Power vs max strength training - Shaun Pickering

Expert Discussion Strength Training
21

Who knows :slight_smile:

here is what a sample cycle looks like for the back squat - hardly constant loading - also I push the weights as hard and fast as I can always. I acclerate it, so I’m always training at maximal conscious output.

week 1 - 70% 5x3

week 2 - complex - loaded full jumpsquats(45lbs) 5x3 (10sec hold at start of each set) rest 2mins squat 55% 5x2 - alternating

week 3 - 70% 7x2 , Isometric hold eccentric singles x 2 @ 60%

week 4 - work up to a new 3x3 PR (deload week)

week 5 - 70% + greenbands (tophalf only) 6x3

week 6 - 55%+GreenBands 3x2,
complex alternating - 70%+greenBands 3x2 + loaded quarter jumpsquats (25lbs) 3x3 - 10 sec isometric hold at start of each set.

week 7 - 70%+greenbands 8x3, Isometric hold eccentric singles x 2 @ 60%

week 8 - work up to a new 3x3 PR (deload week)

week 9 - complex - 4x2 - 40% to 60% over the 4 sets + full jumpsquats 50lbs 3x2 - 10sec isometric hold at the start of each set (still deloading)

Week 10 - go for a new 1RM PR

22

I think you are varying the stimulus, working the spectrum and getting the results. Good on you. :slight_smile:

23

My comments would be:

  1. Training at the beginning of any program leads to gains. Unless you have been training solidly for 2-3 years, you can still make significant gains doing just about anything. There is no magic formula in the first few years - you are just laying a base.

So that means using some programme such as westside, the 70%, or dr squats, or chris T’s programme won’t mean squat if you have not been training long enough to get to a level that no more gains can be made by coordination improvements.

  1. I have a real problem with people saying “I hit a new PR by doing this” - you may have - but what is your training background? How heavy was it? If it was for example a < 180kg squat, who cares? Tell us when it has improved 5% over a 10 week period when you are strong, and then we will listen!

For example, I just started benching 8 weeks ago due to a 3 year old shoulder injury. I went from 45kg x 8 to 140kgx1 in 8 weeks. Is that good? No way, I am just getting back into the swing of things. 2 years down the track if I put on 5kg, then you should be wondering what I am doing, not before.

Another example:"Or once I was powersnatching 135lbs from the floor, with slower bar velocity, and now I can do 139lbs from the hang using just a 3inch dip and blasting it up - barely even lowering the bar to mid thigh "
That was purely coordination. Once you get up to 100kg + then we will start to notice. It is cool you are improving, but the reason you are improving is not what you think it is.

Same goes if you have been in overtraining - you are basically starting from scratch again.

  1. There is a point where too much strength will render no appreciable gains. I do not think that any of us will ever reach that point. There is another theory - that once you have the strength, you have to learn to apply it to the sport of choice. This takes a lot of time, and for some it will never happen. Maybe there needs to be small technical changes? Who knows.

  2. "What matters is the speed that the shot put is released at delivery. "

Exactly - this is not only bench press strength, but a highly complex series of precise muscular contractions from the feet to the neck and everywhere in-between. Is the reason the 450 bencher could only bench 450 that he had longer arms? Different levers? Could it be he was able to shot further because he was better able to utilise the strength he had through his body, not only his arms?

There are a million different answers - we as coaches and athletes need to be a little discriminate to the data we present. That article was one athletes opinion. Thats all. He cannot tell us the reason he really succeeded as sports science has not progressed that far [yet].

Thoughts everyone?

24

Sloth - some good points

Colin - Your numbers are quite illuminating. Your Squat:Clean; Snatch:Hg Snatch ratios suggest a natural propensity towards limit movements and surprisingly, a lack of reversible strength. Iwould be interested to hear how your sinclair or strength relative to body weight has changed over time and also how well your Olympic derivative and squat progressions correlate.

25

David,

I disagree - his numbers do not tell us nearly anything as he is just learning the movements and as you know olympic movements are difficult to master.

Colin is probably just still in his learning phase, and like most other beginners, will be in that stage for a long time (1-2 years). After he can really push himself, won’t that be the time which will give us the numbers on his strength levels and ratios?

Its like giving a prediction without the right data - nearly impossible. He obviously has a great amount of reversing strength as he has said he can jump about 40" if I remember correctly, so that (and his weights) point to the fact he is not very proficient at the lifts yet.

Thoughts?

