I was talking shop with a fellow trainer and coach last year. We determined there are 3 qualities worth using for describing sports: absolute strength, endurance, and skill complexity.

There are certainly other qualities, but from the perspective of strength & conditioning, these are the three we focused on.

This is the first of two charts that came out of that conversation (because I can’t really sketch a 3D graph on paper that’s in any way easy to read).

Take a look and think through your sport. This graph represents two basic questions:

• How strong do I need to be compared to the strongest a human can possibly be?
• How long do I need to be able to perform at a high level either without stopping or with inconsequential breaks?

Endurance is not conditioning, but the meaning of conditioning shifts toward aerobic endurance the farther to the right you go. The closer you are to the left, the more conditioning refers to aerobic capacity, which helps you recover.

More on this in a few weeks – we chose to look at how absolute strength and skill complexity interacted for these same categories. Obviously there’s an interaction between endurance and skill complexity too…but I don’t find the breakout particularly informative.

Something to chew on as you set your performance goals for the year!