Strenght & Stamina vs Speed & Agility

I have already mentioned this point in my training journal, but as it is not a discussion place, I desided to re-write the situation here.

So, I am starting to do some work-outs to make my physical shape better, but as I don't have much experience in this field I don't know what specialisation and training programm to choose.

I had some limitations in my childhood due to eyesight-related reasons, and I haven't been visiting PE lessons at school. But even still I am completely not a sportish type of person, my friends mention that I am rather strong just by my nature and even call me "the Hulk" time to time. Also, I have a rather hight level of stamina - I can walk on foot almost twice longer than my "sporty" friends, and dive up to 3 meters deep without any equipment.

But on the other hand, I definetly have a lack of speed, agility and reaction. I'm clumsy, I have rather slow reaction and I'm really bad in running. Even choosing the class of the craracter in MMORPG games, I usually choose tanks or short-range damage dealers, like Warrior or Berserker in fantasy games, or any type of Jedi Knight in SWTOR, because I am not fast and accurate enough to take long-range classes such as Wizard or Ranger but intuitively understand how a good punch works.

So, according to this, I am naturally more capable for training which is weight-lifting, strenght and stamina oriented, may be even something of the strongmen type. But on the other hand, such type of a training has not so good infuence on agility and speed.

That's why I ask for your opinion.

What would you prefer - try to "heal" your weak points and concentrate on aspects you're bad in, or leave them as they are and focus on your natural talents?

Gym culture and strength training are way more versatile than you know! I’ll give a very very basic run down/overview and say that any competent strength coach or personal trainer is going to have to start with joint mobility and stability (which you can kind of think as meaning stretches and body weight exercises, often incorporating elastic bands and yoga-like poses) and what youre calling “flexibility”will definitely improve if you do the exercises that youre supposed to do for your warm ups and cool downs.

Power and strength are related but distinct; strength is purely the amount of force you can generate from any given position and power is strength applied quickly. So, pure strength would be the most amount of weight you could lift for a single repetition and power will be the highest amount of weight you could lift in a high speed, explosive movement.

Olympic weight lifting focuses on power, powerlifting (despite the name) focuses on pure strength, but both sports train for power and strength. Strong man is more strength but theres plenty of power events, too, like keg tossing.

Whether you lean towards strong man or powerlifting or olympic style weight lifting, youre going to have to train all of these attributes. So its really not a question of “speed and strength vs agility and stamina” - its not either/or, its all/both.

The answer i would give to your question is to do whatever seems like the most fun to you. It does sound to me like youre natural capabilities make you well suited to weight training and i guess id just reassure you that if you have a competent coach or you follow a proven program, you will not only get much stronger but youll also train speed and agility, and probably reaction times as well because speed and agility training have some positive impact on that even without trying. And coaches have exercises that focus on reaction times, too. So yeah, go for the weights and dont fret about it!

An example of Oly lifting: the snatch


An example of powerlifting: the deadlift

I mean fitness goals are usually related to some sort of utility. What are you wanting to do in terms of fitness, or are you just wanting to be physically fit for the sake of it?

In my experience, it's really hard to "min-max" your physical training in a RPG-esque way. If you're wanting to work on speed, agility, and reaction, try just playing organized sports (basketball, rugby, and water polo are all excellent choices). Swimming is my go-to exercise since it covers quite a few useful categories as well.

Ob1 makes a good point that a lot of exercises are built on being able to have full range of motion, so stretch according to how you're using your body (e.g. gymnasts do limited ballistic stretching since they do that in competition, even though ballistic stretches aren't recommended anymore)

I will consider this in terms of self-defense.
Would you rather throw someone, or outrun someone?
Or even better, chase someone down, and then throw them!
Food for thought.

CaesarEJW wrote: I will consider this in terms of self-defense.
Would you rather throw someone, or outrun someone?
Or even better, chase someone down, and then throw them!
Food for thought.

True question- what happens when two masters meet as opposed to two fighters?

Do a bit of both....as you are already doing. Understand your weaknesses, Develop your stregnths

"There's a poem which says, 'When two Zen masters meet each other on the road, they need no introduction; thieves recognize one another instantaneously.'"
- Alan Watts

CaesarEJW wrote: I will consider this in terms of self-defense.
Would you rather throw someone, or outrun someone?
Or even better, chase someone down, and then throw them!
Food for thought.

