The key phrase in this thread is Max Strength Phase, i.e. Increasing Max Strength. Even as a maintenance phase, I don’t believe 2-3 @ 75% would accomplish much. Some sprinters don’t lift at all during comp, but that doesn’t make no lifting the best way to increase max strength.
@ Pioneer. I agree that it may not take a large percentage of reps in near-max intensity range, but it takes some, or you will need to push harder in terms of the number of reps left in the bank. And again, I’m talking about a true Max Strength phase, not maintenance or comp phases.
Yes and we do that just not all that frequently. In week 11 in the plan I wrote of earlier, the athletes will be at or surpass prior set-rep bests I just find you can’t do this every block nor for sure every week or the other elements will be greatly compromised in terms of output. Week 7 in the fall we push close to these limits but have a rep or two left each set.
I don’t have it in front of me and was speaking from memory, but I remember the title being very simple, something like Weightlifting Program Design, and it was an NSCA article.
Weightlifting: Program Design
National Strength and Conditioning Association
Volume 28, Number 2, pages 10-17
I don’t see that table or those particular numbers in that article though I could have just missed it. I asked Dr. Stone and he does not recognize it either.
Pioneer, I don’t know where the hell I got those numbers or what I was thinking when I wrote that. When you made your second post, I decided I would look over all of my Stone articles but first glanced back at my post, and couldn’t believe what I had written. Not only does Dr. Stone NOT suggest these at as Max Strength sessions, I don’t know anyone on the planet who does. Look at my own ideas about reps/session in the same post, obviously nothing close to that table, and I’m sure the intensities that I would prescribe are higher than those that Stone would use.
The sentence below the table is how I meant to characterize Stone’s max strength work…
During the actual bread and butter max strength phases of his periodization plans, there is a lot (>15%) of all reps in the >85% range.
I think if you look at the second, higher intensity table, which is what I would call the main strength mesocycle, you can sum up the reps on the heavy days and about 15%, and maybe more, are in excess of 85%, which is what I wrote. The numbers from the table not only don’t reflect that, they don’t reflect any max strength phase from anyone with any sanity.
As far as the table, the only thing I can think is that I sometimes will copy and paste a table from something else then change the numbers etc. to fit the topic, but obviously that table didn’t get finished and I didn’t read what I wrote. What would 25 reps @ 95-100% be, 25 sets of 1? That’s crazy. And who could pretend that 40 reps at >90% is doable? That was a good catch, but I’m amazed that I didn’t catch it, and neither did anyone else until now. My bad.
Star61, when I read that table originally, it did not look like anything I had seen from Stone (so I asked around) and looked far too intense to be realistic. I knew if it was his, there is no way it could be for anything more than sets/reps-maybe a 3 x 5 best and not from a 1rm. I asked three grad. students (one of which has just graduated) and they did not recognize the table as his either. I should have just checked with Dr. Stone in the first place.
If someone could even complete workouts in some of those ranges, which is doubtful, I don’t know if they could walk for a few weeks. With some sessions like those, maybe someone would just go ahead and schedule surgery first then go do the workout-some sort of emergency room procedure would likely be necessary.
No problem, I’ve inadvertently put up incorrect information on forums myself.
Agreed. After thinking about it for a while (I usually am very careful with my posts) I believe I had intended to actually make a chart like the one I just created below that shows what percentage of reps were greater than 90%, 85 and 80% for a 12week mesocycle. After beginning to add up all the reps, I either got distracted or bored and posted without updating the table with the correct information. And it was never intended to be for a session, it was for a 12 week mesocycle per the article. A point I was trying to make, and mentioned in other posts, is that it is critical to include some percentage of reps at higher intensities…you can’t leave them out even though they represent an smaller % of the total reps. Even Stone, who I do not consider to be a proponent of very high intensity lifting, includes quite a bit of moderately heavy to heavy reps.
Looking at Monday, the heavy day in Table 4, , which is what I consider to be the significant workout during that mesocycle, it would have looked something like…
30reps @ >90% 17.5% of all heavy day reps over 90% (included 89% in group)
60reps @ >85% 35.0% of all heavy day reps over 85% (didn’t include 83% in group)
165reps @ >80% 96.5% of all heavy day reps over 80%
6reps @ <80% 3.5% of all heavy day reps under 80%
Total 171reps
Please don’t hold to exact numbers because its late and as before, this is tedious, because to get this data you had to devide the mass lifted each workout into the workout volume load to get reps, and then add up all over 90%, all over 85% etc.
