Program Design Principle: Specificity

You have to do the thing to get better at the thing.

I had a client the other day who just got back from a weekend away with their spouse. They visited one of their favorite towns on the Columbia River Gorge and did a 4 mile (2 miles ups, 2 miles down) hike one morning after coffee. She was surprised how hard the 2 mile hike up felt because “i’ve gotten a lot stronger in the last few months.”

She’s right, she has gotten a lot stronger. She’s getting close to the standards I aim for with my recreational outdoor athletes (of which she is not). So what does this have to do with Specificity?

Like I stated at the beginning. You have to do the thing to get better at the thing. I asked her how much uphill walking she’s done in the last 6 months. The answer…”pretty much none” So her experience on the hike makes sense. We can train in the gym, get stronger, increase the amount of volume our legs can handle, and we can even do it in a way that starts to come close to the movement pattern of walking up hill (box step ups, lunge variations, etc)…but again none of that is walking uphill.

If you want to get better at hiking uphill, you have to spend time hiking uphill. If you want to get better at mountain biking, you need to spend more time on the bike. If you want to get better at climbing, you need to spend more time climbing.

Strength Training and cross training (other forms of movement that aren’t the thing you want to get better at) can improve your bodies capacity to perform better, but you need to actually do the thing to give those enhanced capacities the opportuntiy to be applied to the thing.

So yes, your sport specific strength training program is actually a general program. Combining it with consistently executing your sport gives it a chance to be converted into better performance at doing your thing.