Cal Deitz has written about french contrast training Essentially it is as follows
Heavy strength move
Unweighted plyo based on max power
Weighted explosive move
Unweighted plyo emphasis on speed and reactivity
So you could do the following
Quad emphasis
Squat x 3
Altitude drop x 3
Jump Squat x 3
CMJ x 3
with minimal rest in between and full rest after the complex
Hip Emphasis
Deadlift x 3
Jerk Jump for height x 3
Heavy swing x 5
Jerk Jump forward x 3
For upper body you could do the following:
Push
Bench Press x 3
Med Ball Chest Pass x 3
Drop and Catch (REA/Rebound) Bench Press x 3
Bent over rebound Front Raise x 5 using 1-2lb db’s
Pull
Row x 3
KB Clean x 3-5
Med Ball Slam x 3
BK Snatch x 3-5
With the minimal rest you can back door some anaerobic capacity work. You also cover the force velocity spectrum. I have seen some good results with people I train.
If I was using this method I would only do 1 each training day
Leg training days would look like the following
Day 1
Squat x 3
Altitude drop x 3
Jump Squat x 3
CMJ x 3
1 Leg/King Deadlift 3-5×8-15
Glute Ham Raise 3-5×8-15
Day 2
Deadlift x 3
Jerk Jump for height x 3
Heavy swing x 5
Jerk Jump forward x 3
Straw Squat 3-5×8-15
Bulgarian Split Squat 3-5×8-15
And a complete Upper Body workout would look like:
Day 1
Bench Press x 3
Med Ball Chest Pass x 3
Drop and Catch (REA/Rebound) Bench Press x 3
Bent over rebound Front Raise x 5 using 1-2lb db’s
Rope Face Pull 3-5×8-15
Ab Wheel for Lats 3-5×8-15
Day 2
Row x 3
KB Clean x 3-5
Med Ball Slam x 3
KB Snatch x 3-5
When we talk about relative strength we always take it for granted in terms of performance. Afterall, it’s an easy way to make an idea about how powerful/athletic somebody likely is without even testing him in that field of expertise.
Basically, if you take a guy with a 2x squat (and a decently-low bodyfat level) you would naturally expect that guy to have good sprinting speed (at least good acceleration, if not top speed)and have a high vertical jump (at least standing vertical, if not running vertical) and most often than not you’d be right. There are a myriad of other factors influencing the expression of strength, with the most important being:
1) Body structure;
2) Nervous system capabilities that compose of:
2a) Recruitment ability (influenced by the person’s mood (laid back/nervous) and tension intensity);
2b) Movement efficiency (as in how well the CNS can replicate a movement with as little effort as possible actively using as much power as possible);
3) Inhibitory signals in the eccentric phase (or eccentric strength overload acceptance), such as the GTO threshold;
These are three things off the top of my head, because there are obviously even more that influence the expression of strength.
So what does this have to do with the relative strength component?
Well, here it gets a little tricky.
Say you have two athletes with no training background whatsoever, who never squatted. They have the same height and weight, identical structures, neural efficiency in the standing vertical jump and GTOs threshold. You put them both on training with squats. Athlete A starts a program that calls him to squat 1 time per week. Athlete B starts doing a program of squatting 4 times per week.
After 6 weeks they both have the same squat, say 2x their bodyweight. Whom would you pick to get a higher vertical jump in between the two? Athlete A or Athlete B? At the first glance you would probably say “it doesn’t matter, they have the same stats and the same relative strength, so they obviously jump the same”. And although it’s a bit counter-intuitive, the most probable result is that Athlete A will jump higher.
Why? Well, let’s analyze the situation for a moment:
Athlete A started doing squats 1 time per week. While that’s a good stimulus for increasing the squatting poundages, it’s not nearly as good as a stimulus for learning how to squat and increasing the squat movement efficiency as the 4 times per week squatting routine would do for Athlete B. So Athlete B will be much more squatting efficient after the 6 weeks of training than Athlete A.
Then after those 6 weeks you will compare two guys with the same apparent relative strength and different squatting efficiency. And like we talked about a few articles back, movement efficiency is movement specific. In other words, being good at squatting doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at jumping or other movements (especially of other dynamics).
So you can argue that Athlete A is actually much more stronger if with a worse squatting efficiency is able to be at the level of Athlete B who squats 4 times per week (obviously, here we ignore fatigue accumulation, work capacity and so on, but this example is chosen to make a point). If we were to take these two guys A and B and continue with another 6 weeks of training, with Athlete A doing this time a 4 times per week squatting routine and Athlete B doing a one time per week squatting routine, we’d probably end up with Athlete A being superior in terms of relative strength than Athlete B.
That’s because Athlete A increased his squatting frequency and therefore increased his squatting efficiency. Athlete B, who already had very good squatting efficiency due to his previous 6 weeks of high frequency squatting didn’t gained too much from his 1 time per week squatting (he could’ve gained in supercompensation from all the accumulated fatigue from the previous 6 weeks, but like I said – this is not the object of this article). The only way Athlete B would really gain more strength would be muscle gain.
Again, and I must make these notes – 6 weeks is a totally arbitrary number, don’t expect to be “100%” squat efficient in real life after only 6 weeks of high frequency squatting.
Anyway, since we reached the point of muscle gain: some people just don’t get it (and I know some of them personally) – you can gain only so much by neural efficiency. You can’t go “yo man, I’ll just stay at this bodyweight and reach a 2.5x squat in some time”. That’s just not right.
And it doesn’t even have to be such a serious number like 2.5x. 1.5x, 1.0x, whatever. You need muscle to generate tension. If you squat and don’t gain any muscle and increase your squat from 1.0x to 1.5x, then the gains come from neural efficiency gain in the squatting movement. This can have a transferrable effect into jumps, sprints and other dynamic movements, but only for uncoordinated/untrained people. Once you’re good at your sport and increase your squat without muscle gain you’re most likely not going to see results.
