Elsevier

Medical Hypotheses

Volume 113, April 2018, Pages 1-5
Medical Hypotheses

Resistance exercise and sports performance: The minority report

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2018.02.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Resistance exercise is typically performed to increase both muscle size and strength and is regularly incorporated into training programs for sports performance. Presumably, the exercise would be expected to increase the force producing capabilities of skeletal muscle, which may have subsequent influence on various sports related abilities. Interestingly, few studies are designed to examine sports related benefits of resistance exercise while including a proper control group to account for adaptations to simply performing the sports related task. Much of our knowledge on resistance exercise for sport is based off cross-sectional work showing that stronger athletes tend to perform at the highest level, along with cross-sectional work demonstrating that higher levels of strength are associated with various performance related parameters. Although there is a large body of cross-sectional literature providing a rationale for resistance exercise for sport, its implementation is largely based on the following: 1) An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in strength and 2) a stronger muscle will increase sports performance. However, there is a lack of evidence to support these assumptions. The weight of evidence suggests that resistance exercise may indirectly impact sports performance through injury prevention, as opposed to directly improving sport related abilities.

Introduction

Resistance exercise is typically performed with the intention of increasing both muscle size and strength. Given these expected outcomes, resistance exercise is regularly incorporated into training programs to improve sports performance [1]. Presumably, resistance exercise would be expected to increase the force producing capabilities of skeletal muscle, which may have subsequent influence on various sports related abilities. An early paper by Sutherland and Wiley [2] reported that all teams in the National Football League had strength and conditioning programs and that the majority of professional baseball, and basketball teams have full time strength and conditioning professionals on staff. Despite the widespread incorporation of resistance exercise across a wide variety of sports [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], the performance benefits are not entirely clear. Notably, few studies are specifically designed to examine sports related benefits of resistance exercise while including a proper control group to account for adaptations to simply performing the sports related tasks. It appears that much of our knowledge on resistance exercise for sport is based off cross-sectional work showing that stronger athletes tend to perform at the highest level [8], along with cross-sectional work demonstrating that higher levels of strength are associated with various performance related parameters [9]. Although there is a large body of cross-sectional literature providing a rationale for resistance exercise for sport, its implementation is largely based on the following assumptions: 1) An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in muscle strength and 2) a stronger muscle will increase sports performance. These assumptions seem intuitive, but recent studies have brought up questions regarding the role of exercise induced muscle growth on exercise induced strength adaptation [10], as well as how important specificity is for strength adaptation [11], [12]. Considering these suggestions, the role that resistance exercise has for sports performance may be largely based on cross-sectional derived intuition rather than experimental evidence. The purpose of this review is to examine the evidence behind these assumptions and to examine the experimental evidence suggesting that resistance exercise (lifting weights with the intention of increasing muscle size and strength) improves sports performance.

Section snippets

Assumption 1: An increase in muscle size will produce an increase in muscle strength

Within sport, resistance exercise is often implemented through a programming strategy known as periodization. Modern periodization techniques place a great focus on skeletal muscle hypertrophy (hypertrophy phase) under the assumption that skeletal muscle growth during this phase will play a role on subsequent strength adaptation [13], [14]. Although it seems that prior to and independent of resistance exercise, a larger muscle is a stronger muscle [15], the influence that exercise induced

Assumption 2: A stronger muscle will increase sports performance

Skeletal muscle hypertrophy may not be necessary or important for strength adaptation; however, resistance exercise may still be efficacious for sport if it could improve performance by augmenting strength. The idea that resistance exercise will increase sports performance is generally accepted [9], [27]; however, it appears that this assumption is largely based off cross-sectional data demonstrating that strength is associated with being a starter or non-starter [8], as well as with various

A larger and stronger muscle could not be a bad thing?

