Same applies for the Micro muscle lab as well I guess
Tendo Speed Targets
by Bert Sorin on 12/12/2003 12:20:56 PM.
As you may know, the Tendo unit has become wildly popular in the speed and strength world lately. For those of you who don’t know, the Tendo is a computerized unit that attaches to the barbell, dumbbell, weight stack or athlete to measure speed. When the mass of the object is entered into the microcomputer, wattage is displayed in relation to the speed (shown in meters per second) of the lift attempt. Reps are counted and shown as a percentage of the maximum effort of that set. Target percentages can be set for the athletes to strive for, assuring maximum speed and quality of movement. In my training I have come up with some rough parameters to moniter my SPEED work. I generally try to achieve 1 m/s in the back squat, 1.5 m/s in the hang clean, 1.3 m/s in the power clean, and 2 m/s in the snatch. Now, I try to achieve these values the majority of the reps in a set (i.e. 3 out of 4 reps). When I can knock out a few sets in this fashion, I go up in weight. I have found that this system always keeps my focus on the quality of the movement and bar speed, not the weight used. This has not only transfered to better power production on the athletes field, but higher 1 Rep Max PR’s in the weight room. For example, The heaviest squat I did in a workout (for 6 months) was 435lb.x3, but a week later I smoked 608lb.x2 (which was a 23lb. pr, after a year of not squatting over 500lb. in training). Also, I did a training cycle to test the theory with cleans. I cleaned 6x4 every 5 days for 6 weeks, starting at 90k and only increasing the weight when I could go 1.5 m/s or faster. At the end of the cycle I had worked up to 115k at 1.7 m/s. The next week (with no other heavy pulling movments during that 6 weeks) I nailed a 160k clean. The next week I cleaned a wattage PR at 140k. The Tendo has been a huge window into the mystery of strength training for me. Best of Luck. Live Strong, Bert
Thats cool man. I’d love to attach something like that to my equipment. Keep on going. But then I wanted to ask you something. Sometimes the last few reps are way too slow. I guess that reduces the average to way below your aim. And I think that if I can pull out a number of reps at the same speed with little variation then I’m not probably working full out. So how does it go then?
Iif its slow (and speed is the aim) then its time to pack the bags and head home
If speed stays the same then it means you have some capacity to keep peak velocity near maximal. I can normally maintain peak speed for about 4 set of 3 before it drops off
Is the tendo expensive? If it is, you can get a good figure for bar speed with just a video camera placed in a good postion (although time consuming and not immediately)., I have no idea how much video cameras are now, so they might be more expensive though.
Well you can’t do that with a camera. This is a coincidence, as I looked at this section in The weightlifting encyclopedia yesterday because of Koing’s thread. Drechsler thinks that with a standard video alone (30mhz) set up in a correct way you can get a very accurate reading of bar speed (distance travelled is measured against the diamater of the plates for reference, or yardsticks.), with use of tracing paper! This info. cannot obviously used immediately for autoreg. training, but can be useful for WLers.
Why bar speed in a olympic lift? The true window of what is going on a EMG retrainer…firing balance and other things can be figured out…and for cameras a good one can get the job done. No paris hilton handycam.
Cool ColJ
Hey bro, I remember a few of the biomechanists from one of the biomech. lists discussing the tendo and some of its benefits/disadvantages and one of them was that the accuracy of curvilinear vs. linear movements was suspect. Linear stuff was not in question. Curvilinear paths such as a clean or snatch was really what they had discovered to be erroneous. Something to at least consider but not keep you from monitoring your lifts. I’ve enjoyed using mine with my athletes for about a year and a half now and have found it to be very useful in motivating the athletes to stay w/in 90% of their goal!
By the way, is your music stuff still going well? seems like i tried to check out your website at one time or another and couldn’t access the music files.
Peace…
DJ Hakdaddy
So, does he just do sets/reps all day with that working weight until he goes below his predetermined m/s ? Tendo unit would really be awesome for people who use AREG methods.
For oly lifts ( or any lift for that matter) … what about the Eleiko V-Scope?
Not physically attatched to the barbell, but uses an ultrasonic transponder. This way bar path can be taken into consideration. I guess with creative applications one could do a lot with this type of equipment, attatch it to the body etc. The info says you could also use multiple transponders. To me it seems that this system has huge possibilities. It also has a huge pricetag
From the info I have gathered ( I have no direct experience with this product myself) you can measuere:
Path
Acceleration
Peak velocity
The point at which the peak velocity is reached
Maximum height
Overall duration
Horizontal displacement
Force exerted on bar
Distribution of instant velocities
+++
If my memory doesn’t fail me, I believe I have read an article by either Mike Stone or Steven Plisk where a bar analysis from the Eleiko V-Scope was used.
Yeah site is on Geocities which ain’t great and I sometimes delete the mp3s as I need the space here and then. Anyway they are mostly raw demos of various analog synths I own - not complete songs as such. The only complete songs I have were written a decade ago when I put out a 12inch EP
not really an article just a tip that was posted on the Sorinex site, equipment manufacturer, I believe they sell the Tendo.
Anyway yeah, most people who use the Tendo or MML, do pretty much that. keep repping as long as they can keep the power output or bar speed above a certain % of the session peak - wether it be max strength work or speed work.
Your right it is what AREG is all about. I have considered getting a Micro Muscle Lab+ for such a purpose, but they are not cheap, well not for someone who does not train professionally
there is another thread on the MML for similar purposes I posted a while back asking which was better Tendo or MML
Interesting how you disliked going near maximum in training in that thread Colin. I’m not trying to get at you, just illustrates the variety of approaches to training, and the underlying factors. Now you are lifting heavy most sessions, but with larger gaps between them?
as a cheap alternative, couldn’t one use photogates to measure bar speed? You would probably need a lot of them to get a force curve but it would easily by cheaper than the tendos.
not really, “heavy” one session, and reactive/explosive/fast the next, every 4-5 days apart
“heavy” can be anywhere from 70-100%, but not always regular reps, ISOs, concentric only, regular reps with ISO holds just off the bottom etc.
The reason being that I am magnitude dominant, so I am trying to shift the balance. Lifting weights explosively makes you magnitude dominant
ISO redress the balance on the strain side.
The main thing now, is that I can do it properly without hurting myself, and without frying my CNS. My work capacity is on a whole new level.
Interesting stuff, thanks for posting.
From what I have seen 1 m/s is faster than optimal for most people if max strength is the goal and this is the only type of training you are doing. However, if you have been doing lots of maximal work like it seems Bert Sorin was, then this high speed might be the best approach.
We have found that .7 to .8 m/s works best for the squat, but this is not the only squat training we are doing either. If you are looking to use one protocol only, I would think that .5 to .65 m/s would be more appropriate if max strength is the goal.
I agree fully with this and that a video camera isn’t even close.
Look you can either spend $1500 dollars on a vacation for a week or you can buy one of the best methods for strength/power training out there! Or you can focus on compensatory acceleration.