Let’s take a concrete example:
Say you get a guy named Jumpy to train. He’s very good at jumping but sucks at squatting. He jumps 34 inches for the standing vert but only squats 1x his bodyweight. He obviously thinks “man, I’m such a good jumper but I suck at squatting, man… I guess you can jump high without squatting that much”.
You take him and put him into squatting (whatever frequency because that’s not important for this example) and he gets his squat from 1x to 2x but jumps the same 34 inches! You can expect him to say “you got me squatting so much, I doubled my squat and my jump is the same! Obviously squatting doesn’t work and it’s just a wrong approach”.
What is wrong in that quote is the fact that he probably would’ve been able to squat 2x from the moment of him squatting 1x, just that he didn’t know it. All the gains he made in his squat were from improving squatting movement efficiency and closing the gap between his real strength and his squat-displayed strength!
The only chance for Jumpy increasing his vertical jump would be increasing his strength over 2x with gains in muscle, since muscle can generate additional non-squat-specific tension.
What I mean by that is the fact that if you build muscle through squatting, that muscle can be used to generate tension in other movements as well and not only in squatting (as opposed to the scenario where you’d only gain in neural efficiency of that movement only).
And since this post has become quite a mouthful (but trust me, it was necessary), if you start squatting – focus on improving your neural efficiency in squatting first (higher frequency squatting, higher volume, lower intensity), learn the movement properly, then increase the intensity and lower the frequency and start building muscle for athletic gains. The reason people are afraid of gaining muscle is the addition of body fat, but that can be shedded off later.
The true relative strength gain for superior athleticism is through muscle gain and not squatting efficiency!
When we talk about relative strength we always take it for granted in terms of performance. Afterall, it’s an easy way to make an idea about how powerful/athletic somebody likely is without even testing him in that field of expertise.
Basically, if you take a guy with a 2x squat (and a decently-low bodyfat level) you would naturally expect that guy to have good sprinting speed (at least good acceleration, if not top speed)and have a high vertical jump (at least standing vertical, if not running vertical) and most often than not you’d be right. There are a myriad of other factors influencing the expression of strength, with the most important being:
1) Body structure;
2) Nervous system capabilities that compose of:
2a) Recruitment ability (influenced by the person’s mood (laid back/nervous) and tension intensity);
2b) Movement efficiency (as in how well the CNS can replicate a movement with as little effort as possible actively using as much power as possible);
3) Inhibitory signals in the eccentric phase (or eccentric strength overload acceptance), such as the GTO threshold;
These are three things off the top of my head, because there are obviously even more that influence the expression of strength.
So what does this have to do with the relative strength component?
Well, here it gets a little tricky.
Say you have two athletes with no training background whatsoever, who never squatted. They have the same height and weight, identical structures, neural efficiency in the standing vertical jump and GTOs threshold. You put them both on training with squats. Athlete A starts a program that calls him to squat 1 time per week. Athlete B starts doing a program of squatting 4 times per week.
After 6 weeks they both have the same squat, say 2x their bodyweight. Whom would you pick to get a higher vertical jump in between the two? Athlete A or Athlete B? At the first glance you would probably say “it doesn’t matter, they have the same stats and the same relative strength, so they obviously jump the same”. And although it’s a bit counter-intuitive, the most probable result is that Athlete A will jump higher.
Why? Well, let’s analyze the situation for a moment:
Athlete A started doing squats 1 time per week. While that’s a good stimulus for increasing the squatting poundages, it’s not nearly as good as a stimulus for learning how to squat and increasing the squat movement efficiency as the 4 times per week squatting routine would do for Athlete B. So Athlete B will be much more squatting efficient after the 6 weeks of training than Athlete A.
Then after those 6 weeks you will compare two guys with the same apparent relative strength and different squatting efficiency. And like we talked about a few articles back, movement efficiency is movement specific. In other words, being good at squatting doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at jumping or other movements (especially of other dynamics).
So you can argue that Athlete A is actually much more stronger if with a worse squatting efficiency is able to be at the level of Athlete B who squats 4 times per week (obviously, here we ignore fatigue accumulation, work capacity and so on, but this example is chosen to make a point). If we were to take these two guys A and B and continue with another 6 weeks of training, with Athlete A doing this time a 4 times per week squatting routine and Athlete B doing a one time per week squatting routine, we’d probably end up with Athlete A being superior in terms of relative strength than Athlete B.
That’s because Athlete A increased his squatting frequency and therefore increased his squatting efficiency. Athlete B, who already had very good squatting efficiency due to his previous 6 weeks of high frequency squatting didn’t gained too much from his 1 time per week squatting (he could’ve gained in supercompensation from all the accumulated fatigue from the previous 6 weeks, but like I said – this is not the object of this article). The only way Athlete B would really gain more strength would be muscle gain.
Again, and I must make these notes – 6 weeks is a totally arbitrary number, don’t expect to be “100%” squat efficient in real life after only 6 weeks of high frequency squatting.
Anyway, since we reached the point of muscle gain: some people just don’t get it (and I know some of them personally) – you can gain only so much by neural efficiency. You can’t go “yo man, I’ll just stay at this bodyweight and reach a 2.5x squat in some time”. That’s just not right.
And it doesn’t even have to be such a serious number like 2.5x. 1.5x, 1.0x, whatever. You need muscle to generate tension. If you squat and don’t gain any muscle and increase your squat from 1.0x to 1.5x, then the gains come from neural efficiency gain in the squatting movement. This can have a transferrable effect into jumps, sprints and other dynamic movements, but only for uncoordinated/untrained people. Once you’re good at your sport and increase your squat without muscle gain you’re most likely not going to see results.
Let’s take a concrete example:
Say you get a guy named Jumpy to train. He’s very good at jumping but sucks at squatting. He jumps 34 inches for the standing vert but only squats 1x his bodyweight. He obviously thinks “man, I’m such a good jumper but I suck at squatting, man… I guess you can jump high without squatting that much”.