26

Limiting factors can become evident quite early in development. Consider:

A. Squat 155 : P. Clean 105 (sorry if these are wrong Colin)
Vs
B. Squat 145 : P. Clean 125

Who would you say is limited by strength and who by RFD?

27

If an athlete who has significant explosive potential came to me with those numbers, I would teach them how to lift properly.

I would not concentrate on RFD/strength (rate of force development is not necessarily related to hang clean - think about proficiency & neuromuscular coordination), as to do this is a waste of time.

If I got an untrained person in the gym they could pull close to those numbers - and within a year of good training easily surpass it. Any difference between lifts at such a rudimentary stage is not due to inherent qualities of the muscles such as RFD/ ESD etc, but simply coordination and muscular control differences.

To make a conclusion about RFD/limit strength based on early stage numbers is a mistake.

Think about it - what highly trained athlete can make more than a 5% gain over a 10 week period? 5% would be outrageous if you could always continue it.

No well trained athlete gains huge amounts of strength or power in a short period - it is always over long periods, slow and steady so the saying goes.

And another thing - one cannot [significantly] increase their “strength” in an exercise until they are at a point that the neuromuscular contraction sequence is automatic. One cannot even appropriately test the athlete as the measure is purely qualitative. Until that point - the athlete cannot provide adequate stress to adapt the organisms core systems, just the neuromuscular system.

That is the primary reason why none of my guys (or myself) ever
waste time on the cleans, snatches etc - it is nearly impossible to quantitatively measure improvements. You can never be sure until you have done them for years continuously that it just wasn’t a little more “guts” or a bit more coordination.

Show me some research that shows a direct quantitative performance improvement [good research] in a sport from performing olympic lifting exercises when the lifter is unskilled and I might change my ways though :slight_smile: I might even eat my mouse lol

Comments?

28

David, I would say that A has to improve his RFD, but aren´t there alot of other factors to keep in mind? Or in this eg. or we to assume that all others things are more or less equal?

Sloth, some great points. Agree with you about improvements and training age. But I have to take issue with your point 3 above. Get the strength and then learn to apply it. You have to learn the skills needed early and then get strong, or get strong parallel to the technical work. There is a saying in Europe - ‘Hans can´t learn what Hansel hasn´t learned’. Hansel being the child version of Hans.

Colin - can you explain ‘isometric hold eccentric singles’?

29

Originally posted by David W
[b]Sloth - some good points

Colin - Your numbers are quite illuminating. Your Squat:Clean; Snatch:Hg Snatch ratios suggest a natural propensity towards limit movements and surprisingly, a lack of reversible strength. Iwould be interested to hear how your sinclair or strength relative to body weight has changed over time and also how well your Olympic derivative and squat progressions correlate. [/b]

Please don’t get the wrong idea, my 139lb hang snatch PR is not a full hang snatch down to the knee, it’s done with a 2-3inch dip - ie the bar doesn’t even reach mid thigh! High Hang Power Snatch would be a better name for it :slight_smile:

Anyway I think most people can do much more from the floor in the olys, since you have 2 acceleration phases and a double knee rebend which is a stretch reflex action in itself.
Always hard to compare olylifts from one person to another because I for one don’t squat under the bar all that much.

And no I don’t have a 40inch vertical jump just yet, but it’s probably in the mid to high 30s, been a while since I measured it.

‘isometric hold eccentric singles’ - basicly you lower the weight very slowly and every few inches do a 4 sec iosmetric hold, once at the bottom you explode back up.

I still stand behind what I say. I guess we will see in a years time :slight_smile:

30

A few points:

  1. I am not suggesting that if a lifter’s limiting factor is RFD that all attention should be placed on improving this variable. In comparison to maximum force RFD actually has limited trainability. The lifter who lacks inate speed should therefore also strive to improve maximum force but will just accept that his snatch to squat ratio will always be quite low (although it may narrow slightly with continued training). My mentor a coach who has produced more than twenty national champions often remarks ‘speed is the key. Strength we can manufacture’ This is obviously a vast simplification but does still hold some weight.

  2. Early assessment of strength qualities does not have to be based on performance of the lifts per ce. (See Easten Eurpean selection methods). Instead activities such as sprinting and jumping (in relation to BW) may provide useful indicators. I agree that a lack of inter and intra muscular coordination and high neural and antagonist inhibition limits assessment of potential during initial training. I would not however put someone of Colin’s development in this bracket. It is a given that 99% of the early improvements will result from neural adaptations and that further increases in strength have a much lower relationaship to neural factors. I simply made some observations. I was not suggesting that he alter his training focus in any marked way.

