Did The Pendulum Swing Too Far?
Did the Pendulum concerning physical therapy methods, prehabilitition, functional movements, and identifying asymmetries swing too far? Are we losing the strengthening of our Strength & Conditioning profession?
The Profession Has Strength In Its Name
We are strength and conditioning coaches. Strength is the first word. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us started acting embarrassed by it.
The last fifteen years brought an explosion of screens, assessments, corrective exercises, and prehab protocols into our weight rooms. Much of it was valuable. We learned to look at movement quality. We learned to respect asymmetries. We learned that durable athletes are built, not just loaded.
But somewhere in that evolution, the pendulum swung past center. Sessions that used to be built around getting stronger became built around getting screened. Athletes spent more time on corrective mini-band circuits than under a barbell. We got very good at identifying dysfunction and very hesitant about applying the one stimulus we know works best. Progressive overload.
Let me be direct. You cannot correct your way to performance. Movement quality matters, but it is the foundation, not the house. At some point the athlete has to get strong.
Tools Don't Replace The Work
The best coaches I know are obsessed with athlete problems, not training tools. Every era has its shiny object. It used to be a new periodization model. Then it was a screening system. Now it is a wearable or an algorithm. The tool changes. The trap does not.
The trap is falling in love with a method and then hunting for athletes who need it. Screens are useful. Identifying asymmetries is useful. But when the assessment becomes the program, you have confused the map for the territory. A screen tells you where to look. It does not replace the training.
Ask the harder question. Is this athlete strong enough for the demands of their sport? If the answer is no, no amount of corrective exercise closes that gap. Load the pattern. Progress the load. That is the job.
Chase Clarity, Not Complexity
The best results usually come from simple systems executed with consistency. And buy-in. Lots of buy-in.
Complexity feels like expertise. A twelve-exercise corrective sequence feels more sophisticated than five sets of five. But sophistication is not the goal. Adaptation is the goal. And adaptation comes from clear, progressive, well-coached basic training done relentlessly over time.
If your athletes are not bought in, it does not matter how technically sound your screening battery looks on paper. They will go through the motions on the correctives and save their real effort for someone else's program. Simplicity earns buy-in. Buy-in earns effort. Effort earns results.
The Pendulum Always Swings
Here is the thing about pendulums. They always swing back. The coaches who survive every swing are the ones who never married a method in the first place.
Hang out in the gray area. Coaching is contextual. Screens have a place. Prehab has a place. Functional movement work has a place. But they are tools in service of the mission, and the mission is building stronger, more resilient, more powerful athletes.
Start With Strength
If you take one thing from this, take this. When in doubt, get the athlete stronger.
Stronger athletes sprint faster, jump higher, change direction better, and get hurt less. That is not a slogan. That is the most replicated finding in our field. Every screen, every corrective, every piece of technology should be in service of that outcome, not a replacement for it.
Use the assessment. Respect the asymmetry. Then put the athlete under the bar and coach the hell out of the lift. That is strength and conditioning. The strength part is not optional. It is the name on the door.