[onan_barbarian]

People with a "intermediate understanding of weightlifting and program design" have a long history of not having the faintest clue what they are talking about. Given how frequently fashions have shifted over the past 20-30 years, the armchair experts can't have all been right about whose routines are "terrible" and contain "massive flaws". Plyos or no plyos? O-lifts? HIT? Bodybuilding? Draw-ins, bracing, stabilization or old fashioned situps? Linear or non-linear periodization? 4-times a day training or "lots of rest"?

It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.

A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".

[wdewind]

I think I mostly agree with your sentiments about armchair experts, but I think you're giving the professional sports industry way too much credit. There are things reasonable people disagree about when it comes to training (you did a good job listing them), but there are also a lot of things that are pretty uncontroversially stupid happening (texans banning all squats from the weight room, for instance).

> It's almost like there might be multiple ways of doing this stuff and that a lot of it doesn't matter nearly as much as people think, especially in a population that has to play a ton of their actual sport.

This is certainly true especially in skill sports like basketball and even to an extent like football. In strength sports like weightlifting and powerlifting you don't actually see a ton of variation in program design.

> A lot of this IMO stems from confusing two populations, to wit: "elite athletes who are already beastly strong and conditioned, and training skills on a near full-time basis" and "the pool of perennial beginners/intermediates who make up the vast majority of sport science study populations, internet fora and personal training $$$".

I think there's a lot of truth in that, but I still hold to my point that a lot of pro athletes are doing demonstrably suboptimal programming and winning in spite of not because of their programming.

[jdhawk]

> texans banning all squats from the weight room, for instance

Hu? I know Dan Riley does not like squats, but he uses several different alternatives and still says that they can be effective if you're built properly for them.

[wdewind]

Yeah, I meant barbell squats. Dan Riley's school of thought is extremely 1980s/1990s and does not reflect the "state of the art" in terms of strength training. He advocates using machine based squats, which greatly decrease the training usefulness of the movements. This is because they both isolate the movement to one plane, and limit the number of muscles involved in the movement. A linebacker hitting another linebacker is essentially a back squat, and in real life this happens in multiple planes and with all of your muscles. There is no advantage to using a machine, and many disadvantages.

In one piece[1] Dan says things like "To minimize shearing forces on the knee, we ask our players to keep the knees over the ankles in the squatting position."

This demonstrates (along with many other idiotic things he says in that piece) a relatively massive misunderstanding of biomechanics and is kind of disgraceful to hear coming from someone who is a strength coach for people paid millions of dollars a year.

http://assets.houstontexans.com/assets/fanzone/installment48...

[nether]

This sounds like someone who's just read Ben Graham telling DE Shaw that they're doing it all wrong, and index funds are the way to go. A massive lack of understanding and experience in what professionals with cutting edge research and resources are actually doing.

[wdewind]

I'd be into to hearing of some professional athletes/teams you think are doing a really good job with strength and conditioning.