  3. Judge the effectiveness of a program in the actual sporting activity. In 1995 Jon Edwards went from a 122 power clean to a 135 and improved his pb by 85cm. Sure some of that improvement will have resulted from improved technique in the specific movement but obviously some also resulted from a pure increase in power. Olympic lifts are certainly far more easily quantifiable than plyometric exercises. Infact you can apply your arguement to any exercise - bench, squats etc :slight_smile:

31

This is a great discussion! Cause for thought all around!

32

Carson,

With issue 3 I was meaning that as strength increases - sometimes technique may have to change to be able to utilise that strength in the sport itself. While one strength level- technique coupling may be ok, another strength level may require a slight and ever so subtle change in technique to utilise the extra strength in the sporting activity.

What are your thoughts on that?

DW:

“'speed is the key. Strength we can manufacture”

I believe that the opposite is also true - I have coached speed through visual imagery and watch and learn scenarios. I believe that speed is just a learned response (for the most part). Sure it has some genetic components, but you need to be able to train that as well - neuromuscularly. I cannot judge ones speed ability at an early training age - they have yet to develop the capability - either structurally, functionally or muscularly - to get fast & powerful.

"Instead activities such as sprinting and jumping (in relation to BW) may provide useful indicators. "

I agree with this - but the same thing applies when someone is unskilled at jumping. I increased a guys vertical by over 30cm in less than 2 months - but that was just learning the correct way to jump.

“I would not however put someone of Colin’s development in this bracket.”

Anyone who can gain like he has imho is in the early bracket. No one of a good training age should be able to gain more than 20- certainly not 40kg per lift per year - so he falls into this category for me. When I say good training age - someone who has trained correctly with good strength levels (2.5-3x bodyweight sq/dead) and nearly no technical improvements needed. I remember seeing a video of colin a few months ago showing some cleans - they were pretty ugly, but he has fixed them up accordingly. That puts him in a young training age doesnt it?

"Judge the effectiveness of a program in the actual sporting activity. In 1995 Jon Edwards went from a 122 power clean to a 135 and improved his pb by 85cm. "

Johnathon only did power cleans according to popular legend.
Johnathon has been obviously doing a lot of power cleans, and was proficient enough at them to be able to stress all his other systems enough to provide a sports-specific gain in performance.

Exactly what I was saying wasn’t it?

“Infact you can apply your arguement to any exercise - bench, squats etc”

Yes you can - but the level of coordination needed to excel at the squats, bench etc is minimal to that required for effective functional stimulation of the organism with olympic style lifts.

Comments?

33

Charlie,

I am in general agreement with what you have to say. Strength training is a necessary part of a successful program. I am not attacking weights, but rather the obsession with lifting heavy weights and neglecting other important factors such as skill and so on.

To bring my comments back to the actual debate, my point was that the rep intensity does and should vary from individual to individual in terms of both recovery and mind set. There are certain athletes that will need to train around 70% more often in terms of weights, myself included, and there are others who thrive on higher intensity workouts. Again, this comment is not based on philosophy but observation. As long as the training brings results, it works and I have seen many approaches that have succeeded in power training sports.

However, I will stick with my point that upper body execises are overrated in terms of actual sprinting. Of course, this does not deny the need for reasonable upper body strength. My point was that my upper body was on par with most top sprinters, yet my leg strength was well below. If i had my time again, i would have paid less attention to the mirror and more about specific training. This is an aspect I have learned from my 'failure" and from “observation”.

The point about Ben Johnson is that people read what he lifted and think they have to be super strong to achieve success. They do. There is no question that Johnson is extremely strong for a sprinter. The fact he runs 3.80 for 30m is testimony to that. However, I also read what Greene and others lift and realise that they run similar times with far less poundages lifted in the gym. Poundages lifted may depend on form, and similar power results can and are achieved by athletes who place less emphasis upon heavy weights. Perhaps someone could enlighten me to how much Burell lifts given that he has actually ran the fastest 30m ever in an 100m race (3.79).

I also apologise for my comment that Johnson did 80Kg bench when he ran 10.25. This was told to me from an interpretation of Speedtrap. For interest sake, what did Ben lift when he was running that performance in regard to various lifts.

34

This is interesting about the 70% thing.

