SSL Training systems
Athleticism entails mastering proper techniques for agility, coordination, flexibility, power, reaction time, speed, strength, balance and endurance. An athlete's training regime should directly lead to improvement in the quality of the various connective tissue and neural structures to perform all components of athleticism as well as the biomechanics and sport specific skills optimally and safely.
Conventional weightlifting training systems do not address ALL of the aforementioned athletic components. Consider for instance a squat, clean or deadlift. While these methods might lead to improvement of max strength in the specific exercise it does not necessarily translate to the track, court or field as these movements do not mimic the functional movement patterns and do not address agility, or reactive ability. Other forms of training have to be added to the conditioning program to address the remaining athletic components. This ultimately leads to a training system that comprises of many separate components that do not complement each other or the sport specific needs of the athlete.
SSL programs complement each other, the different components of athleticism and general and sport specific biomechanical techniques. In addition, all of the programs directly transfer to performance in the athlete's chosen sport. Furthermore, strength is not regarded as the ability to lift maximal weight in an unlimited amount of time but rather as a relative phenomena depending on numerous factors (joint angle and orientation, speed of movement, muscle group and type of movement). It is essential that these conditions are accurately replicated when strength is evaluated and trained. When the SSL training system was designed research related to injuries associated with other training modalities were also taken into account. High rates of injuries related to weight training and CrossFit have been documented in numerous studies. These modalities are therefore not implemented at SSL. As the system is safe, rehabilitation and conditioning is done on the same principles, thereby leaving no gap between the final rehab and conditioning phases.