Exercise Selection

for Sports
DANE MILLER

GARAGE
STRENGTH
Typing Various Sports
Proper movements MUST be chosen to find a needed response to athletes in various sports. If we
can think about strength qualities needed for various sports, it makes exercise selection MUCH easi-
er. As coaches, we need to break down the athlete into various groups based off their dominant sport
or their “in-season” sport or perhaps their favorite sport as a competitor. Once the main sport(s) are
selected, we must refer to the strength qualities needed! Let’s refresh this aspect of programming.
1Power Strength Sports
The goal when training power sports is to continuously
focus on mobility while enhancing their speed, strength and
Throwing
Weightlifting
Long Range Golf
power. The only basis of endurance training is based around
actual sport specific endurance. For instance, if an athlete is taking 30-35 throws as a
shot putter on a regular basis, that is the extent of their “endurance.” The entire basis of
their development is focused on strength, power, speed and mobility. The next step is to
find movements that transfer very well to strength, power, speed and mobility. There are
specific movements in the strength world that can lead to the development of those four
qualities.

2Power ENDURANCE Sports

Power endurance sports are sports VERY closely related to
power sports, however their competitive stage may be longer in
Volleyball
Gymnastics
Cheerleading
duration and they may be involved in more repetitive competition
and can have some endurance modalities within their sport. If we compared a volleyball
player (power endurance) to a shot putter (power sport), the volleyball player MUST be
extremely explosive, they must have a very high touch point and they must be able to
react rapidly, just like a shot putter. However, the endurance factor is based around longer
sets and even long rallies. Some rallies can last over 2 minutes in duration! That is where
the endurance factor comes into play and must be factored into their training.
3 Power and Strength
ENDURANCE Sports
Power and Strength Endurance sports are a bit different
from power endurance sports. These are sports that
Wrestling
Football
Field Hockey
typically are field or court sports and often times athletes Lacrosse
need to be engaging with an opponent. For instance,
using wrestling as an example, a wrestler needs to be very STRONG, they must be very
EXPLOSIVE and they must have proper ENDURANCE. This is similar to field hockey or
football. Endurance becomes much more of a factor. When training a power and strength
endurance athlete, much of their time is spent developing strength and power with about
20% of their time focusing on endurance to enable proper recovery from training and to
support a longer period of power output during competition.

4 ENDURANCE Sports
Endurance based sports need power, strength,
speed and mobility to enhance their training and
Cross Country
Swimming Long Course
Triathalon/Iron Man
enhance their recovery. However, the main goal
here is to focus on endurance development. A distance runner may focus on stride length
which can be trained through power output and mobility but ultimately they need to
maintain a longer stride length while under stress for a long duration of time. The same
holds true for triathletes. These are individuals that certainly benefit from strength, power
and speed but much of their training is based around endurance volume work.
Exercise Selection
Now that we remember how to define the four types of athletes, we need to dive into the next part of
the puzzle. What plane do they train/compete on? No, not the 747 or A350, I am talking about sagit-
tal, frontal or transverse. At the simplest method, think of planes in this regard:

Planes of Movement
Sagital Plane Frontal Plane Transverse Plane

Forward or backward Side to side (Least Rotational (Very important

(most common plane of common plane of to train but often not
movement) movement, less focus in addressed)
exercise selection

Comprehending motion and plane of motion and comprehending the qualities that need
to be trained are great! BUT, we also need to comprehend one more aspect. Do they
compete/train on these planes of movement in a bilateral or unilateral movement pattern
and what is the time spent bilateral vs. unilateral? There is a lot that goes into selecting
exercises for sports but this is the bread and butter that I generally use on a regular basis.
I want to provide a simple example for the four sports I train the most and how I would
select movements for them specifically.
Wrestling
1. Snatch
Bilateral power,
2. CLean
Bilateral power,
speed and speed, mobility and
mobility work on strength work on
sagittal plane sagittal plane

3. Front
Squat
Bilateral strength
4. One Leg
Squats
Unilateral power,
and mobility work speed, mobility and
on sagittal plane strength work on
sagittal plane

5. Sled
Unilateral
6. Stair
Jumps
Bilateral OR
strength, power, unilateral speed work
speed work on on sagittal plane
sagittal plane

7. Bench
Press
Bilateral or
8. Pull Up
Bilateral strength,
unilateral strength mobility, and power
and speed work on with specific strength
sagittal plane on sagittal plane

9. Rotational
Abs
Transverse plane
10. Sledge
Work
Speed, power
and trunk work and mobility on
for mobility transverse plane
Football / Field Hockey / Lacrosse

1. Power
Clean
Bilateral power,
2. Back
Squat
Bilateral strength,
speed and power and speed
strength work on work on sagittal
sagittal plane plane

3. Hurdle
Hops
Bilateral power
4. One Leg
Squats
Unilateral power,
and speed work speed, mobility and
on sagittal plane strength work on
sagittal plane

5. One Leg
Bounds
Unilateral power
6. Incline
Bench
Unilateral and
and speed work on bilateral strength
sagittal plane and speed work on
sagittal plane

7. Chin
Ups
Bilateral strength,
8. Rotational
JUmp Lunge
Unilateral power,
mobility and speed and mobility
power work on work on transverse
sagittal plane plane

9. Cossack
Squats
Unilateral strength
10. Clap Push
Ups
Bilateral strength
and mobility work and speed work on
on transverse sagittal plane
plane
Olympic Weightlifting
1. Snatch
Bilateral competitive
2. Clean
and Jerk
Bilateral competitive
movement for speed, movement for speed,
power and mobility power, strength and
on sagittal plane mobility on sagittal
plane

3. Front
Squat
Bilateral
4. Back
Squat
Bilateral strength,
strength, power power and mobility
and mobility movement on sagittal
movement on plane
sagittal plane

5. Snatch
Pull
Bilateral strength
6. Clean
Pull
Bilateral strength and
and power power movement on
movement on sagittal plane
sagittal plane

7. Push
Press
Bilateral strength
and power
movement
tHROWING

1. sNATCH
Bilateral competitive
2. cLEAN
Bilateral competitive
movement for speed, movement for speed,
power and mobility power, strength and
on sagittal plane mobility on sagittal
plane

3. bEHIND
NECK jERK
Movement for 4. bENCH
pRESS
power, speed and Unilateral and
mobility bilateral strength
and speed work on
sagittal plane

5. pULL
uPS
Bilateral strength 6. oNE lEG
sQUAT
and mobility work Unilateral power,
and power on speed, mobility and
sagittal plane strength work on
sagittal plane

7. bANDED
sTANDS
Unilateral/bilateral 8. sIDE mED
bALL
power, speed, Unilateral/bilateral
mobility and power, speed,
strength work on mobility and strength
transverse plane work on transverse

9.
plane
db
tHROWS
Unilateral/bilateral
power, speed,
mobility and
strength work on
transverse plane
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