Completely random thoughts follow - please disregard if interested in fact :slight_smile:

  1. Maybe the general principles of tempo training (& charlies "dont train within 80-95%) can apply to other things, not just the track? What about applying it to weights?

Personally, I believe going at 90-100% is good, but it needs to be brief and for a purpose. Athletes also need to build up to the point so they can handle it as well.

So if the above theory is correct, 75% of our training could be done at below 75% - and 25% above 95? Does that make sense?

To calculate an index we would need to use something like:

Training volume = sum of all exercise : (intensity factory * weight lifted * sets * reps)

That would mean that we could do for example 2 sets of 100kg, 2 reps (95%) = intensity factor of 380, and then do 1520 intensity volume worth of work at or below 75%.

Thoughts?

"My point was that my upper body was on par with most top sprinters, yet my leg strength was well below. "

This shows that you neglected your leg strength. Saying that upper body strength is not important for sprinters cannot be validated as your hypothesis is unsupported - what would have happened if you HAD not neglected leg weights? What would have happened if you had neglected upper body, and concentrated on legs?

We can only speculate as to what would have happened, but the only conclusion you can make based on your own experiences is that you shouldn’t neglect leg weights in favour of upper body, and we all knew that! :slight_smile:

"The point about Ben Johnson is that people read what he lifted and think they have to be super strong to achieve success. They do. "

They should. Greene and others are VERY strong. It doesnt matter that they don’t always lift heavy - the point is that they have and now do not want to go any heavier. Most elite sprinters would have been lifting VERY heavy weights, but if they didnt, they COULD if they wanted to. This shows there is more than one way to get strong - but what would have happened if someone combined both approaches? I would say ben would have happened, or tim.

Thoughts?

35

sloth,

No, I did not neglect my legs. I have power cleaned 155kg at 95kg, 135 at 90kg, and have squatted 200kg (98kg). Pissweak on a world level, but reasonable.

My point is this. When i ran 50.4 for 400m and 22.5 for 200m I was 90kg. I believe that I would have run a lot faster if i had less bullshit muscle on top.

Also, my hypothesis about upper body strength is not based on mindless thinking. I know many good athletes that are relatively weak up top, but few that lack good leg power. In fact, i have never seen a sub-11 second runner that could not standing long jump (around) 3.00m. However, i have seen many 10.2-10.4 second runners that are relatively weak up top. As I said previously, a 400m silver medalist could only do three chinups.

In any case, I am not against a reasonable upper strength level. You do need some balance especially for short sprints. However, with my few athletes, I am not particularly concerned with improving their upper body strength, but more concerned with improving their leg power.

36

Spartacus,

You seem to be confusing upper and lower body strength with size. Ben was stronger than you (and many others) at a much lower bodyweight. I have no idea how tall you are, but 95kg is pretty big for a runner. So is 90kg.

So maybe it is not the strength you are worried about, but the size. So stating that getting a stronger upper body wont contribute to great speed is fallacious when you base your opinions on the fact you were heavy - not overly strong.

"In fact, i have never seen a sub-11 second runner that could not standing long jump 3.00m. However, i have seen many 10.2-10.4 second runners that are relatively weak up top. "

I have seen many sub 11 guys with less than 3.00m standing longs. There is a huge difference between 10.2 and 9.8. Comparing apples with lentils is not a way to prove a concept :slight_smile:
Maybe you don’t need to be strong up top to run 10.2, but you do to be able to run 9.8.

Comments?

37

Sloth - your comments suggest a lack of practical experience with lifters. .

38

David,

How so?

Would you say that squats and bench press are harder to master than olympic style lifts? Would you say that I was wrong about the size vs strength issue?

I do not understand.

Please explain, I am here to learn from your experience as well as everyone elses.

39

Spartacus:
How do you know the SLJ results of this sub-11 group? Calvin Smith was sub-10. Was his SLJ above 3.00 m? What was Ben’s? I’m curious because I don’t know.
My point is, don’t generalize.
As for the weak upper body club:
When one of them joins the sub 9.80 club, I’ll be interested (please don’t try to suggest that Mo Green is one!)

40

Originally posted by spartacus
[b]sloth,

No, I did not neglect my legs. I have power cleaned 155kg at 95kg, 135 at 90kg, and have squatted 200kg (98kg). Pissweak on a world level, but reasonable.

[/b]

Impressive pulling power, perhaps you just don’t have the build/leverage for a big squat.
That is why there isn’t much correlation between people as far as clean/squat ratios go, but within a person there is I suppose.

Your pretty heavy though.