Strength & Conditioning: Durability First.
If you ask any Coach at the high school level what their biggest physical frustrations are, they will tell you either “poor performance” or “injuries”. Or both.
We know that a great strength & conditioning program helps to enhance performance for athletes. We also know that getting strong, fast and powerful helps create athlete durability. The longer an athlete has participated in a solid S&C program, the more durable they should be. This does not mean all injuries can be prevented, however any sports program that incorporates strength, power, speed and injury reduction methods, over time, will have less total injuries and less severity of injuries, and the return to play is usually quicker in durable athletes than those who’ve not participated in a long term strength development program.
That said, I don’t use the phrase “Injury Prevention” because we can’t prevent injuries entirely. We can lower the risk and that is what the goal of every S&C program should be.
Take for instance an athlete who’s been lifting for 4 years who becomes injured. They already have a strong base. Compare that to an athlete who’s only lifted for 4 weeks or 4 months with the same injury. In most instances, the athlete with the bigger base of strength is going to rehab and recover much quicker than the one who hasn’t. Durability can mean the difference between being out with an injury for 4 weeks vs 6 weeks. Often, durability means an athlete can continue to play in the presence of a nagging injury, while that injury is being managed and treated.
What about performance? Turns out most of the things that create durability also contribute to an athlete's capability. In the weight room we lift to get strong, build coordination and general control over our bodies by learning proper movement patterns under load. We progress that load safely over time to build strength and durability. We train for power so athletes can tap into that when we need it. We train for work capacity, so that athletes can express their strength, power and speed repeatedly throughout a game.
Are there things we do that only lend to reducing injury risk, that don’t necessarily help with performance? Yes, but these things will be built into the warmup or will be programmed as fillers during a training session so that they don’t take up too much time.
My final thoughts on durability and why I prioritize it in the programs I write are this:
Someone can be the best athlete on the field. The player who makes the most plays, scores the most points and is the best leader, but … if they’re always injured, they’re simply UNavailable. They won’t be able to utilize their talents if they can’t play. This athlete will be on the sideline hyping up the rest of the team and you will be frustrated.
We coaches often talk about athletes athletic ABILITY. Their best ABILITIES are their availability, reliability and capability. Not being able to put key and contributing players on the field or court is FRUSTRATING!
If we can minimize this frustration, it solves a lot of problems.