Knock out him. Simply.

Meh. Boring.
Where's the fun in simply knocking someone out?
If another mortal is truly thy enemy, thou shalt and must put the fear of God into him!!!
SHAHUPADYA!!!!

Rainbow Firefly wrote: .....
What would you prefer - try to "heal" your weak points and concentrate on aspects you're bad in, or leave them as they are and focus on your natural talents?

My thoughts on it in brief (& no quals);

Basics for me are avoiding things which limit longevity of functional capacities, and impairment of functional capacities.

The former references more longer ranged impacts like diet or cumulative damage from too much exercise (joints, heart etc)... while the later references injury. I've heard about marathon runners and triathletes in their 40's with oversized hearts that fail and they drop dead because they've overtrained for 35 years. It doesn't sound healthy or fit to be a wreck or dead before even half way through life!

But I don't view fitness in terms of strength and stamina vs speed and agility.

More like;
- 'fitness' to me references cardiovascular capacity under physical load,
- 'functional fitness' seems to reference endurance in broad compound strength movements,
- 'strength' references power in more specific compound strength movements,
- 'operational/occupational fitness', which is the specific task/job type of endurance.
- finally, mind fitness might be a good one. The appropriate mindsets to safely integrate all these things into the rigor of normal life. Consisting of both the training and recovery between training.

Speed is just a function of power to weight AFAIK. So having the capacity to generate the power is vital but also put it down efficiently to translate that into motion. Once at speed maintaining momentum becomes where strength of enduring power and form, probably, as weight shifts to being an advantage perhaps (albeit probably more a load on the heart and joints and related to increased air resistance, which drains more then any conservation of momentum that might exist?).

I'd not focus on ones strengths at the expense of ones weakness, as this might lead to increasing imbalances in the supporting structures like soft tissue and skeleton (eg posture) and go to further reduce the chance of bringing the weak areas back up. To me a strength and a weakness are different from an ability or disability. If performance is the goal, then strong muscles can take the load from weaker surrounding ones but if those weaker ones are also made strong then the stronger one is just made even stronger... so it's good to know ones body and how it moves to work out how you might want to train.

But every body is different, and some don't put on mass easily so benefit from isolation type of training to target different individual muscles over longer periods of time to bring lasting improvement incrementally over the body. And some folk can just smash out compound functional training without getting injured long enough so the gains are more then dropping body fat and water swelling of muscle bellies. If performance though is measured in results, then it might be more about mindset and safe training consistency then finding a silver bullet. Otherwise, ^, IMO.

I am remembering a fitness book I had years ago, and I apologize I recall neither the title nor author. But the author recommended that we all should pursue five dimensions of fitness - strength, stamina, flexibility, speed, and balance.

I think that is a solid recommendation, but we have to keep in mind the context of our lives; few of us have the time, energy, or constitution to excel in all of those factors. So, we may want to choose one or two we want to emphasize, while devoting at least a little time to the others.

A good fitness trainer will, before designing a fitness program for you, ask "What are your goals?", and it sounds to me like that's a very important question in this case. The design of your own fitness program should be built around what you want to attain - strength, longevity, endurance, flexibility, and so on. Try to pick at most two such characteristics that are your top priority; you are probably not going to be able to be a power-lifting, marathon-running, yoga instructor.

But whatever your primary emphasis is, don't neglect the other aspects. My early years in the pursuit of fitness got me most deeply involved in running, but I remember reading much advice for runners to include things like push ups, sit-ups, and knee bends to strengthen the muscles running doesn't use, and also to employ various stretches to maintain flexibility and avoid injury.

Good luck!

I don't know where you are at, and more importantly, I am no one and nothing in the realm of physical training - however, in my experience, such as it is, "newbies" can easily over-think themselves into a corner and either do nothing, do too much, or get so overwhelmed that what they are doing is not the "perfect protocol" they flip out altogether.

Find the simplest 30 day program you can....and complete it. Doesn't *really* matter what it is. Something from your nearest "fitness" mag, or https://darebee.com/programs.html should be fine.