You take him and put him into squatting (whatever frequency because that’s not important for this example) and he gets his squat from 1x to 2x but jumps the same 34 inches! You can expect him to say “you got me squatting so much, I doubled my squat and my jump is the same! Obviously squatting doesn’t work and it’s just a wrong approach”.
What is wrong in that quote is the fact that he probably would’ve been able to squat 2x from the moment of him squatting 1x, just that he didn’t know it. All the gains he made in his squat were from improving squatting movement efficiency and closing the gap between his real strength and his squat-displayed strength!
The only chance for Jumpy increasing his vertical jump would be increasing his strength over 2x with gains in muscle, since muscle can generate additional non-squat-specific tension.
What I mean by that is the fact that if you build muscle through squatting, that muscle can be used to generate tension in other movements as well and not only in squatting (as opposed to the scenario where you’d only gain in neural efficiency of that movement only).
And since this post has become quite a mouthful (but trust me, it was necessary), if you start squatting – focus on improving your neural efficiency in squatting first (higher frequency squatting, higher volume, lower intensity), learn the movement properly, then increase the intensity and lower the frequency and start building muscle for athletic gains. The reason people are afraid of gaining muscle is the addition of body fat, but that can be shedded off later.
The true relative strength gain for superior athleticism is through muscle gain and not squatting efficiency!
Part 1 of this series covered exercise mode. In part 2 I discussed energy systems. Part 3 is the linchpin to the series covering autoregulation and training splits. Part 4 examined the two types of work capacity in sports repetitive and peak and looked at how to manipulate the autoregulation process to target your specific sport needs. Now in Part 5 I am going to discuss block organization.
Block Training in a Nutshell
Block training boils down to a concept called concentrated loading. While initially it may seem complex, it is a rather simple concept. Essentially concentrated loading is a model where you concentrate your efforts by training towards a singular goal. The more “concentrated” the effort the greater the gains made towards that goal. For example, in part 1 I discussed 3 modes of strength training: quickness, power, and strength. In a “non concentraed”, also known as concurrent, phase one would incorporate all three training modes into their cycles. So a workout may look like the following:
Line Hops 3×30 sec – Quickness
Shuffle Run 3×30 sec – Quickness
Altitude Drop x 25 – Power
Vertical Jump x 25 – Power
Squat 5×5 – Strength
Glute Ham Raise – Strength
To the naked eye this may look like a solid plan however its design begs the question: “What is the goal?” The obvious answer being “Everything.” Of course we know that the body only has a limited capacity to recover and adapt. In this program each training goal is going to compete for the same reserves. This leads to little to no gains towards any of the goals.
You may become a little quicker, a little more powerful, and a little stronger. Or you may not achieve anything!!
So how do we avoid this dilemma?
Simple. Concentrated loading. Utilizing the concentrated loading method you would concentrate your efforts towards one goal. Considering the three modes of exercise, you would only utilize types of exercise that are similar and discard the type of exercise that is furthest from the goal. With this in mind we see that power, because of its utilization of quickness and strength, will serve as a bridge. That is one could incorporate power and quickness exercises into a power cycle and one could incorporate power work into a strength cycle.
One would not incorporate quickness and strength into the same cycle.
Why not?
Because strength and quickness are furthest away from each other on the force-velocity spectrum thus they will compete for results targeting vastly different goals. Not very concentrated huh?
Maintenance
Now you may be wondering: “If I ignore strength training will I lose all of my gains?” Simply the answer is: no.
So how do we maintain our strength levels while ignoring strength work (or vice versa for quickness depending on your cycles). Remember that power work has a strength and quickness component and thus will serve to protect your strength and quickness gains while training in a cycle that excludes one of those components. In addition to the incorporation of power work into your training cycles, I would also recommend doing a maintenance workout targeting the neglected quality once every two weeks (Option 1) Or doing a maintenance week once every three weeks (Option 2).
Option 1 would look like the following:
Week 1
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 2
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 3 Monday Strength
Thursday Power + Quickness
So you can see that you completed 2 weeks of a quickness block and then added in 1 strength workout.
Option 2 would look like this:
Week 1
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 2
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 3
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 4 Monday Strength
Thursday Power + Strength
Week 5- Begin the cycle over
As you can see Option 2 involves 3 weeks of quickness training and 1 full week of strength training. Obviously you would flip-flop the cycles if your training focus was strength.
Periodization
Yet another fancy ten dollar word. Simply this means a training plan. In general, the simplest way to organize training blocks is utilizing the performance loop which looks like the following:
In this cycle we see that hypertrophy builds larger muscles laying the foundation for greater strength gains. Then we capitalize on the increase in contractile protein by making your muscles even stronger. Finally we teach those muscles how to apply the new found strength very rapidly. The rapid application of force requires maximal CNS stimulation and recruitment. This will teach the muscles to be able to recruit some of the more dormant high threshold, fast twitch muscle fibers. Which will open the door to the athlete being able to recruit these fibers in their next hypertrophy cycle and open the door to even greater gains!
So the training Templates now look like the following:
***Note the mode before the colon is day 1 and the modes after the colon are day 2 for all of the following template***
Main Goal – Hypertrophy
Strength G : Strength G Maintenance – Power
Quickness G + Speed-strength PC
For a strong but slow athlete you should use a power template. The following templates are excellent choices:
Main Goal – Power
Quickness G: Speed-strength PC
Quickness G: Speed-Strength PC + Quickness G
Quickness G + Speed-Strength PC : Strength Speed PC
Quickness G + Speed-Strength PC : Strength Speed PC+Quickness G
Maintenance – Strength
Strength PC + Strength G
If you are a quick but weak athlete the following templates may be effective:
Main Goal – Strength
Strength PC : Strength G
Strength PC : Strength-Speed PC+Strength G
Strength PC+Strength G : Strength-Speed PC +Strength G
Maintenance – Power
Quickness G + Speed-strength PC
I hope you enjoyed the fifth installment of this series and have begun incorporating some of the advice. If you have or have any questions I would love to hear from you.