Despite limited evidence that resistance exercise is beneficial for sports performance, many may argue that an increase in muscle size and strength could not possibly be a negative adaptation. However, if resistance exercise does not largely contribute to an increase in sports performance then several hours a week spent on resistance training may be doing little more than prolonging recovery. Our research group has previously discussed the lack of evidence supporting the thesis that a

Indirect effects on sport performance

Resistance exercise may not have a direct effect on sports performance, but may indirectly improve performance through the prevention of injury. Coppack et al. [55] found that the inclusion of progressive resistance exercise along with stretching during a 14-week military style physical conditioning program resulted in a 75% reduction in anterior knee pain risk compared to a control group that did not perform resistance training and stretching. Askling et al. [56] examined the influence of

Considerations

It is important to note that not every systematic review/meta-analysis/original paper on strength and performance is included in this paper. We cite (to our knowledge the most recent) paper by Suchomel et al. [9] showing that strength is associated with various aspects of sports performance. However, a major point of this paper is that associations between strength and performance measures may not provide a proper justification of the importance of resistance exercise for sports performance. As

Conclusions

Resistance exercise for sports appears to be largely based on cross-sectional literature demonstrating that stronger individuals are more successful at sport [8] and that strength is associated with various performance related abilities [9]. Although there is evidence demonstrating that resistance exercise can improve performance related measures such as rate of force development and performance skills such as jumping ability, the majority of these studies do not include a control group for

Funding

No sources of funding were used to assist in the preparation of this article.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this review.

The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this manuscript.

References (60)

  • J. Iguchi et al.

    Physical and performance characteristics of Japanese division 1 collegiate football players

    J Strength Cond Res

    (2011)
  • T.J. Suchomel et al.

    The importance of muscular strength in athletic performance

    Sports Med

    (2016)
  • S.L. Buckner et al.

    The problem of muscle hypertrophy: revisited

    Muscle Nerve

    (2016)
  • S.L. Buckner et al.

    Determining strength: a case for multiple methods of measurement

    Sports Med

    (2017)
  • K.T. Mattocks et al.

    Practicing the test produces strength equivalent to higher volume training

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (2017)
  • K. Goto et al.

    Muscular adaptations to combinations of high- and low-intensity resistance exercises

    J Strength Cond Res

    (2004)
  • S.J. Fleck

    Periodized strength training: a critical review

    J Strength Cond Res

    (1999)
  • J.P. Loenneke et al.

    Relationship between thigh muscle mass and augmented pressure from wave reflections in healthy adults

    Eur J Appl Physiol

    (2013)
  • S.L. Buckner et al.

    Muscle size and strength: another study not designed to answer the question

    Eur J Appl Physiol

    (2017)
  • T.G. Balshaw et al.

    Muscle size and strength: debunking the “completely separate phenomena” suggestion

    Eur J Appl Physiol

    (2017)
  • T.G. Balshaw et al.

    Changes in agonist neural drive, hypertrophy and pre-training all contribute to the individual strenght gains after resistance training

    Eur J Appl Physiol

    (2017)
  • J.P. Loenneke et al.

    The time course of muscle growth and its relationship with muscle strength in both young and older women

    Geriatrics Gerontol Int

    (2017)
  • R.M. Erskine et al.

    The contribution of muscle hypertrophy to strength changes following resistance training

    Eur J Appl Physiol

    (2014)
  • S.J. Dankel et al.

    Muscle adaptations following 21 consecutive days of strength test familiarization compared with traditional training

    Muscle Nerve

    (2016)
  • T. Abe et al.

    Influence of strength training on distribution of trunk and appendicular muscle mass

    J Aging Res Clin Pract

    (2014)
  • J.J. Ode et al.

    Body mass index as a predictor of percent fat in college athletes and nonathletes

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (2007)
  • B.R. Counts et al.

    Muscle growth: to infinity and beyond?

    Muscle Nerve

    (2017)
  • C.S. Bickel et al.

    Exercise dosing to retain resistance training adaptations in young and older adults

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (2011)
  • A.C. Fry et al.

    Physical performance characteristics of american collegiate football players

    J Strength Cond Res

    (1991)
  • M.A. Newman et al.

    Relationships between isokinetic knee strength, single-sprint performance, and repeated-sprint ability in football players

    J Strength Cond Res

    (2004)
    • View full text
    © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.