Does Strength and Conditioning have Anything to do with Bodybuilding?

DOES STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH “SHAPING UP”?

Yes, strength and conditioning are the root activities from which bodybuilding, body sculpting, sports training, cross-training, functional training, weightlifting, and powerlifting were born. All sports training originates from training soldiers for war (Perrottet T., 2004), Ancient sportsmen/sportspeople saw the high cost of war and wanted to create an alternative. Athletics were born and a new way to prove which nation had the most capable warriors with them. Athletes were people from the city of Athens. These people trained full-time and received sponsorship and everything today’s “athletes” receive. They were superstars.

Get stronger and run faster,

Bodybuilding, powerlifting, and weightlifting used to live in the same camp. Athletes would do weightlifting for athletics. They would do powerlifting for strength. Finally, they would do bodybuilding for assistance movements. I am a powerlifter by design. I wanted to be a bodybuilder until I realized I would never achieve 300lbs. of muscular bodyweight. I am quite strong, so I entered a powerlifting competition and won. I competed for years in powerlifting. A friend was a weightlifter and we bonded over the similarities and differences between these two awesome sports. He gave me some reading material and I studied as good athletes and coaches do (Roman, 1988). I fell in love with weightlifting. Years of powerlifting and short arms designated me a powerlifter. My nephew, however, was built to be a weightlifter. I coached him and he won two USAW School Age National Weightlifting 

Weightlifters are better athletes than most.

Championships. He runs the forty faster than most NFL players and Hussein Bolt (Bolt accelerates after 40 meters btw). He jumps like a kangaroo. He was never quite heavy enough to do well internationally at a senior level even though he finished 4^th in a Pan-American Championship. He is heavy enough to match his height and weight with proper leverages now. We will see how this goes as he is still in college.

I digress. The camp split years ago. Weightlifters specialized in quick athletic movements. Powerlifters specialized in absolute strength related movements. Bodybuilders (BB) focus remained on the artful aesthetics of the human form. These camps are quite resolute in their beliefs and USAW lifters miss more jerks than they should because someone told them bench-pressing was a bad thing.

Kids need to train like athletes NOT bodybuilders!

Use the snatches, cleans & jerks to remain athletic. Use squats, bench presses, and deadlifts to improve strength. Finally, using BB movements to strengthen parts of the more complex gross motor movements (full body, multi-dimensional) and the human body develops more fully. All training sciences worth their weight are based on weightlifting training in the former Soviet Union. There isn’t any new science worth much in scientific terms. This point may be arguable; it may not be. I encourage anyone interested in this topic to reach out to me and we can discuss in a friendly, civilized, way. If we still disagree, one of us was doing more talking than listening.

The ultimate point is if one trains like a weightlifter, powerlifter, and uses BB movements to fix weak links the outcome is far superior to one faction or another.  We need to reunite the camp and train like soldiers even though we most likely will not go to war. A soldier in war has no reason to do a sculpting movement unless that movement will foster a broad development systemically. Crunches are a sculpting movement designed by an athlete with a bad back!

Be a lifter in the weight room. Do BB movements in extra workouts to foster growth on the gross motor movements. Bodyweight management, fat management, which most Americans require these days remains a matter of nutrition. Nutrition is between 20-80% of the solution depending on one’s goals and which internet guru one reads/watches. Stay strong everyone!

Will

Will2bstrongdc.com

References

Perrottet, T. (2004). The Naked Olympics: the True Story of the Ancient Games. New York: Random House.

Roman, R. A. (1988). The Training of the Weightlifter. Livonia, Michigan: Sportivny Press.