Then after 30 days....do another one.

Then do another one.

As long as the movements are safe and there is some kind of progression, you will improve, and if there is a bit of variety you will learn soon enough what you enjoy and want to do more of (and where you are a weak and need to improve just so you can do more of what you enjoy...)

I probably wouldn't spend a cent on equipment until then. If you can make an excuse not to do twenty pushups or squats, or run 2km, you'll just as easily make an excuse not to use a fancy gym membership, or a new bowflex....



(To answer the question - if you are a beginner, you only have "weak points" as you put it - specialising particular fields is more intermediate (or if you're feeling generous to the bros - "elite") athletes.)

The problem is that just "general fitness" is not enough for me to feel physically comfortable. That's why I don't think that all this everyday training most of people do, like morning running and other things like that, would suite me.

I have gone through depression etc over not being able to run fast or play any sport well. An illness kept me from being able to walk at all for a while but I kept persisting with rehabilitation exercises. Now, I choose to focus on my natural talents and as far as physical ability - I do what I can. Have improved 'cause I can walk up the stairs at work now and not be out of breath (steep stairs) whereas before I would be doubled over for a little while. On the right track it would seem. Every little bit helps

deb1977 wrote: I have gone through depression etc over not being able to run fast or play any sport well. An illness kept me from being able to walk at all for a while but I kept persisting with rehabilitation exercises. Now, I choose to focus on my natural talents and as far as physical ability - I do what I can. Have improved 'cause I can walk up the stairs at work now and not be out of breath (steep stairs) whereas before I would be doubled over for a little while. On the right track it would seem. Every little bit helps

My thinking here Deb is that there is no difference in the achievement between going from not being able to walk to walking easily up stairs, and from being able to walk a quarter mile to jogging a half-marathon. Both take commitment, spirit, and the will to not be constrained by our physical limitations.

Keep going, as you can, when you can. I am proud of you.

The problem is that just "general fitness" is not enough for me to feel physically comfortable. That's why I don't think that all this everyday training most of people do, like morning running and other things like that, would suite me.

I have not idea what this means?

Do you have "general fitness" already?
What do you mean by physically comfortable?

Physical training, whilst certainly containing some significant mental and emotional components, it's for the most part grounded in numbers - you can't just believe yourself faster.

If you want to be able to run a six minute mile, you rather necessarily need to be able to run an seven minute mile first.

Maybe running isn't your thing, but the same rather straight forward principle applies to most areas of physical fitness.

Unless you can clarify what you mean, I believe my original position stands.

In any case, you're what - four? five days closer to death now? how's your progress on strength or stamina or speed or agility been in that time?

Im going to repeat some of what James said earlier because i think these are the most important/relevant of the ideas to convey, here. The crucial thing right now is just to pick a program and do it. Worrying about exactly what you should do will only stop you from doing anything. If you think you want to do weights, pick a weight-training program. Starting Strength is probably the most popular. Rippetoe (guy who created Starting Strength) is a bit of a curmudgeon and i dont like listening to him talk anymore but fortunately, the program works quite well for beginning lifters and you can find it - and a large community of others to offer help and feedback online, for free, without having to listen to Rip tell you how brilliant he is, lol. StrongLifts5x5 is another very good program for beginners. The site that James listed has a bunch of different 30 day programs of different types, as well.

The best way to figure out exactly what you should be doing is to just start doing something, lol. I promise, youll learn way more by doing something that isnt perfect than you will by asking about what the perfect thing to do might be.

As far as it goes - Starting Strength and 5x5 are the "go to" recommendations for strength training beginners, so if you pick one of those, you'll be following in the footsteps of many others who have had great success.

(I didn't mention them as they are slightly more "technical" than the darebee programmes or whatever garbage is in Men's Health mags, and sometimes the equipment requirement and keeping track of those pesky numbers can put people off - and there is theoretically a higher chance of injury for inexperienced exercisers doing poor form with excessive weight on the lifts.)

Do not let me dissuade you - if you are keen as a keen thing, you should definitely see improvement (and learn a great deal) if you do a solid barbell programme.

I don't believe you've published your "baseline" performance by any metric currently, so anyone giving advice is just shooting in the dark as to what may assist you.