The Specifics of Specificity: A Closer Look at the Specificity of Training

By Tony Boutagy

The term training specificity is a concept especially important to the personal trainer and strength coach when prescribing exercise. When related to training, specificity simply means that the body’s adaptation to training will be specific to the kind of training stimulus imposed upon it. So in practice, the best way to improve running performance is to run (and not swim, for example) and the best way to improve the squat is to squat (and not cycle).

Sports scientists and coaches have long known the importance of having the athlete perform exercises in the gym that closely resemble the actual sporting movement. In other words, for gym-based exercises to have the most direct transfer to sporting performance, they would have to be similar to the actual sporting movements in the following ways:

• Muscle action;
• Joint angle;
• Energy system;
• Speed of movement;
• Force production;
• Movement pattern;
• Muscle fibre recruitment;
• Duration of activity;
• Flexibility; and
• Metabolism.

At the general level, a program that considers the above qualities when prescribing the exercises will have more of a transfer to the actual sporting activity than a program that ignores the above information. But the most important principle to consider is that only the actual sporting movement itself can be truly sport specific and all other forms of training are designed to improve that movement, and are therefore classified as supplementary. Following on from this, if an exercise is chosen because it trains the general motor quality of power for a power athlete but the majority of that athlete’s training is performed ‘on field’, then there won’t be an issue. However, if, in an attempt to prescribe the most specific exercise possible, the exercise chosen for the athlete mimics too closely the actual sporting movements then complications may arise.

It is important not to confuse the terms training specificity and simulation when prescribing exercise for an athlete - once a descent level of fitness and sports mastery has been achieved. Mel Siff (2003) defines training simulation as the ‘simulation of a sporting movement with small added resistance over the full range of movement or with large resistance over a restricted part of the movement range’. While this may be appropriate at some stages, especially the early stages of programming, Siff warns that simulation of any movement with significant resistance is inadvisable since it can confuse the neuromuscular programs which determine the specificity of the actual movement. If one tries to replicate the sporting movement too closely in the gym, there will usually be changes to the centre of mass, speed of movement, lines of pull, moments in inertia, and the centre of rotation that will alter the fine neuromuscular skills required for the sport and therefore may therefore impede sporting performance.

I was recently asked to adjudicate a debate between two personal trainers on the role of training specificity when programming for cyclists. The question came to me like this:

Please can you solve a disagreement that I'm having with another instructor, he is programming for a cyclist Squats on the smith machine getting the client to push through his toes, so the clients heels are In fact off the ground through the whole range of movement. And I don't agree as it puts undue stress on your knees.

Here the concepts of the terms specificity and simulation are understood to be the same thing. The role of a personal trainer or strength coach, when preparing an athlete, is to condition the motor skills & develop the fitness capacities encountered in their sport at the general level. The athlete then develops the specific fitness requirements for their sport during the performance and training of the actual sport itself.

Unfortunately, with the increasing popularity of 'functional training' and poor knowledge of the difference between the principle of specificity and the principle of simulation, some personal trainers are prescribing ineffective and sometimes dangerous exercises.

In other words, our role in the gym is to develop the qualities of maximal strength, speed, power, hypertrophy, endurance, injury prevention, weight loss or weight gain etc etc. It is these qualities that are then developed into sports specific strength, speed, power etc by the actual sport itself.

This is an important concept to understand. One of the world’s top strength & conditioning coaches, Ashley Jones, has commented that his role as the fitness trainer to the Canterbury Crusaders Super 14 Rugby Team & the New Zealand All Blacks is to make them bigger, stronger, faster & resistant to injury so that the head coach can teach them the specific skills of rugby. So in training, he uses conventional methods & exercises to develop those capacities. The specific actions of the sport itself develop the specific skills needed in the sport.

Cyclists pose an interesting challenge to the personal trainer or strength coach. Unless that athlete is a sprint cyclist, our role in the gym is not to develop strength-endurance or power – those are best developed by cycling for hours and hours. The sport is an endurance activity, the leg musculature contracts for hours at a time, with countless thousands of repetitions in a specific range of motion against a specific resistance at a specific speed of muscle contraction. That cannot be effectively trained in the gym. Our role in the gym is to make them resistant to injuries, especially in the lower back and knees, and to ensure that their on-road training is well planned & periodized.

Given this understanding of specificity, the answer given to the debate was: squatting on the toes has been demonstrated to create excessive patello-femoral stress, which can damage the knees. Because the leg drive in cycling comes through the forefoot, squatting on the toes may be slightly more specific than squatting on the heels (which is safer) but as we’ve seen, the squat would be chosen as a supplementary exercise for either injury prevention or the development of general strength-endurance, therefore the safest technique would be adopted (on the heels).

In summary, when prescribing exercise programs for a particular sport, allow the sports training itself to train the actual movements utilized in the sport and carefully program supplementary gym training for injury prevention and to train the fitness qualities needed at a general level, following the principle of training specificity and not training simulation.

Here is a three week strength training program for a world class triathlete

Monday & Thursday

Workout A

A-1. Front foot elevated split squat, 3 x 12-15, on a 3010 tempo, rest 75 seconds

A-2. Lying leg curls, 3 x 8-10 on a 4010 tempo, rest 90 seconds

B-1. Seated low cable row, 3 x 12-15 on a 3011 tempo, rest 75 seconds

B-2. Seated external rotation from the knee, 3 x 12-15 on a 3010 tempo, rest 75 seconds

C-1. Side bends over a ball, 3 x 12-15 on a 2121 tempo, rest 60 seconds

C-2. High cable crunch, 3 x 12-15 on a 3010 tempo, rest 60 seconds

Workout B

A-1. Side step ups, 3 x 15-20 on a 2010 tempo, rest 75 seconds

A-2. Romanian deadlifts, 3 x 12-15 on a 3010 tempo, rest 75 seconds

B-1. Lat pulldown, parallel grip, 3 x 12-15, on a 3110 tempo, rest 75 seconds

B-2. Single arm bent over trap 3 raise, 3 x 12-15on a 4010 tempo, rest 75 seconds

C-1. Standing reverse cable side bends, 3 x 12-15 on a 2121 tempo, rest 60 seconds

C-2. Slight incline reverse sit ups, 3 x 12-15 on a 3010 tempo, rest 90 seconds