Despite countless studies and athletes proving the contrary many athletes and coaches still have negative views on weight training to improve performance citing that “you will get too bulky” or “you won’t be able to run as fast” and the age-old “you will be as stiff as a plank if you do too much strength training”.

No matter what sport you do you will definitely benefit from doing some form of strength training outside of your sport, both offseason and on-season. Below are just 5 of the many reasons you should be training with weights so you can be better in your respective sport.

1. Prevention of injury/severity of the injury

If you are competing/taking part in a sport the chances are high you are going to get injured at some point. You are constantly putting force through your body and joints when you play sports, a well-structured strength training program will help strengthen these muscle-tendon units to deal with the repetitive stresses and shocks.

2. Muscle growth + body composition

There is no denying that if you are doing weight training correctly with a balanced diet and resting properly you will gain lean muscle and a possible reduction in fat which in turn will help with overall body composition. Our muscles are the driving force behind all our movements and an increase in muscle and decrease of fat tissue will improve athletic performance.

3. Improved power

Following a progressive strength training program will help you develop larger and stronger muscle fibers, thus enabling a larger force production giving the athlete explosiveness off the line as it were.

4. Improved speed

Much like we have already discussed an increase in lean muscle and stronger muscle fibers are going to result in your body being able to exert and absorb more force, this results in you being able to move faster and maintain it longer.

5. Improved flexibility

Wait, what? Crazy right, most people in the gym will tell you that weight training has made them really stiff but most of these people are not performing the full range of motion on their lifts. If you are performing full range lifts correctly, concentric and eccentric, then you will see an improvement in not only flexibility but all the points we have stated above.

There are many other reasons for weight training, in general, is beneficial for sporting performance and I won’t go into them all. However, If you are interested in learning more feel free to send us any questions you may have.