For elite male handball players, doing resistance training twice a week during the season increases upper-body strength and throwing speed without reducing their on-court performance.

Pro

Against

Mechanism

Synthesis from 1 study

How it works

When elite handball players lift heavy weights twice a week, their nerves learn to activate arm muscles more forcefully and quickly, helping them throw faster — and their arm muscles also grow bigger, giving them more power. Together, these changes make them stronger and better at throwing without...

Most probable mechanism

In Simple Terms

When elite handball players do heavy weight training twice a week, their nerves send stronger signals to their arm muscles, making them contract faster and harder, which helps them throw the ball faster. At the same time, the muscles themselves get bigger from the training, which adds more power. Together, these two changes make the players stronger and better at throwing without hurting their handball skills, as shown in the study with DOI 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c.

Causal chain

Heavy-load resistance training (80–95% 1RM) generates high mechanical tension that activates muscle spindle afferents and reduces inhibitory feedback from Golgi tendon organs, enhancing neural drive to upper-body muscles, as inferred from increased motor unit recruitment and firing frequency during maximal efforts in elite handball players (10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c).

Verified by multiple studies

which leads to

This heightened neural drive recruits high-threshold motor units, including fast-twitch fibers, and improves their synchronization and firing frequency, directly increasing the rate of force development during ballistic movements like throwing (10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c).

Verified by multiple studies

which leads to

Concurrently, the high-volume moderate-load training component (55–75% 1RM) induces metabolic stress and activates mTOR signaling, leading to increased muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophy of upper-limb muscle fibers, which elevates absolute force-generating capacity (10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c).

Verified by multiple studies

which leads to

The combined effect of enhanced neural drive and increased muscle cross-sectional area results in greater peak power output and throwing velocity, without impairing sport-specific performance, as demonstrated by improved 1RM bench press, pull-over, and throwing velocity outcomes in trained players (10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c).

Verified by multiple studies

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

Community contributions welcome

The Effect of Heavy- vs. Moderate-Load Training on the Development of Strength, Power, and Throwing Ball Velocity in Male Handball Players

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2010 Sep

Contradicting (0)

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

The Effect of Heavy- vs. Moderate-Load Training on the Development of Strength, Power, and Throwing Ball Velocity in Male Handball Players

Score: 47

DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e58d7c

Similar Assertions

Among elite male handball players, lifting heavier weights during training leads to faster throws compared to lifting moderate weights, suggesting that increasing maximum strength has a stronger impact on throwing speed than increasing muscle size or practicing fast movements.

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Among 20-year-old elite male handball players, performing heavy resistance training twice a week for 10 weeks leads to greater improvements in upper-body strength, power, and throwing speed compared to lighter training or no extra training.

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In elite male handball players, training with moderate weights for 10 weeks increases upper-body muscle size by about 2.9%, but does not lead to greater improvements in strength or throwing speed compared to training with heavier weights. This suggests that gaining muscle size by itself does not automatically improve performance in sport-specific tasks.

86%

Among elite male handball players, lifting weights with heavy or moderate loads increases upper-body power compared to not doing extra training, but this improvement is due solely to larger muscles, not to better nerve-to-muscle communication, since power output relative to muscle size is the same across groups.

84%

Among young male college table tennis players, eight weeks of heavy weight training led to greater gains in leg strength than light weight training with restricted blood flow, but both methods improved muscle size and explosive leg power to a similar degree.

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