Adam C. Stewart
Specificity is given. All trainers learn the “said” principle and know that the body produces specific adaptations to the imposed requirements. So if you want to get stronger, you lift hard. So, in a simple, individual and closed sport like powerlifting, it is not surprising that highly specific training is often seen, and it undoubtedly works. However, in many matters, specificity is misunderstood, misapplied or overused.
Note: This article was the cover of MASS Research Review for March 2023.si want more content like this, subscribe to MASS.
The specificity principle or “said” principle is a fundamental principle of the science of movement which states that the body makes “specific adjustments to the imposed requirements” (1). Every coach and sports scientist gets acquainted with this principle very early in his training, as well as with other principles such as overwork and individuality. Before I go any further, however, I want to clarify that there is no way that I will call this article “everything you thought you knew about specificity is wrong”. Despite the prevalence of this approach in the age of social media and the fact that it can emotionally attract people, not everything you thought you knew about specificity is wrong (although doctors hate me for the strange trick I discovered). On the contrary, I think, at least at the beginning, that some people are simply too tight on specificity, which can get you or your athletes into trouble. Therefore, this article will help you expand your perspective on specificity so that you can understand and apply your Nuance to become stronger.
Going beyond A spectrum
In my experience, many people see or present specificity as a spectrum, less and more specific. Depending on the context, this spectrum could be applied to the load or to the specificity of the movement, at least in powerlifting. The idea is that for each “training session”, the less specific movements or loads visualized on the left side of the spectrum will have less transfer to the movement or load displayed on the right side of the spectrum that you want to improve (Figure 1). I first discussed this simplistic view of specificity and the associated problems (at least EN MASSE) in a video from Volume 4, Number 3, and I will talk about it in more detail here.
If it is conceptually correct that 100% of 1 rpm is more specific to a Maximum test in competition than anything lighter, and that competition lifts generally transmit to themselves more than any other movement, if we took this concept in a vacuum and applied it universally programming, there would be a lot of nuances not found On the one hand, the complexity of the movement is important to a certain extent. Rossi and his colleagues (2) compared a group that did only leg presses to a group that did only squats to a group that did half of its training as squats and half as leg presses to see the effects on squats and the press In Particular, while the squat only group increased its squat-1RM much more than the leg press group alone and showed the greatest improvement in squat-1RM of the groups, the three groups had very similar increases in the leg press-1RM. This shows that more complex movements are more “sensitive” to specificity. But even if we limit this conversation to complex movements, such as multi-joint free weightlifting, a spectral view still lacks Nuance. To illustrate, here’s a simple question: Which is more accurate, a Single at 80% of 1 rpm using your competition style or a maximum attempt with a narrow Variation? It’s not so clear, because one is more movement-specific and the other is more load-specific. In the end, if you consider specificity as a spectrum, you should at least take into account that the specificity of movement and load are constantly interacting. But even in this matter, a simple view of the spectrum does not represent the complexity of motor learning or training.
Before explaining why, let me start by saying that if you look at specificity this way, it’s completely understandable. I used to do this and I applied it to my own programming. I remember trying to do as much very specific training as possible. I saw any deviation from a very specific load or a specificity of movement as a necessary evil in which I had to participate in order to manage, recover or burn joint pain. But I thought that if I could somehow do a more specific workout without causing pain, issue, recovery or burnout, it would be better. However, the way I looked at specificity rigidly was not supported by the data. Another fundamental concept that you may be less familiar with than the specificity is the motor learning principle of varied practice, which I discussed in my video of Volume 6, Number 5. He says that you can learn motor skills more effectively if several variations of the skill are practiced over a given period of time, rather than just practicing the same skill over and over again. There is an excellent discussion by Chua and his colleagues (3) in their Multiexperiment article, in which they show how a varied practice-by increasing the distances from the target – improves accuracy when throwing a ball or putting Golf, at least in part by improving concentration of attention.
Not only do the experiments themselves show how varied practice promotes motor learning (and perhaps why), but the authors also cite and discuss much of the fundamental work since the 1970s that reports how varied practice uses “contextual interference” to strengthen motor skills learning in different contexts (Mike has an excellent video Now, you may be wondering how much of this data is related to lifting, and do these concepts apply to lifting? This is a valid question, because most of the data is not about lifting, but about other sports tasks. In addition, with “open” skills such as throwing and cutting, you need to react to an opponent, measure the distance, and the environment can change the execution of the skill (that is, open skills are executed in a dynamic and changing environment). In contrast, “closed” skills such as lifting (or swimming, cycling, athletics, etc.).) are relatively static in comparison, so it is not unreasonable to assume that varied exercises are not as beneficial for lifting. However, there are studies that indicate the benefits of a varied practice specifically for lifting. Even more, some point out that the variability of the movement could be even more important than the variability of the load. Specifically, in 2014, Fonseca and his colleagues found that weightlifters who distributed their volume not only on the Smith machine squat, but also on the deadlift, lunge and leg press gained more squat power from the Smith machine than weightlifters who exercised their entire volume only on the squat. If this discovery makes you feel a little uncomfortable or seems illogical, I understand. When I first approached these concepts, I thought to myself“ “What better way to practice something less similar to the skill I want to improve than to practice the skill itself?”
