Various Effects

Various Effects of Using Compound or Complex Strength-Power Training during in-season in Team Sport. In this article, we will discuss the effects of using compound or complex Strength-Power Training during in-season in Team Sport. We will provide a summary of the literature and evidence for this topic, and then conclude with our recommendations for Physical Preparation Professionals and Coaches.

Team Sport athletes require a fitness development system that can maintain strength performance capacity during training sessions and competition, but also allow for sufficient recovery to fully prepare for the next training session or competition. Strength training paradigms are appropriate exercises that can be used by athletes to improve their strength performance capacity (1). Based on these findings, Strength-Power Training is often recommended by coaches because they have seen it produce better results than other types of programs (2).

Popular Strength-Power Training programs typically include traditional Olympic lifts such as squats, bench presses and deadlifts, or variations of these exercises (3). These exercises can be used in a complex or a compound way. Complex strength-power training involves the execution of a lift with a specific weight followed immediately by an explosive power movement with approximately 50% of the weight used during the previous lift. For example, barbell squat (with 135 lbs.) followed by the jump squat (with 70 lbs.). Compared to complex strength-power training, compound strength-power training involves performing different lifts with different weights in one repetition. For example, barbell back squat (with 135 lbs.) plus bench press (with 115 lbs.). Most athletes do not fully recover from complex strength-power training and thus they may develop overtraining syndrome (1). Effective recovery is necessary to avoid overtraining or injury (Abade et al., 2020).

One study has shown that the use of compound strength-power training can decrease the risk of overuse injuries in team sport athletes (1). In fact, when compared with no strength-power training, a program of simple strength-power training (exercises performed multiple times per week) only resulted in an increased incidence of injuries in team sport athletes (4). Another study found that after 5 months’ team sport athletes performed 18.8% more vertical jump squat and 13.5% more depth jumps than non-athletes (Abade et al., 2020).

References

Abade, E., Sampaio, J., Santos, L., Gonçalves, B., Sá, P., Carvalho, A., … & Viana, J. (2020). Effects of using compound or complex strength-power training during in-season in team sports. Research in Sports Medicine, 28(3), 371-382.