Those, now, are not my opinions, those are Shaver’s. Your position about 50-70% seems to be about what I’ve found useful outside MxS, but John Smith also pays particular attention to how fast the bar is moving (with sets of about 10 reps for primary lifts).
Regarding your overspeed work, what is the magnitude of increase it has consistently yielded you in order that you are willing to accept its risks?
You don’t get the gains unless you minimize those risks!
When I first learned of Loren’s contrast training workout (and I have no idea whether he invented it, but it seems that he popularized it), I saw gains of 0.2-0.3 in 60 meter times after ONE session. The problem was that I injured my hamstring after two sessions for 5-6 weeks and didn’t get to compete.
Somebody here on the forum who I’m not going to name saw a 0.3s improvement in 150 after ONE session.
I know it sounds too good to be true, but you have to see it to believe it. But there’s a giant gotcha: You have to learn how to do this safely.
One advantage of this approach over the towing-type overspeed approaches (and maybe some of the stuff Franno does with sleds) is that you only have to tempt fate–yes, I think that’s the proper way of looking at it–once or twice.
It looks like I finally learned how much to cut back everything else to make contrast training work safely, which is why I listed every single workout (and every single non-workout) in one of my posts above. And from what I’ve learned now, I think I’m going to end Phase II this way from now on.