Weight Training for Sports

Weight training is vital to your sports performance, because if you are matched with someone in skill, then it will take speed, power, and strength to defeat your opponent on the court, field or in the ring.

Some athletes even coaches and trainers get confused with the deference between,bodybuilding or muscle building vs. weight training for strength and power for specific sports.

For example having huge muscular legs does NOT mean you can jump very high, or run very fast; increased jumping ability comes from being able to lift with speed.

If the weight continues to increase and the speed stays the same, power and vertical jumping ability will increase only if you maintain your body weight.

When using weight lifting for sports the main goal is to improve and strengthen movements in your sport.
For example: If you want to run faster or jump higher, you need to perform compound exercises under resistance to mimic the same movement.

So if you do dead lifts, squats, power cleans,
snatches, clean and jerk, vertical jumps, depth jumps, lunges, calve raises, you will help target and strengthen the jumping muscles in you legs and some in your upper body.

Also when doing the specific movement or exercise don't go past to point where the speed and power of the lift is reduced, wait till you are fully rested, and increase the weight and do the same, on your last set you can do multiple sets with minimal rest in between with the heaviest weight for at least 3-5 reps, or do an all out total reps for more muscles growth and absolute power or strength.

Next time you do these exercises try for an extra rep or 2 on you all out max set(s) or multiple power sets.
Record your workouts for total weight lifted and the amount of time you take to rest and complete a series of exercises or sets.

Specific Compound Exercises for Sports in General:

1. Bench Press: You may think this exercise targets only the chest, but when done correctly should be using you whole body to help stabilize and lift the weight, this includes feet position, should position, is your back arched or not?, and your elbow alignment, as well as grip placement, and path of your movement, and if you are bringing the bar to you nipple line or not, all these small things can make the difference of you benching 300lbs or not.

2. Squat: Again the squat targets most of your body, not just your legs. There are many variations of the squat.

For example, there is the traditional low or high squats, hack squats or 1/4 squats, scissor squats, sumo squats, squats with the weight extended above your head with increase you back strength and power, but use less weight to start.

NOTE: Technique is also vital to increased power and strength to the reach the very max!