As a team of strength and conditioning coaches, we’re often asked exactly what that means, to be an ‘S&C coach.’

It’s an important reminder to us that just because we know the difference, it doesn’t mean athletes, sporting parents or the average punter does.

And that’s not their fault, it’s ours (as an industry).

Unless you’re clued into athletic development training, you might be wondering:

“What’s the difference between strength and conditioning and, simply going to the gym to workout?”

That’s a fair question — it’s easy to look at them both and think they are the same thing.

For most people, the distinction is semantics and in reality, it doesn’t matter. The most important thing for the majority of the population is to train and regularly exercise in a safe and sustainable manner.

But for athletes, the devil is in the details.

Going to the gym is NOT the same as following a comprehensive strength and conditioning program.

And to add to that, not all strength and conditioning programs are created equal.

So what’s the difference between simply going to the gym as an athlete and actually following a well-designed strength and conditioning program?

In this article, we’re going to outline the 5 key characteristics of any quality strength and conditioning program and what to look out for when you’re investing in a solution to elite athleticism.

If you’re an athlete, you’ll be able to decide whether you’re doing everything you can to prepare. If you’re a strength and conditioning coach, these can serve as a checklist or insight into what we prioritise here at our gym Athletes Authority.

1) You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure, So Measure Well.

This first concept forms the bedrock of what we do here.

All quality strength and conditioning programs should meet an athlete where they are, not where you want them to be.

That is why generic programs you download from the internet don’t work.

It’s why a ‘sport-specific’ strength program your coach gives you (and the rest of the forty athletes on your squad) won’t work for most of the group. Some will be great responders, others will plateau, and some will either get injured or get worse.

And, it’s why following a program that worked for you last year, probably won’t work for you this year.

You have to meet an athlete where they are, not where you want them to be.

The very first thing we do with our athletes is to test and assess. We need to understand where an athlete is, before we can decide where they need to go. This goes above and beyond standard ‘strength testing’ and enters the realm of exploring:

– How well do you move?

– How well you do you land?

– How much force you produce?

– How much force you can absorb?

– What’s your eccentric hamstring strength like?

– What’s your adduction/abduction ratio’s?

– Do you rely on your muscular power or tendons to produce your force?

– How well do you recycle power?

– Do you suffer from excess knee valgus during single-leg stabilisation exercises?

These questions, and more, are all questions that will influence our programming, and questions that can only be answered by collecting data.

Alongside assessing an athlete’s physical ability, we also assess their mental performance, too.

A wide variety of tests are available but we like the MTQ-Plus as a starting point. Understanding both the physical and mental limitations (as well as the strengths of both domains), helps us create what we call our Elite Athlete GamePlan™, and that sets us on the course and maps out the plan of attack.

Before you grab another program off the internet, remember that it’s difficult to improve what you don’t measure.

In most cases, generic programs make way too many assumptions to be effective and will take away valuable energy and resources that you have (like your time).

2) Before Your Pursue Upside, You Have To Minimise Downside.

While most strength and conditioning programs try and chase ‘performance gains’, we realise that trying to get PB’s in the gym on the back of shaky foundations is a ticking time-bomb.

When athletes try and train above their means and their chronic tolerance, their weak links break. No athlete gets better on the bench, so that’s not an option for us.

That’s where that saying “you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe” comes in.

Before you can pursue the upside of better performance, you have to protect from the downside.

For the same reasons our military officers wear bulletproof vests, we protect our athlete’s vulnerable areas from the chaos of sport.

This gets done using our KVLR™ Protection protocols. Think bulletproof vests for athletes going to war on the pitch, court or field of play. We identify what’s at risk, then we protect it as much as we can. While we can’t guarantee what happens, we can definitely put the odds in our athletes’ favour.

3) An Athlete’s Movement Competency Should Have Deep and Wide Foundations

At our gym, the goal of our strength and conditioning programs is to create great movers who are prepared for any challenge that sport throws their way. Depending on the sporting pursuit, the width of our base changes — the more specialised sports like sprinting have a narrower base; while the more generalist sports like football have a wider base. That’s to reflect the demands of the sport.

These foundations are built using a system that we call the KVLR™ Movement Progression Systems. Step by step, we protect our athletes from more and more challenging tasks until they reach the end of our strength, power and plyometric progressions. By this point, they have realised that they are an elite athlete, and it’s time to take the next step.

4) Elite Athleticism Is The Result Of The Aggregate Of Marginal Gains.

With a rock-solid foundation and a wide movement capacity, we can now move the strength and conditioning program toward the pointy end of training prescription and utilise advanced training methods to extract every last ounce out of our athletes.

For some athletes, we can achieve this in only a few short months, but for others with less training experience, may take a quite a few disciplined years. Like always, every athlete needs to be met where they are, not where they want to be.

It’s commonly said the best athletes fly close to the sun. That’s just how it works. Our job as a strength and conditioning coach is to provide insulation so it’s more likely that athletes don’t get burned.

Now that they’re protected from the downside, a good athlete will only become great when they push their boundaries, challenge their current condition, and become a weapon who is able to endure past their previous limits. No athlete has succeeded at the highest level without this ability.

This is where we will also ‘chase the 1%’ers.’ We’ll look to optimise things like:

– How well are you recovering between training sessions?

– What’s your supplementation program like, especially in winter?

– What can we optimise with your diet?

– How can we optimise your sleep and improve sleep hygiene?

– How can we simulate worst-case scenarios of sport in training?

And many more 1%’ers…

That’s why the final phase of every great strength and conditioning program is to complement their technical training and preparation so an athlete can endure and suffer as they rise to the top. By this point, an athlete is elite and their GamePlan™ should reflect that. Highly individualised and highly specific to the needs of the sport. By this point, the rules are out the window, and you must take each athlete case by case.

5) Behind Every Great Athlete Is A Great Coach In Their Corner.

This is perhaps a counter-intuitive characteristic of a great program because a program should be able to rest on its own merits.

But that’s simply not true. An average program that is coached well and adhered to religiously, will outperform a great program that is coached poorly and done inconsistently.

That’s why the last great characteristic of a great strength and conditioning program is a coach that cares. MJ had Grover. Woods had Rotella.  Phelps had Bowman.

If you’re looking for a coach that cares and are willing to travel to our strength and conditioning gym in Artarmon, then it’s worthwhile exploring our flagship Athlete Development Program. 

In our flagship program, we implement the systems you’ve just read starting with an athlete’s Elite Athlete Gameplan™ and then getting to work bulletproofing their physical and mental weaknesses, building a strong movement foundation grounded in habits that are effective and, pursuing the upside in order to become elite. 

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