-Alex
Part 1 of this series covered exercise mode. In part 2 I discussed energy systems. Part 3 is the linchpin to the series covering autoregulation and training splits. Part 4 examined the two types of work capacity in sports repetitive and peak and looked at how to manipulate the autoregulation process to target your specific sport needs. Now in Part 5 I am going to discuss block organization.
Block Training in a Nutshell
Block training boils down to a concept called concentrated loading. While initially it may seem complex, it is a rather simple concept. Essentially concentrated loading is a model where you concentrate your efforts by training towards a singular goal. The more “concentrated” the effort the greater the gains made towards that goal. For example, in part 1 I discussed 3 modes of strength training: quickness, power, and strength. In a “non concentraed”, also known as concurrent, phase one would incorporate all three training modes into their cycles. So a workout may look like the following:
Line Hops 3×30 sec – Quickness
Shuffle Run 3×30 sec – Quickness
Altitude Drop x 25 – Power
Vertical Jump x 25 – Power
Squat 5×5 – Strength
Glute Ham Raise – Strength
To the naked eye this may look like a solid plan however its design begs the question: “What is the goal?” The obvious answer being “Everything.” Of course we know that the body only has a limited capacity to recover and adapt. In this program each training goal is going to compete for the same reserves. This leads to little to no gains towards any of the goals.
You may become a little quicker, a little more powerful, and a little stronger. Or you may not achieve anything!!
So how do we avoid this dilemma?
Simple. Concentrated loading. Utilizing the concentrated loading method you would concentrate your efforts towards one goal. Considering the three modes of exercise, you would only utilize types of exercise that are similar and discard the type of exercise that is furthest from the goal. With this in mind we see that power, because of its utilization of quickness and strength, will serve as a bridge. That is one could incorporate power and quickness exercises into a power cycle and one could incorporate power work into a strength cycle.
One would not incorporate quickness and strength into the same cycle.
Why not?
Because strength and quickness are furthest away from each other on the force-velocity spectrum thus they will compete for results targeting vastly different goals. Not very concentrated huh?
Maintenance
Now you may be wondering: “If I ignore strength training will I lose all of my gains?” Simply the answer is: no.
So how do we maintain our strength levels while ignoring strength work (or vice versa for quickness depending on your cycles). Remember that power work has a strength and quickness component and thus will serve to protect your strength and quickness gains while training in a cycle that excludes one of those components. In addition to the incorporation of power work into your training cycles, I would also recommend doing a maintenance workout targeting the neglected quality once every two weeks (Option 1) Or doing a maintenance week once every three weeks (Option 2).
Option 1 would look like the following:
Week 1
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 2
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 3 Monday Strength
Thursday Power + Quickness
So you can see that you completed 2 weeks of a quickness block and then added in 1 strength workout.
Option 2 would look like this:
Week 1
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 2
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 3
Monday Quickness
Thursday Power + Quickness
Week 4 Monday Strength
Thursday Power + Strength
Week 5- Begin the cycle over
As you can see Option 2 involves 3 weeks of quickness training and 1 full week of strength training. Obviously you would flip-flop the cycles if your training focus was strength.
Periodization
Yet another fancy ten dollar word. Simply this means a training plan. In general, the simplest way to organize training blocks is utilizing the performance loop which looks like the following:
In this cycle we see that hypertrophy builds larger muscles laying the foundation for greater strength gains. Then we capitalize on the increase in contractile protein by making your muscles even stronger. Finally we teach those muscles how to apply the new found strength very rapidly. The rapid application of force requires maximal CNS stimulation and recruitment. This will teach the muscles to be able to recruit some of the more dormant high threshold, fast twitch muscle fibers. Which will open the door to the athlete being able to recruit these fibers in their next hypertrophy cycle and open the door to even greater gains!
So the training Templates now look like the following:
***Note the mode before the colon is day 1 and the modes after the colon are day 2 for all of the following template***
Main Goal – Hypertrophy
Strength G : Strength G Maintenance – Power
Quickness G + Speed-strength PC
For a strong but slow athlete you should use a power template. The following templates are excellent choices:
Main Goal – Power
Quickness G: Speed-strength PC
Quickness G: Speed-Strength PC + Quickness G
Quickness G + Speed-Strength PC : Strength Speed PC
Quickness G + Speed-Strength PC : Strength Speed PC+Quickness G
Maintenance – Strength
Strength PC + Strength G
If you are a quick but weak athlete the following templates may be effective:
Main Goal – Strength
Strength PC : Strength G
Strength PC : Strength-Speed PC+Strength G
Strength PC+Strength G : Strength-Speed PC +Strength G
Maintenance – Power
Quickness G + Speed-strength PC
I hope you enjoyed the fifth installment of this series and have begun incorporating some of the advice. If you have or have any questions I would love to hear from you.
-Alex
It is time for part 4 of our ongoing series examining the keys to effective program design. In part 1 I discussed training mode, part 2 covered energy systems, and in part 3 we looked at autoregulatory training and training split. This weeks article will look at work capacity.
Work Capacity
This was touched upon in part three of the series but we will go into more detail. Every sport requires some form of work capacity. Luckily for us, the utilization of autoregulation (areg) makes programming for both types of work capacity a cinch. Essentially sports require one of two kinds of work capacity: peak or repetitive.
Peak Capacity
Peak work capacity is essentially the ability to produce one peak maximal effort during competition. For some examples of sports requiring peak capacity think of sprinting.
Or powerlifting
Other examples include pretty much every track and field event, speed skating, etc… Another fine example of a peak capacity athlete is a closer in baseball. He may play one inning, throw 10-20 pitches, and fire the ball at 95 mph+ throughout the course of that one inning.
