3 Keys for Exercise Selection for Sport Performance:

1. Can the Athlete Execute Sound Technique in the Movement?

If mobility or relative weakness issues are holding an athlete back from doing certain movements that will enhance their sporting success, of course you should be working to correct those problems but you must work on these things within the context of the entire program and during the process of this you will most likely need to utilize either different exercises or exercise variations that they can currently execute well.

2. Can the Athlete Produce a Significant Output in the Movement?

Something to consider when choosing your exercises, is that creating too large of an exercise pool will limit your athletes’ ability to gain enough skill in any of the lifts to produce significant outputs. These athletes aren’t competitive lifters and because of that are not highly skilled lifters (even though some of them may be very strong) and because of this will struggle to adapt to too many exercise variations, so choose wisely.

3. Does the Exercise Fit Into the Primary Goal of the Athlete’s Training Program?

One very important thing to consider in this regard is the amount of stress an exercise imposes on the athlete vs its benefit to their development. Squat, bench, deadlift and Olympic lifting variations are general exercises to the non-strength athlete, meaning that their degree of transfer is relatively low and the transfer differences between variations is also fairly negligible. Because of this, you want to choose low cost exercises that will not fill your athlete’s “cup” without extra benefit to their performance.

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