57: Exercise for health & strength vs. exercise for sports & fitness with Dr. James Fisher

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Dr. James Fisher is a researcher & senior lecturer in sports conditioning & fitness at Southampton Solent University in the United Kingdom. He went on to complete his PhD, titled “The Scientific Application of Resistance Training”, through Nottingham Trent University.

On this episode, Adam, Mike & James discuss exercising for health & strength vs. exercising for sports & fitness.

Off the top, James clearly states that resistance training is essential to both good health & sports performance and Adam shares the advice he gives his clients looking for “sport-specific” workouts. Then they all weigh in on the “fads & fashions” like CrossFit, Bootcamps & Functional training programs.

James draws on his personal experiences as a fitness professional; strength and conditioning coach to amateur, professional, national and international athletes; GB wheelchair basketball coach at the London 2012 Games; and published researcher and reviewer to deliver the theoretical and practical knowledge required for future progression of health, fitness and sporting success.

https://www.solent.ac.uk/staff-profiles/academic-profiles/james-fisher/james-fisher

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Inform_Fisher 2_April 25 Transcript

Arlene [00:00:01] The InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of InForm Fitness studios, a small family of personal training facilities specializing in safe efficient high intensity strength training. On our bi monthly podcast Adam and Mike discuss the latest findings in the areas of exercise nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness. And to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We'll cover exercise protocols and techniques nutrition sleep recovery the role of genetics in the response to exercise and much more.

Arlene [00:00:59] On this episode exercise for health and strength versus exercise for sports and fitness. We welcome back Dr. James Fisher, researcher and senior lecturer in sports conditioning and fitness at South Hampton Solent university in the United Kingdom.

James [00:01:16] But fundamentally a movement is either the same or it's different. There's no big gray area here saying it takes its skiing movements and then say well we'll replicate that on wherever else we've got. What you do is you say if you wanna be better at skiing go skiing or if you want to be better at surfing go surfing if you want to be stronger. That will make you stronger but at the end of the day if you want to be the best skier you can be you should be strong and as healthy as you can be and you should practice skiing as much as you can.

Adam [00:01:48] All right. We'll be back. By popular request we have Dr. James Fisher with us again. And to refresh your memory Dr. Fisher is a researcher and senior lecturer in sports conditioning and fitness at South Hampton Solent university in the United Kingdom. He also has his PHD from Nottingham Trent University. James welcome back to the show.

James [00:02:06] It's great to be back Adam, thank you for having me.

Adam [00:02:08] We've had some great feedback on the last episode we did when we compared compound movements to simple movements. And today I want to talk to you about something a little differently and that is what you have found out about the difference between exercising for health and strength versus exercise for sports performance. And is there a difference in how you train for health and strength versus training if you were to become or want to become or are, an athlete whether you're I guess a weekend warrior or beyond that.

James [00:02:46] Yeah absolutely. This is a really interesting topic and I think that you know this is a very very deep topic so we'll see how far down the rabbit hole we can go with this. Well first and foremost I think resistance training plays a key role for health and I think health is key for sports performance. So I think that's worth worth saying first and foremost. No athlete is going to perform optimally if they're unwell or if they're injured and if a resistance training or or or properly formed strength training can improve health then it can certainly help stabilize performance if not enhance performance. I think then the next thing is that we've got to look at performance as being on a spectrum so we talk about athletic performance in sports performance but actually performance for some people is walking up and down a flight of stairs or you know being able to hold that balance if they slip on ice or things like that. So performance is still a measure or a marker or exists on this this spectrum in my opinion. I think that you know we know the benefits so we shouldn't know the benefits of how this was training. I've published it in multiple papers there is just a ton of research to support it you know with regards to kind of body composition, reduction in risk of diabetes types of cancer. So on and so forth. The key difference there is that when we're training for sports performance or for a specific exercise there is a huge skill component along the way as well. So it's not to suggest that resistance training won't enhance performance but if you take a basketball player.

James [00:04:23] Well if I took 20 basketball players and 10 of them I put on the basketball court and had them play basketball for 10 weeks and the other 10 I had come in the gym and lift weights for 10 weeks. Well at the end of 10 weeks I'd bet my money on the team to play basketball that every day of the week because they are more skilled in or they're more practiced in the skills that they need. But if you wanted to say who are the healthiest. Well then I think you know you're looking at a big difference. I think that's a bit of a different marker on the group that's been practicing resistance training are probably less prone to injury which might be a key factor and their overall health might well be better than the group playing basketball.

Adam [00:05:08] Now I've always said this, when I have athletes coming into workout and they tell me well I want to arm a tennis player or I'm a Weekend Warrior I play soccer on the weekends or I guess over there we'd call that football but they say to me well are we going to be doing specific exercises for my particular sport. And I've always generally said Not really. We're going to do the compound movements we're going to mix and maybe some simple movements but basically we're going to do a full body safe workout with what you said earlier struck a chord which was healthier right. So like you know if you're an athlete you want your exercise program to preserve your joints not destroy your recovery not diminish your recovery ability too much because you're practicing all the time. You want your workout just to be very ...