Training for peak capacity is fairly simple.
When training for power or peak quickness, the goal is to move as fast as possible. So one would continue to do sets until they slow down or performance decreases. Here are 2 examples to clarify.
Power: (exercise : Set #1/ Set #2/ Set #3/ etc…
Vertical Jump: 29″/ 30″/ 30.5″/31″/ 30″ – Stop. The athlete did 4 sets before his/her performance decreased. You would then make a note that 5 sets were completed.
Quickness: (exercise and reps: duration of set in seconds)
Line Hops 30 reps: 10.5/10.1/9.8/10.0 – Stop. The athlete completed 3 sets before his/her performance decreased. You would note that you completed 4 total sets.
For exercises that are tough to quantify, like altitude drops you would tie it to a strength or quickness exercise. When your performance decreases on the strength or quickness drill, then you stop doing drops. Here is an example to clarify:
Altitude Drops: 5/ 5/ 5/ 5 -Stop- Performance dropped for line hops
Line Hops 30 reps: 10.5/10.1/9.8/10.0 – Stop- Performance dropped.
Strength training for peak capacity is pretty easy to organize. If an athlete was doing squats it would look like the following:
Set 1: Squat 385×5 reps
Drop off is 20% of 5 reps (5x.2=1) So when you can no longer squat 385 for 4 reps you stop the workout.
Squat 385x 5/4/3 -Stop- You could no longer squat 385×4 so the workout is done. You did 3 sets before drop off and 4total sets.
Repetitive Capacity
Repetitive capacity is required in any sport where a repeated number of high intensity yet sub maximal efforts are repeated. These types of sports often include incomplete recovery intervals. Some examples of sports involving repetitive capacity include football
and ice hockey (check out highlights 1 and 2)
Going back to our baseball closer analogy, a starting pitcher would fall into the repetitive capacity. A starting pitcher cannot go out and fire 95mph fastballs all day because he would only last 1 or 2 innings maximum. They would need to use a little more finesse so that they can last 5-7 innings.
Essentially the sports requiring repetitive capacity fall into the “major sports” category which also includes basketball, baseball, tennis, etc…
Areg for repetitive capacity is also fairly simple.
For quickness and power:
Line Hops Set 1: 30 reps in 10.5 seconds
The drop off is based on total reps so 20% of 30 is 6 reps.
You would then do sets of 24 reps (30-6) until you could no longer complete 24 reps in 10.5 seconds. It may seem complex BUT anyone who can multiply by 2 in their head should be fine, it is simple mathematics.
So the remaining sets would look like:
Line Hops x24 reps: 9.8/10.0/ 10.0/ 10.1/ 10.1/ 10.2/ 10.2/ 10.4/ 10.6 – Stop- including the first set of 30 reps you did 9 sets before drop off and 10 total sets. Your improvement in conditioning would be a result of the increase in work load.
Areg for strength training would look like the following:
Strength Work Capacity
Set 1: Squat 385×5 reps
Drop off is 20% of 5 reps (5x.2=1) So when you can no longer squat 385 for 4 reps you stop the workout.
Squat 385×4/4/4/4/3- Stop- You did 5 sets before drop off and 6 total sets. Make a note of the 6 sets completed.
Using the 20% and repetition number will work for just about every training method except for isometrics. When doing isometrics you would base the 20% drop off based on time. For example:
ISO Lunge 185 x 20 seconds
Drop off is 20% x 20 seconds or 4 seconds.
Continue doing ISO lunges until they can no longer be completed in 16 seconds.
Selecting the Right Capacity Measure
When designing your training program selecting between peak capacity and repetitive capacity is quite simple. Just ask yourself this simple question:
“Does my sport require a one shot burst of performance or does it require repeated efforts?”
If your sport is a one shot effort than peak capacity should make up the majority of your training time. If it requires repeated efforts, then you should spend the majority of your time working on repetitive capacity.
Of course some time must be spent training the non-dominant capacity for your sport as well. For example, who cares that you can lose very little speed during the course of the entire game if you only run a 5.5 second 40.
Or to the contrary, if you are a powerlifter, the increase in repetitive capacity will allow your body to adjust to greater training volumes and tonnage which, in the long run, will open up the door to increases in maximal strength in the future.
The take home message is this: You need to train using both capacity methods spending the majority of time developing the dominant work capacity in your sport.
Capacity Guidelines
While deciding when to switch from peak capacity to repetitive capacity, or vice versa, may seem complicated the following brief guidelines may help simplify the process for you.
1. Generally you should spend 70% of your time training the dominant capacity and 30% of your time training the other capacity. Now put your calculators away because this works out to the following guideline: For every 2 cycles training your dominant capacity, you should spend 1 training cycle training your non dominant capacity. So if you are a football player you should spend 2 cycles training repetitive capacity and 1 cycle training peak capacity. Pretty simple and no math required.
2. When your peak capacity drops to 2 sets you should switch to a repetitive capacity cycle.
3. When your repetitive capacity reaches 8 sets per exercise you should switch to a peak capacity cycle.
Closing
I hope you found this article helpful and interesting. The capacity examples were taken directly from the previous article. Deciding how to develop work capacity in a sport specific manner can be quite complicated, however the proper application of areg coupled with the simple guidelines set forth should help simplify the process for you. As always, if you have any questions just ask.
Welcome back. In part 1 of this series we discussed training mode. In part 2 I discussed energy systems and made a case for you to time your sets. Now in part 3 we are going to discuss volume management and training split. We will begin with volume management as it lays the foundation for your training split.
Volume Management
Have you ever wondered why a training author suggests a certain number of sets and repetitions in their training program. The repetitions are designed to get a specific training effect, as was discussed in part 2 of the series, but what about sets. How come we should do 5×5, 10×10, 3×8, etc… How does the author know you can handle 5 sets of 5. A beginner squatting only 225 for a 1rm may be able to handle 8 sets of 5. An advanced lifter with an 600lb squat may only be able to muster out 3 quality sets of 5 before he is crushed.
