When talking about what it takes to be an elite athlete, it's more than just lifting about of heavy weights or running the fastest. You need to be able to perform in a smooth fluid motion. You need to be able to take all the accumulated strength and use it in way that transfers to how you perform on the field or court.
Here, are the 3 things that every athlete should have in order to get the most out of training and boost athletic performance.
Relative Strength
This is the strength that you have in relation to your own body weight. In other words, you need to be able to carry your own body before anything else.
Doing things such as calisthenics, core stability, and basic body weight movements (squats, pull ups, push ups etc.) allows you to work relative strength.
Ultimately you are increasing force production relative to your bodyweight which improves speed, explosiveness, bounce, and change of direction. And as you do this you are increasing you explosive ability, body control, and injury prevention, which are all major in sports performance.
Absolute Strength
This is the ability to produce as much force as possible, for example doing heavy deadlifts or bench presses. Here you are increasing your muscular and power endurance.
Doing things such as eccentric and isometric focused lifts will drastically help improve muscular strength, power, and endurance. Here's a program covers all of those components to help you get stronger and boost athleticism at the same time.
The whole point of lifting weights with this in mind, is just to be strong, that's it. You are trying to lift as much as you can with a much greater resistance than that of your own body weight, which calls for different adaptations that you utilize within the realm of your sport.
Power
Here, we are working on producing maximal force in as little of a time as possible. At this point, after establishing a solid foundation, and working to acquire absolute strength, you want to take that new strength and learn to use it in a way that produces powerful and explosive movements in relation to your sport.
Examples of this would be doing things like plyometric exercises, sprints, position specific drills and concentric focused lifts.
All of this is important because you need these different layers to be an effective athlete. A lot of people tend to focus one and not the others. For example many athletes just try to lift as much weight as possible and wonder why nothing transfers to play. First you need to establish a solid foundation, then acquire the strength, then learn how to use that strength in a powerful explosive way.
So if you structure your own workouts, look to follow a format like this. It will help you develop the necessary skills, and set you up to compete at a high level.
Reach out if you need help and would like to set up a customize training plan.