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Previously I used a term called, “playerism” to denote the difference between “athleticism”, in that players fitness qualities need to be developed in a context or task specific manner to optimise transference toon-field or court performance. Tennis strength and endurance, looks different to rugby strength and endurance. The key is that term "specific" or"specificity", and if you pay attention to this quality then you're most likely on a path to optimising player performance. However, if you take a deep dive into specificity its a bit of a beast, as specificity comes in many forms. For example:

·     Contraction typ

·     Contraction force

·     Contraction velocity

·     Force vector

·     Posture

·     Energetic/metabolic

·     Movement

·     Range of motion

·     Injury resistance

I'm not sure this is all the specificities that we need to take into account, when we're trying to optimise transference of training gains to playing performance and it seems overwhelming. I know there's the school of thought, why bother about specificity, just get the athlete strong, and use the event to “tune” their strength. If you had 3-4 exercises/movements that you thought were the nuts and bolts of your player development, what would they be?

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