You are a snowflake
Every one of us is different. We are all individuals. Yes, you are a snowflake. What may be best for me may not be optimal for you. In fact what was best for you on Tuesday’s squat workout may not be best for you on Friday’s squat workout after a rough Thursday night at the bars. So the question is, “How do we individualize the training program to accommodate all of the snowflakes in the world?”
Autoregulation (areg)
Sounds fancy huh? Areg is a simple method to determine the exact volume your body. Now the concept was first brought to my attention by the writings of DB Hammer and the inno-sport crew with a complex formula based on training frequency and training mode. Of course Mel Siff had discussed another form of areg called cybernetic periodization, more commonly known as the Weider Instinctive Principle #281452. While cybernetic periodization is cool, a wise man named Arthur Jones once said that a man would rather shit on a barbell than lift it. And if this is our instinct, to avoid activity, then training based only on feel is a sure way to fail.
The inno-sport guidelines, were a step in the right direction but the addition of new complex terminology, changing guidelines based on training mode, and odd drop off %’s necessitated bringing in the old TI-85 calculator into the gym to make sure one was stopping at the appropriate moment. The advantage of having specific guidelines is that one will know when to stop the workout, and based upon next workouts improvement, one can tweak and modify the drop off %’s to achieve optimal results. Say through generic guidelines (Drop off %A) you gain 5lbs on your squat in a week, then you decrease your drop off % (B) and your squat shoots up 10 lbs, you have learned that training until performance drop off B will yield greater results. Thus you should train to drop off B and not A.
What to do? What to do?
Do we need to bring in our TI-85 and excel spreadsheets into the gym?
Personally, when areging workouts, I use a few different guidelines.
Power and Quickness
When training for power or peak quickness, the goal is to move as fast as possible. So one would continue to do sets until they slow down or performance decreases. Here are 2 examples to clarify.
Power: (exercise : Set #1/ Set #2/ Set #3/ etc…
Vertical Jump: 29″/ 30″/ 30.5″/31″/ 30″ – Stop. The athlete did 4 sets before his/her performance decreased. You would then make a note that 5 sets were completed.
Quickness: (exercise and reps: duration of set in seconds)
Line Hops 30 reps: 10.5/10.1/9.8/10.0 – Stop. The athlete completed 3 sets before his/her performance decreased. You would note that you completed 4 total sets.
Now some exercises are tough to quantify, like altitude drops. How would one areg altitude drops. Simply tie it to a strength or quickness exercise. When your performance decreases on the strength or quickness drill, then you stop doing drops. Here is an example to clarify:
Altitude Drops: 5/ 5/ 5/ 5 -Stop- Performance dropped for line hops
Line Hops 30 reps: 10.5/10.1/9.8/10.0 – Stop- Performance dropped.
What if you are more interested in conditioning than peak speed or performance. First, power exercises are NEVER done for conditioning so you need to train them first and use a peak drop off method. Quickness drills can be trained for conditioning very simply. You would set the drop off to 20% of the initial sets repetitions and keep track of the set duration. It sounds complex but is quite simple. Here is an example:
Line Hops Set 1: 30 reps in 10.5 seconds
The drop off is based on total reps so 20% of 30 is 6 reps.
You would then do sets of 24 reps (30-6) until you could no longer complete 24 reps in 10.5 seconds. It may seem complex BUT anyone who can multiply by 2 in their head should be fine, it is simple mathematics.
So the remaining sets would look like:
Line Hops x24 reps: 9.8/10.0/ 10.0/ 10.1/ 10.1/ 10.2/ 10.2/ 10.4/ 10.6 – Stop- including the first set of 30 reps you did 9 sets before drop off and 10 total sets. Your improvement in conditioning would be a result of the increase in work load. Make a note of 10 sets completed.
Strength
We have two options here:
A. Instinctive
B. Mathematic
For those that are less inclined to do simple math I would recommend using Kelly Baggett’s money set method. It is summarized below:
“There are a multitude of ways to regulate the sets and reps and many that I use. Here is an easy way to do it and what I call the “money-set” method. This is a lot like the max-effort method. The basic tenet of the money set method is each time you repat a particular workout you work up to at least ONE SET where you lift either more weight or do more reps then you did for your best set the last time you did the workout. Generally speaking, you’ll do between 2-5 sets per exercise adding weight each set and working up to at least one maximum effort for a given number of reps. For example, say my last workout on incline dumbell press looked like this and my target rep range was 8:
pushups x 15
feet elevated pushups x 10
50 pound dumbells x 8
60 pound dumbells x 8
70 pound dumbells x 9 * money set
70 pound dumbells x 8 (tried to beat 9 but couldn’t)
So, you can see I did 4 pretty hard sets but only one was a real money set. Next time i do that exercise I gotta beat 9 reps with 70 lbs.
As soon as you can do 3 more reps than your target rep range increase the load by 2-5%. So, if I did 200 pounds for 6 reps on squat the last workout and 200 pounds for 8 reps this time, the next workout I’d increase the load by 5-10 pounds and once again do as many reps as possible building back up to 8 reps.”
For the more mathematically inclined you have the drop off method.
Again, for simplicities sake we will use 20% as our drop off margin.
You can apply this method a few ways for strength training. The drop off for strength training will predominantly be based on repetitions. See the two examples below:
Peak Strength:
Set 1: Squat 385×5 reps
Drop off is 20% of 5 reps (5x.2=1) So when you can no longer squat 385 for 4 reps you stop the workout.
Squat 385x 5/4/3 -Stop- You could no longer squat 385×4 so the workout is done. You did 3 sets before drop off and 4total sets. Make a note of the 4 total sets.
