Friction & Elasticity: Rethinking the Force-Velocity Curve for Basketball Players

Many sports performance coaches are familiar with the force-velocity curve, but most don’t fully grasp how it can help inform our training. In this piece, I propose we rethink the utility of the force-velocity curve when it comes to us giving athletes what they don’t naturally develop through sport. Some sports, like basketball, see athletes spend the lion’s share of their time more or less distinctly in one area of the strength curve while neglecting other regions. Performance coaches can tend to double down in that one area, giving it too much volume in programming when perhaps we really should be feeding these athletes more of what they don’t have in order to ensure more well-rounded development.

Some sports, like basketball, see athletes spend the lion’s share of their time more or less distinctly in one area of the strength curve while neglecting other regions, says @RewireHP. Share on X

We’ve all certainly heard discussions centered around athletes being more friction or muscular-driven, while others tend to be more elastic-driven. But how can this potentially inform our decision-making around training basketball players in new ways? And where does the famous strength curve fit into this? I won’t warm up and clear my throat too much, but allow me to give some brief background context.

Archetypes and Differentiators: The Why and How

Some sports are mainly contained to a certain area of the curve (e.g., powerlifters living in the maximal-strength, low-velocity region). But did you know that certain preexisting structural body shapes can inherently make athletes more “naturals” in certain areas of the curve, too?

I will get to how basketball’s home on the curve lends itself to certain tissues being loaded while others are underdeveloped, but it’s also important to know that certain athlete’s structures could do the same thing. Structure dictates function, and that means some athletes inherently may be overdeveloped or underdeveloped in some areas.

Muscular-driven athletes represent more raw force producers that tend to do better producing force in concentric-dominant fashion (e.g., gutting out a lift in an unlimited amount of time) or what’s sometimes referred to as maximal strength. These athletes tend to shine at things like traditional lifting or box jumps from a standstill.

On the flipside, their springier, elastic counterparts tend to do better accomplishing movement tasks with more rhythm and timing, pulling off movement tasks in a much narrower window of time in order to store and release elastic energy in eccentrically-driven actions.

The former could look something like an offensive lineman in football or a powerlifter; the latter, a basketball player or a high jumper.

Caveats certainly exist. For example, motor familiarity with certain patterns helps with things like coordination. A basketball player—as elastic and fluid as they might be in jumping—likely won’t be as much of a natural at, say, throwing a baseball. Training up any motor pattern is likely going to build upon one’s starting point, regardless of whether they’re naturally competent at it or not. So, that’s obviously a thing.

Next, athletes can certainly train up to improve their abilities on either side of the spectrum, too. I don’t want to come off like I’m speaking in absolutes or at all painting a picture that these things are one’s destiny, either. More just each athlete’s starting place. Comparative norms or an athlete’s given strike zone is an important consideration as well. Even the less-elastic NBA players are still going to present with more elasticity than other populations. Just less so in their own demographic. Keep that in mind when I’m referring to a given hooper as being “less elastic” and similar descriptive language.

I should also probably mention there are different stereotypical structural shapes and breathing strategies (being stuck in an inhaled vs. exhaled state) that tend to correspond to a level of these elastic/frictional outputs (or functionality) here. I’ll keep it brief because—although highly valuable to understand and something we factor into our own process in working with athletes—I want to keep this article fairly straightforward.

Speaking of competency in different motor patterns as well as types of movement strategies, shape can play a role here. For example, athletes shaped like a barrel are probably going to be better at anti-rotation and raw strength. Again, the examples of lineman and iron sports athletes come to mind. On the flip side, cylindrical-shaped, inherently “skinnier” athletes (structurally-speaking, not really as it relates to body comp) tend to be inherently better at turning. Think about most high-level baseball pitchers, such as Randy Johnson, torquing a fastball. Other shapes certainly exist, too, like triangles and upside-down triangles—while not their destiny, these different structural archetypes all present with inherent strengths and weaknesses as it relates to thriving in certain movements.

While not their destiny, different structural archetypes all present with inherent strengths and weaknesses as it relates to thriving in certain movements, says @RewireHP. Share on X

I bring this up because elastic athletes tend to—on average—be narrower in nature and present with a narrower infrasternal angle (angle of your bottom ribs). Frictional or muscular-driven athletes tend to be wider in general and also present with a larger infrasternal angle.

Getting back to the central point, when it comes to shape, structure can certainly dictate function. I think the notion of elastic vs. muscular-driven athletes tends to come off as being very bro science-sounding and more lore than science. And yet—although theoretical and all models are wrong to some extent—there does seem to be a good amount of concrete, observable evidence to suggest there is something to these concepts.

I also bring them up because in many instances as youth athletes get further down the pipeline into growth spurts and puberty, they tend to (on average) get recruited towards or nudged towards sports that inherently reflect their shapes by coaches and parents.

A refrigerator-shaped kid with size and strength may get recruited by football coaches. The long-armed, lanky youth ahead of his peers in stature often gets nudged by parents towards a sport like basketball or volleyball and away from something like wrestling. Not in every instance, but in many. This tends to get magnified the older and further into development youth athletes are.

Athletes may find themselves siloed in excess to one part of the force-velocity curve at the expense of more well-rounded development, says @RewireHP. Share on X

All this collectively means that athletes—both through sport and inherently—may find themselves siloed in excess to one part of the force-velocity curve at the expense of more well-rounded development.

This has big-time durability and performance implications, as well.

Considering Inherent Strengths and Weaknesses With Sporting Demands

Now that some of the background is out of the way as it pertains to how and why athletes may present in these ways, just keep in mind the central point of all that was being able to identify elastic/eccentric-driven/narrow ISA individuals as well as muscular/concentric-driven/wide ISA individuals and how we might look at training them differently.

