I found myself in conversation with a colleague this week discussing the relationship between maximum strength and performance in sport(s). The crux of the conversation is that both of us agreed that being strong is a great tool to have, but we differed in order of importance.
You see, in Parisi Land, we often talk about the Sports Performance Paradigm, an inverse pyramid with the biggest block being speed training on the bottom, strength training being above that, nutrition and recovery being the third layer, and sitting all the way at the top – the smallest block on the pyramid- sports skill.
So when it came to this month’s research review series, I spent some quality time on Google Scholar (one of the best places to find peer-reviewed research articles) searching for an article that aimed to test the correlation between strength and sports performance.
Here’s what I found…and I think it’s pretty great…a study researching the level of correlation between 1 rep max deadlift AND jump performance. I’ll get into what I like and dislike below, but what I am excited for is that this research looks at comparative correlation among different types of athletes – eek, research nerds rejoice!
If you’re new here, here’s how these research reviews break down…
Part 1: What we know.
This is going to explain what the research was looking to study, how they studied it, and why you should care.
Part 2: Any comments or concerns about what the study is showing?
Sometimes the best research study looks so good on paper, but then when you dive in you see that it was done on olympic athletes, or was sponsored by a specific company, or something else that can throw a major red flag on its effectiveness in practical use. Alas, that is what we are for here at Parisi HQ
Part 3: How can I use this?
This part is going to explain practical applications of the research. Typically research is lab based and can be hard to replicate when you’re a Performance Coach on a budget. I’m going to do my best to break down how you can actually apply this research to you coaching
Here’s the article of note, in citation format for you grammar nerds out there…it’s hyperlinked to the text in case you want to dive in yourself.
Schiemann S, Keiner M, Wirth K, Lohmann LH,
Wagner C-M, Behm DG and Warneke K (2024)
The magnitude of correlation between deadlift
1RM and jumping performance is sports
Front. Sports Act. Living 6:1345213.
doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1345213
Part 1: What we know.
First, the facts. 103 athletes with soccer, basketball, American football, and powerlifting were chosen for this study. The aim for this study was to specifically test deadlift 1RM limits and compare against countermovement jump performance and standing jump performance. What was really interesting about the choice of the deadlift, is that the author states there is plenty of research looking at the back squat and jump performance, and because of that, this study wanted to specifically target the deadlift given the specificity in force vectors to the countermovement jump.
Pretty neat, right?
So the outcome…overall, if you looked at the total population results 1RM deadlift improvement did increase jump performance. On the surface it looks great, right? However when you look at the different athlete subgroups, basketball dominated the jump performance and the powerlifters showed the least improvement.
Initially I left this study a little confused on what the research was telling me. What I think we all know is that specificity is king. It didn’t surprise me that the basketball athletes – who jump in their sport on the regular- improved the most, but I was super surprised that the powerlifters didn’t show more improvement in the jump performance.
Though it looked at strength and performance from a unique lens, this study validates sport movement specificity as the ultimate ‘King’ of performance enhancement.
Let’s move on to a few other notes…
Part 2: Any comments or concerns about what the study is showing?
I found it very interesting in the ‘methods’ portion of this study that they stated the author’s desire to test athletes that have a high jumping ability but little deadlift experience. I agree with the author. It would be pretty great to see how a strength intervention affects the rate of development with jump performance. However, the criteria was strict and the author held to it.
Alas, we move on…
I thought this study was pretty rock solid through and through, but what I continue to search for, is the presentation of more specific baseline criteria. It was clearly outlined that an athlete was stopped from their deadlift attempt if they broke form. Limiting the number of testing/retesting attempts is tough, and using a high skill strength movement like the deadlift is a challenge in itself. I think it the future I am going to look for studies of similar data but using a lower skill implement like a Keiser air powered setup or self-spot set up. I know the Performance landscape doesn’t love some of these machines, but for the sake of research done on lesser trained individuals, they can serve to be very useful.
Part 3: How can I use this?
The practical application from this study is pretty straight forward. Strength training and sport specific skill movements need to be trained concurrently. Not necessarily in the same session, but worked hand-in-hand over the same training phase. In Parisi, we often have our athletes perform total body strength workouts 2-3 days per week alongside linear and multidirectional speed training days on the other 2-3 days. Yes, that math works up to 4-6 days…most facilities don’t train 1x a week (Sunday) or leave the athlete weekends open to competition.