Strength Work Capacity
Set 1: Squat 385×5 reps
Drop off is 20% of 5 reps (5x.2=1) So when you can no longer squat 385 for 4 reps you stop the workout.
Squat 385×4/4/4/4/3- Stop- You did 5 sets before drop off and 6 total sets. Make a note of the 6 sets completed.
Using the 20% and repetition number will work for just about every training method except for isometrics. When doing isometrics you would base the 20% drop off based on time. For example:
ISO Lunge 185 x 20 seconds
Drop off is 20% x 20 seconds or 4 seconds.
Continue doing ISO lunges until they can no longer be completed in 16 seconds. Similar to the previous examples you can train for work capacity or peak performance. In the peak performance method you could continue doing sets to failure until you could no longer hold the lunge for 16 seconds. For work capacity you would hold each subsequent set for only 16 seconds (not failure) until you can no longer hold the lunge for 16 seconds.
Training Splits
Whew! All that is a whole article in it’s own. Now we will cover training splits. This will be simple. You have two basic splits:
A. Upper/Lower
B. Total Body
Total body training requires a higher work capacity, because of the frequency of training, thus I recommend beginners start with the first option.
In the upper lower split a generic template would be as follows: (Choose 1 exercise/body part)
Upper
Push
Pull
Delt
Bicep
Tricep
Lower
Core
Foot/Calf
Quad
Hamstring/Glute
***Note*** Areg is based upon an upper/lower split. So utilize the areg methods outlined earlier in this split. Once one can do 5 or more sets for each exercise using the peak methods of drop off, they are ready to move into total body training.
The upper/lower split is based upon a M-Tu-Th-Fr training set up.
Total Body Training
With total body training areg becomes much more complicated. Luckily for you, I have simplified the process. Recall in the volume management section of the article I had you note the total number of sets completed in each example. This will come into play now.
For example:
Say you completed 6 total sets of squats on Monday and 5 sets of lunges on Thursday. This would be 11 sets of a lower body quad dominant movement.
In total body training you would then distribute the 11 sets over the course of the week. Because the volume of each workout is lower it is recommended that you stick to the same exercises each day of training to allow for better motor learning. For example:
Monday Squat 3×5
Wednesday Squat 2×5
Thursday Squat 2×5
Friday Squat 4×5
Now for some total body training guidelines:
1. During a total body training cycle week 1 should have a set volume 25% less than your last week of upper/lower training. So if you did 11 sets of squats, you would perform 8 sets over the first week.
2. During week 2 you would do the same volume that you did in upper/lower training. In the above example it would be 11 sets distributed over the week.
3. In week 3 you would increase volume by 50%, yes 50%. In the examples you would do 16 sets in week 3.
4. In week 4 you would either do the same volume as week 2 with a higher weight or switch to an upper/lower split.
5. If you chose the former in week 4, then in week 5 you should switch to an upper/lower split
6. A generic split would be: Lower quad/Lower Posterior Chain/ Upper Push/Upper Pull Core and calves would be trained in the warm up
And finally for some more general guidelines.
1. Only switch to a total body workout when the volume of the upper/lower workouts reaches 5 or greater in each workout.
2. Always follow a total body training block with an upper/lower block
3. All blocks will last 3-5 weeks.
4. Only switch back to total body training when the requirement #1 has been satisfied.
This turned out to be a large article with a ton of info to digest. Take some time, read it over, and ask questions if you have any.
This will be the first installment of a seven part series examining the seven variables one can manipulate to design a training program.
The first variable one can manipulate is the mode, or type, of exercise. Essentially all movements can be broken down into three types of exercise: quickness, power, and strength.
Quickness is characterized by rapid fire, low force movements. Think of typing or ping pong to wrap your head around quickness exercises. Some examples of quickness exercises include line hops, dot drills, jumping rope, light weight dumbbell swings, stiff leg sprints, agility ladder work, and top end sprinting.
Power exercises are characterized by high force and high velocity movements. Power just happens to be the most coveted quality in all of sports performance. The simplest measure of power is the vertical jump test. It just so happens that the vertical jump is also the ONLY NFL combine test that correlates to playing time in the league. With all of the combine secrets like crowding the line in the 40, the spiderman pro 20 technique, etc…, the simplest test- and the hardest to cheat- is the most effective indicator of success. Power exercises also encompass the greatest variety of movements. Power is often described as strength x speed, and while this may be an oversimplification (P=f*d/t) it is effective at describing the two major contributing factors: strength and speed. Some break down the power category into two different sub categories: speed-strength and strength-speed. While this may further complicate the issue it does provide some additional clarity. Speed-strength emphasizes the velocity of movement while strength-speed emphasizes the strength component of power. To make it easier think of speed-strength exercises as unweighted power exercises like altitude drops, depth jumps, vertical jumps, sprint acceleration, agility drills, and run up jumping.
Strength-speed exercises include an additional load on a high velocity movement. The most common practice is the Westside-Barbell dynamic effort method with 40-65% of your maximal effort for 8-12 sets of 2-3 reps. The DE method can be applied to squats, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, glute ham raises, basically any exercise you can think of. You can perform movements with straight bar weight, chains, and bands. Other strength-speed movements include Olympic lifts, heavy Kettlebell swings, cleans, and snatches, and weighted jump squats.
Finally we have strength exercises. These movements are characterized by low velocity and moderate force output. Strength work is probably the type of exercise most people are familiar with. This includes bodybuilding type work as well as heavy maximal lifting. “WAIT! You just said that these are low force exercises but maximal lifting is not a low force activity, is it?” Yes it is! See, if you weigh 200lbs and do an altitude drop off of a 3 foot box when you land your muscles create roughly 2000lbs of force on impact. How many 2000lb squatters are there in the world? 0. So while maximal lifting is quite intensive, on the force register it ranks as a moderate force exercise. This is because force = mass x acceleration and maximal weight training emphasizes the mass component at the expense of the velocity component. Power exercises, on the other hand, present an optimal blend of mass and acceleration. Look at the speed of this maximal squat attempt.
