The role of S&C (and an S&C Coach)

What is strength and conditioning and what is it’s purpose within the context of sport? Let’s chat….

What is S&C?

Strength and conditioning, or S&C, is a complementary non-sports-specific style of training. It’s goal is to enhance sport performance by developing the underlying physical capacities that will benefit your sport and general athleticism. This means getting stronger (generally or in a specific way), working on your ability to express strength, to move fast, to change direction, and maintain a given work output over time, amongst other things. It does not specifically mean practicing the skills of your sport. 

What is the purpose of S&C?

First and foremost S&C serves to develop the general athletic foundations on which athletes can build to achieve optimal performance. No matter the age or experience of the athlete, the basics need to stay covered. The stronger the base, the higher the possible peak. To put it another way, without these foundations there will ultimately be limits on how far an athlete can go in their performance.

S&C is also used as a means to minimise physical vulnerabilities, ie. reduce injury risk or reduce the impact of having an injury.  Get to a high enough level and every athlete eventually picks up some sort of injury or at the very least niggle, so it’s not about setting an unrealistic goal of never getting injured. What it is about is developing robustness and a body that can continually handle the demands of sport, and if something does occur, has the ability to recover quickly. Why do we care? Because injury is a direct hit on the ability to continue training normally (consistently), which will mean a direct hit on ability to improve, which will mean a direct hit on performance.

‘The best ability is availability’

In addition to the above, the S&C environment offers unique opportunities to support athletes in different ways to the rest of their training;

• Training can be manipulated to support individual needs in a way sport training might not be able to, especially for teams.

• Athlete education around their own bodies and movement can be emphasised in order to promote self-awareness and understanding in training

• Team work and developing team culture can be integrated into training, particularly through the use of peer-to-peer coaching. This can serve as a mechanism where athletes hold each other to agreed upon standards and support empowerment through autonomy.

What does quality S&C look like?

A couple of things I feel quite strongly about here. First, a great S&C coach does not necessarily need to have an intricate understanding of the code they are delivering S&C for, in terms of the rules, tactics, terminology etc. What they do need to understand is the physical and physiological demands of that sport. Second, your sport isn’t that unique; most sports need strength, power, speed, balance, endurance. The things that differ are priorities and ratios of each, and the breadth (or lack) of movements used. An S&C programme from one sport to the next probably has 80% crossover, with the final 20% adapted to the individual or unique sport requirements.

From there, what sets a great coach and programme apart is the decision making and delivery; what is going to have the most positive impact for this particular athlete in this particular context and environment right now? To start with, are the athletes in front of you equipped to (repeatedly) handle the demands of their sport? This includes the capacity to perform at the intensities required for the duration required, and adequate tissue tolerance particularly in the areas of  highest wear on the body. A sport will generally have specific movement patterns that are performed a very large number of times, or under a very high load. As a result these become at risk areas for overuse injuries in particular, a risk that S&C can help mitigate. 

The 80% vs 20% concept can once again be applied; where 80% of S&C work is concerned with building or maintaining global adaptation for a well rounded and robust athletic base, while 20% goes toward specific performance elements. It is extremely important, particularly in the young or developing athlete, to not get stuck in that 20% chasing performance elements without having done the ground work. I appreciate it sounds reasonable… until you have a child wonder and get caught up in the idea of performing at a representative level asap. 

The ‘strength’ vs ‘conditioning’ components of S&C can look quite different between different sports and performance levels in terms of how you balance the equation. Higher skill and team sports (where straight strength and power is less of a performance determinant than team work, tactics, problem solving and skills) will, as performance level increases, have a higher emphasis on conditioning (e.g. ‘fitness’, or the ability to maintain required intensity over time). Where there are identified limitations in an athlete’s ability with withstand the loading of their sport, more generally found with young or inexperienced athletes, developing their strength and tissue tolerance to do so will take priority.

How S&C works within the broader context of sport

Exactly how the relationship works will differ sport to sport, programme to programme, coach to coach, but in all cases an S&C coach should never be a lone ranger. S&C is one aspect of the broader programme and not the number one priority. It’s crucial to be aware of the bigger picture in terms of load and fatigue management, and work collaboratively with sport coaches (and where relevant health support such as physios) to ensure S&C delivery is aligned to current targeted outcomes.

Because S&C is only one part of the puzzle, it is important that coaches are approaching it with the intent to optimise the limited availability of athletes, and being clear on desired adaptations and the minimum effective training dose required to achieve them. This might mean leaving maximal adaptation on the table in favour of maximising priorities, such as using the snatch as a tool to develop power, rather than training to snatch as heavy as possible. As well as maximising bang for buck, to be most effective S&C needs buy-in from athletes and coaches around the importance and value of engaging in it. This can be supported through education, in order to understand why athletes are doing what they’re doing, and what the outcome of that can be. In doing this S&C coaches have the ability to empower athletes, promoting autonomy and more ownership of their own processes. 

In summary

As put by Sean Waxman, ‘it’s our job to figure out how to build and maintain the car with the parts that we are given. it is the sport coach’s job to figure out how to best race the car’.

My priority as a youth S&C coach is centered in the foundations, and equipping young athletes with the skills, knowledge, strength and fitness capacity to thrive in sport not only now, but in the long term.

Disclaimer: this blog is informed by both my experiences and knowledge within S&C, and the HPSNZ Core Knowledge ‘Body in Motion 1’ coach education workshop, however is ultimately my opinion only.