I'm Involved In Sports Why Do I Need Weights

This is a really curious question and one I found myself facing a couple of years ago when I was a sportsman playing basketball. I had the fitness, the skill and a body I was proud of and that friends and co-coaches commented on. I had no need of weight lifting or any sort if I had it that good right? Not entirely.

Before I get into a semi detailed lecture (just kidding) let's chat quickly about sports specific fitness and what we aim to do here which is build muscle for long term health. Being proficient in a specific sport, whether it be tennis, hockey, rugby, soccer or whatever sport you love required muscle training of an entirely different nature. Learning to swing a racket and getting your muscles trained to execute the specfic movement required is very different from say, single arm dumbbell curls right?

Remember way back in the first few articles of this blog I spoke about homeostasis and the body's inherent natural ability to find a way to make things less complicated and easier to manage? This is what happens when we become proficient in something and there is no external stress to continue pushing us. We get used to the exercise and eventually find ourselves working out for longer just to maintain a previous state of fitness that is no longer acceptable or causing us to win anymore.

Introduce weights to your routine to train the muscles involved in your sport and all of a sudden you now have an external stress that will continue to keep your body growing and getting stronger. Why is that a good thing? Two very skilled golf players hit their golf balls from the same starting point. One guy however hits significantly farther than the other guy. One of the two guys is stronger. One of the two guys lift weights.

Another fine thing to remember for our sports people out there is that when a sportsperson gets injured and can no longer do the actions their sport requires due to injury, those muscles atrophy because they're not being used. Therapy will then put the person on a weight lifting programme to nurse the muscles back to health and beyond.

So to all my sports starts out there: up your game, get in the gym and train smart.