Now that we have successfully identified each of the modes/types of exercise lets discuss how to organize them into a training program. Personally I am a big fan of block training, also known as concentrated loading, where you focus on one or two of the training modes to create a synergistic effect. This results in greater overall gains in the desired goal. The following training templates present themselves.
For a strong but slow athlete you should use a power template. The following templates are excellent choices:
***Note the mode before the colon is day 1 and the modes after the colon are day 2 for all of the following template***
If you are a quick but weak athlete the following templates may be effective:
Strength : Strength
or
Strength : Power (Strength-Speed)+Strength
or
Strength + Strength : Power (Strength-Speed)+Strength
As a quick aside, you will have noticed that repetition ranges have not been listed. This will be addressed in future installments and the training templates will be fleshed out as the series progresses.
Finally, when thinking about concentrated loading we must not forget the key word “concentrated”. With this in mind if you are truly seeking quickness you would want to use the template that emphasized quickness the most with the least amount of other work (power). This would be the second template with quickness appearing on both training days and power only appearing on one. If your goal was power you would want a program with power work on both days and quickness work on only one day.
I hope you enjoyed the first installment of the Seven Keys series, there is more to come.
A very prominent and highly debated topic in the field of Physical Preparation is if the use of Olympic lifts & the associated variations are applicable for a means of developing Explosive Leg Strength & Power for various Sporting Disciplines (a la American Football, Baseball, Basketball, Volleyball, etc.)
Here are two articles, both of a conflicting opinion to an extent, on the implication of Olympic lifts for General development of Explosive Leg Strength and Power. One is by Jim Wendler of Elite Fitness Systems and the other by James Smith of Power Development Inc.
If you have read or are familiar with either of these two articles you will understand that there is no definite answer to solving the problem of whether Olympic lifts should be implemented or not.
To solve the problem, one must have a greater schematic view of the Sport Training Process, and look at a broad list of background information regarding the individual and their specific Sport.
Take into account the holistic considerations of the individual & their sport.
Ask Who am I training (male, female, biological age, level of qualification, specific position of the sporting game etc.)? What are we training to develop (in this case Explosive Leg Strength and Power)? When & Where is this training place in the annual cycle of the sport (in-season, off-season, etc.) Why have I selected this exercise, jump, throw, lift, etc. specifically as the OPTIMAL method of developing (in this specific case) Explosive Leg Strength and Power? How am I going to utilize all this background information to properly construct the best plan in hopes of developing the athletes Explosive Leg Strength and Power. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the holistic considerations, the thought process must be much more in-depth and extensive than what is presented. Specifically these could be orthopedics of the athlete, height, weight, relative strength levels, etc.
Once a careful collection and analyzing of the information has been executed, then the coach can make the best decision to select what is optimal for the athlete in hopes of further developing Explosive Leg Strength and Power.
Now lets consider a few specific groups of athletes with the thought of implementing Olympic lifts for their general development of Explosive Leg Strength and Power.
Examples of those with reasons for not using Olympic lifts (based of a very minuscule and general consideration of information) would be those with improper technical/tactical execution of the Olympic lifts, Baseball Pitchers, American Football Quarterbacks, Athletes who have poor bio-mechanical leverages for these lifts, those who have improper mobility or flexibility of the muscles surrounding the trunk, lower back, knees, ankles, or hips, and other athletes with individual pathology to the shoulder, arm, and wrist.
Examples of those who can/could/should utilize Olympic lifts, athletes with good leverages for performing the lifts, proper technical & tactical execution of the Olympic lifts, American Football Linebackers, Running Backs, and Defensive Backs, those with sufficient mobility or flexibility of the muscles surrounding the trunk, lower back, knees, ankles, or hips, and other athletes with no pathology of the shoulder, arm, and wrist.
For the first group of athletes, those who for one reason of the other should not utilize Olympic lifts as their method of developing Explosive Leg Strength and Power, there is still a plethora of other methods of developing Explosive Leg Strength & Power, which will be discussed below.
Development of Explosive Leg Strength & Power can also be achieved via various jumping exercises, be it vertical jumps, horizontal jumps, jumps with a prior counter movement or run up, throwing medicine balls, plates, or other implements in a variety of ways, simple bounding, sprints w/ a sled, etc. etc. Some of these exercises most notably vertical jumping & OH Throws, from an anatomical and bio-mechanical stand point achieve the same movement as Olympic lifts (a la extension of the three joints of the lower body, being the ankles, knees, and hips, along with respect to human movement, in a vertical plane.)
There is no study or research to my knowledge that deems Olympic lifts as a better way of developing Explosive Leg Strength & Power compared to other Methods such as Jumps & Throws, or in contrast Jumps & Throws better than Olympic lifts. Until a study or research proves one to be more optimal for General development of Explosive Leg Strength & Power for sporting disciplines that require this ability, it lies in the job of the coach and/or athlete to take into consideration the individual trainee (holistic, orthopedics, training background, etc.) and the sport discipline (Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc. & the specific position of the game), to make the best educated decisions on selecting a method of development.
They were all hand selected and represent some of the brightest performance coaches and athletes in the business. Please join me in welcoming them!
Joe Trinsey of Prep Performance is a coach and trainer based in Deleware. His articles include Time to Dance, Lazy Sunday, and an excellent piece on The Importance of Strength and can be seen here.
Jeremy Layport is a Division I Strength and conditioning coach based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His Bio and upcoming articles can be seenhere.
Ryan, aka “qb0708“, is a collegiate football player and a very bright young mind in the business with a promising future. You can find his most recent article Off Season Football GPP here.
Robert Ruxandrescu, more prominently known as “Raptor” is a student of sports performance training and vertical jump training. You can find his article To Jump or Not To Jump? about… jumpinghere.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. More writers have agreed to contribute and, of course, you will be notified as they begin writing.
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