two types of athletes to consider when planning how specific their exercise selection should be. We’ll start with the intermediate/elite athletes:
An intermediate lifter is your run-of-the-mill lifter. They probably compete at 2-3 local meets per year, have a separate Instagram where they post their lifts, have some type of exercise background but have only been powerlifting for a couple of years, and maybe have a decent understanding of some of the basic strength principles. They’re typically motivated to train, eager to put up a certain total. How should a coach approach the intermediate lifter? Get them to understand the bigger picture, buy into your training methodology, and be patient. In my experience, this lifter typically has trouble letting go of the belief that they can linearly progress until the end of time. If you ask an intermediate lifter who squats 365lbs what their goals are, they’ll probably tell you they’ll add 5lbs to their squat max every week and hit 600lbs in less than a year. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that which is why it’s imperative to be less specific in the offseason in order to:
Renew the sensitivity of a certain training style
Work on weaknesses when linear progression no longer works
The intermediate/elite athlete doesn’t have as much to gain as the beginner athlete does from being extremely specific all-year-round. Performing competition lifts all-year round desensitizes the athlete to that stimulus. “Cycling off” competition lifts allows the athlete to renew their stress systems to the stimulus again, allowing them to make progress without the same diminishing marginal returns as if they hadn’t cycled off (Note: this can also be done by keeping the competition lifts but adjusting the rep schemes). Further away from the athlete’s meet, their competition lifts can be substituted with accessories that closely mimic their competition lifts and work on weaknesses to ensure carryover, as well as stimulus renewal (Examples: tempo, longer pauses, different grips/stances). When programming the intermediate athlete, they typically fear losing the progress they’ve just built if you suddenly stop programming the competition lifts. They fear that they will have to start from ground zero the next time they perform the competition lifts again. My advice to them would be: trust the process. You are being extremely efficient in your training by:
Spending the extra time working on your weak points so that they won’t be issues again in the future
Renewing your body to the stimulus of performing competition lifts so that you’ll have a higher ceiling to approach, ultimately leading to more progress at a faster rate.
You’re killing two birds with one stone, can’t beat it! The elite athlete typically has a better understanding of this concept.
Now for our beginner athletes: They can and should be more specific in terms of exercise selection. Performing a skill more often ensures improvement (only if they’re doing it correctly). The athlete’s technical proficiency in the competition lifts is so low that it behooves them to practice the competition lifts all-year-round. What the beginner athlete has to gain from improving technique in the competition lifts outweighs the diminishing marginal returns that may occur in their strength gains. The beginner athlete doesn’t necessarily have “weak points” yet (that we know of), so being very specific to the competition lifts in terms of exercise selection can actually be used as an assessment tool to figure out potential weak points so that the proper accessories can be implemented.
For example, take a beginner athlete who performs competition squats twice a week. After 4 weeks of performing competition squats, the coach notices that the athlete has a sticking point out of the hole. During the next 4 week block, one of the competition squats can be replaced with a paused squat to build power out of the hole and push past that sticking point, or a tempo eccentric squat can be implemented to improve the athlete’s form and weight distribution. Beginner strength athletes often talk about the “secret accessories” to unlock the bench gains. “Maybe I need to do board press for my weak lockout.” “I’m going to use a slingshot to overload my CNS.” No, you just need to bench more often.
ACCESSORIES
Once you’ve determined the weaknesses of your lifter, it is time to decide what accessories you’ll use to compliment these weaknesses. Again, it comes down to the lifter’s goals. If the lifter’s goals are to have the biggest powerlifting total, the accessories that take precedence must consist of movements that will help increase the big 3. Physique athletes might want to do more isolation exercises to bring up weak points. There is no “one-size-fits-all” accessory for any given weakness; everyone has their own preference for what they like to do to bring up certain weak points. The purpose of this article is not to tell the reader what accessories to use, but to provoke thought on when to implement them.
IMPLEMENTATION
Here’s what I do with my athletes:
When I onboard a new client, I have a consultation call with them. My main goal of the consultation call is to see if we’d be a good fit, because the best training program is the one that you’ll follow and enjoy, but still adheres to the basic strength principles. Although I can be flexible with my programming, my service is a reflection of myself, so I don’t work with people who don’t buy into my training methodology. The secondary goals for me are to gauge experience level and see what motivates the individual. When things go wrong with training, I have to tailor my approach to communicate with them.
Once all of this information is retrieved, I plan my approach for their training block. The more experienced athletes get a more individualized program, because they have already gone through the trial and error to find their weak points, whereas the beginner athletes will get something more general for the first one or two blocks until we can expose their weaknesses.
The longer I am working with an athlete, the more and more different their program begins to look from the next athlete. This is because my definition of specificity for that athlete has gained more clarity, so we can now key in on what needs to be addressed. If I’ve only worked with an athlete for a month or two, we may not have even done a full meet prep, and I’m still trying to figure them out.
TL;DR
In summary:
Specificity is the most important training principle, regardless of sport, however people take this concept too literally in practice
When specificity should ALWAYS apply:
Execution of reps
Equipment
When specificity should SOMETIMES apply:
Exercise selection
Rep schemes
Know the athlete’s experience level and weaknesses in order to pick accessories
SOURCES
McArdle, WD, Katch FI, Katch VL. Exercise Physiology: Nutrition, Energy, and Human Performance 8th Edition, 2015
Scientific Principles of Strength Training. Dr. Mike Israetel et al.
Experience