Now, we’re onto the meat and potatoes question of how we, as strength coaches, fold in the types of forces—and corresponding tissue demands—they’re encountering in sport.

Although being able to identify these inherent movement and breathing strategies can help shape programming needs by feeding athletes what they don’t have inherently—as well as amplify natural gifts—it’s critical to assess the physical demands of the sport and work backwards from there.

When it comes to basketball, this means we’re talking about a more elastic-driven sport on average.

Now, how does this relate to the force-velocity curve?

Rethinking The Curve

I’m going to assume that anyone reading this article is no doubt familiar with the force-velocity curve, but I’m going to propose a different component of its utility.

Traditionally, the force-velocity curve gets discussed as it pertains to including different types of training within one’s programming in order to adequately “surf the curve” and include sufficient amounts of everything in an athlete’s programming. Obviously, that’s not the only way it gets discussed, but it’s by far the most common.

However, in this discussion, our main takeaway should be considering the force-velocity curve as it pertains to dominant movement strategies and corresponding force demands imposed on athletes by a given sport (in this case, basketball).

Basketball players are mostly elastic, reactive athletes. If you look at them on a force-velocity curve, they trend towards the lower right. But rather than thinking about force or velocity in a traditional way, think about what tissues are being loaded here.

Different tissues tend to be loaded more on each side of the continuum. Because hoopers tend to live in this region of the curve, this means they’re utilizing the elastic, fascial, musculotendinous complex far more on average than, by contrast, weightlifters or offensive linemen. Think about a powerlifter thugging out a big lift. His muscles are chiefly being taxed (in an unlimited amount of time at that) in order to accomplish a task—grinding through a movement to move a load past a sticking point. Tendons are no doubt being taxed as well, just in a different, less “elastic” capacity.

Very different force, time—and thus, tissue—demands.

Hoopers tend to encounter far more springy forces associated with storing and releasing elastic energy.

Here’s the takeaway: many reactive/elastic athletes lift the same way they play sports, bouncing the weight up and down quickly. They rarely—if ever—spend time on the left side of the continuum.

Hoopers are generally among the most springy athletes you’ll meet. They often can jump out of the gym, but cannot squat their own bodyweight. While we can’t train just muscle or tendon alone without recruiting the other, we can preferentially bias some of these tissues far more than the others.

Making a concerted effort to include really slow resistance patterns or control patterns (integrated core exercises) in training can be helpful here. Slowing down helps us really load the muscles so that they can become stronger and the athlete’s ability to recruit them becomes more ingrained. Otherwise—if left to their own devices—the way they execute strength movements may not fully capture all the benefits we’re looking to develop.

Well-designed strength work is certainly a capable foundation to unlock explosiveness in elastic athletes on the performance side, says @RewireHP. Share on X

Well-designed strength work is certainly a capable foundation to unlock explosiveness in elastic athletes on the performance side. In “Rethinking the Big Patterns,” Dr. Pat Davidson references an article that highlights the impact of eccentric and dynamic maximum strength on change of direction (COD) ability.

In the article, Keiner et al. (2014) demonstrated that long term strength training for soccer players (at least two years) led to improved COD capabilities compared to players who did not strength train.

There’s also benefit to be had on the prevention side as well.

By helping athletes recruit a wider array of tissues to accomplish movement tasks, we could be mitigating some of the usual wear and tear on their tendons and ligaments that comes with absorbing the brunt of forces encountered in their sport. Thus, there’s inherent value in terms of prevention.

As a bottom line in training, athletes may need to be fed what they aren’t getting through playing their sport, and thus a solid chunk of their programming should go towards addressing these other needs, says @RewireHP. Share on X

If we’re choosing the right resistance patterns, we can pull this off without compromising movement quality. As a bottom line in training, athletes may need to be fed what they aren’t getting through playing their sport, and thus a solid chunk of their programming should go towards addressing these other needs. You could potentially say the same thing about certain athletes on the opposite end of the spectrum, as well.

Strength Training Considerations For Hoopers

My purpose in writing this article was because all too often coaches look at the strength curve from a perspective of “well, the sport lives here so I mainly need to feed them more of that. Plyos, plyos, agility, elasticity, athletic patterns, with a side of plyos.” Meanwhile, I think it could be helpful to skew a liiittle more in the opposite direction, without overdoing it.

Here’s what I tend to draw from all this in a programming context:

Basketball players need both, and the off-season is where we tend to get after it a bit more with regards to athletic, more elastic-driven patterns.

In-season, their sport is almost entirely plyometrics (meaning, elastic-dominant force demands). I don’t need to feed guys getting heavy minutes even more of that. As a matter of fact, it could make them more injury prone by adding extra city miles to their already-taxed wheels.

Some of the guys out of the rotation or who have less minutes from a load management perspective can still get after it a bit in this area, but I’m mainly going to feed my high usage guys types of low CNS-tax resistance patterns, control patterns (integrated core exercises), and relevant correctives as needed.

Well-designed strength training can be a critical piece of development that contributes to a more well-rounded, robust athlete, says @RewireHP. Share on X

In summation, many are familiar with the force-velocity curve, but it can also be helpful to rethink its utility when it comes to giving athletes what they don’t have.

In the case of basketball players, well-designed strength training can be a critical piece of development that contributes to a more well-rounded, robust athlete. By thinking about their development holistically, we can feed them more of what they don’t get (but need) to an extent through playing their sport while also amplifying their strengths.

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