A mistake I think some athletes, including sprinters, make is looking at someone’s program, like Stone’s, which is a two day a week schedule, then modify it to suit there needs and either squat (or bench etc.) only one day a week, cutting volume in half, or making both days look like Thursday, the light day, spending most of their reps in the 75% range. I see some of that in the posts above. In my opnion, you can’t cut the high intensity day out of a max strength program any more than you can cut out the >95% speed days from a 100m training program, just because it represents a smaller total volume of the distance ran. To me, cutting out the high intensity day and doing only the low intensity loads is like running tempo 3-4 time per week and rarely, if ever, sprinting at near Max V. As I stated above, you can tax the CNS fully with submaximal loading (high volume of light weights or tempo running), but you will not force the same adaption that you will by doing a lower volume of near maximal training (near maximal weights or MaxV sprinting). You need that high intensity loading, even if it represents a smaller fraction of the entire load than the lower intensty stuff.
I agree, as before, that some volume of work needs to be in that heavier realm and for us it’s going to be 95-100%+ (+ if they have more in them that week to do so-week 11 in the fall as posted previously) for 3 x 3. Some maximal strength stimulus needs to be used, though sparingly (we’ll do it 2-3x within 8-9 months), during the year in order to maintain or convert from-i.e. there needs to be a high stimulus in the first place in order to make the main. or conversion of high quality. It’s the frequency that this is done is where I believe some might be in disagreement. When hitting the sprints, mb throws, jumps which are, in terms of effort, carried out maximally during much of the year, there is simply not energy nor enough work capacity to do so except on occasion.
The Olympic lifting programs I’ve seen for Stone, for sure, are heavier in terms of absolute intensity than those programs for throws and for sprints and will include doubles and singles on the classic or power versions of the lifts.
I’m not sure which two day a week schedule you are referring to unless you mean taking one of his three day schedules and turning into two day schedules? We only use two lifting days in a week when there is a comp. at the end of that week-and at times early in the year we’ve lifted even late in the week very early in the comp. phase though more recently we have not. Pretty much every non-comp. week during the year we lift 3x/wk. If meets are on consecutive Saturdays,(which is often the case) that means we’ll lift on Tues. and Thurs. between those trying to adhere to the principle of the 48 hr. supercomp. cycle.
Stone, pretty much in every case I can recall except some WL programs, accounts for accumulated fatigue by lowering the intensities late in the week by approx. 5-10% recognizing your best at the end of week has likely diminished by the end of the week particularly after non-comp weekends in the fall where more rest will be afforded. Early in blocks there is at times only a 5-10% drop but later in blocks there tends to be at least a 10% drop. If it’s a very intense micro by the end of the week there is usually a 15%+ drop.
Just as you say, some may make the mistake of cutting aspects out and rarely if ever hitting any high int. work during the whole year-those that seem to lift only light year round (by most people’s definition) for high external speeds without ever utilizing any real force requirement. Conversely, there are also those who overrate max. strength’s role in the overall program of a sprinter/hurdler/jumper by lifting near max. weights for too many consecutive weeks or worse for too many consecutive blocks and thus compromise the more important components of their program namely, the sprints, hurdles, jumps as well as the other supportive/developmental tools such as the mb/shot throws and plyo work.
I didn’t receive any feed back from anyone on my comments about the diffence in accumulating CNS stress leading to the need for recovery as opposed to the CNS stress that causes a positive adaption. What’s your view on that.
No, just watching the discussions now. Interesting that the most recent discussions now revealing data from Weyland the vertical forces at top speed (2.3 x bm) are the same as those at 10m/s (2.32 x bm). Not sure everyone has this one yet, hence premature to start prescribing new training modalities.
Post #103 - In addition, it’s important to note that a single episode of sub-max stimuli can, on the whole (due to the systemic environment), equate to a max stimuli when coupled with other stimuli (ergo Charlie’s glass of water/CNS capacity analogy)
This leads us to the response end of things because the degree to which CNS capacity is taxed per unit of time is proportional (to what precise degree I’m not sure) to response
Post #104 (me) - I never remember Charlie ever saying that two or more submax stimuli equated to a max stimuli in terms of adaption. Quite the opposite, as his aversion to intensive tempo attests. While he did say, and I would absolutely agree it does equate in terms of accumulated fatigue and the need for recovery, you can’t get what equates to a 100% max effort stimulus using multiple sub-max stimulus, especially if we’re equating sub-max to be <85%…I believe that goes for sprinting or weights.
Post #106 - I do recall him saying that. Again the session total is the key not the individual elements. He explained it via tempo, a single 75% rep is sub max and the session remains that way if you do a regular tempo session but cut the recovery in ½ (or more) and the session’s intensity increases and it can become a high intensity one.
Post #112 (me) - There is a big difference between CNS intensity accumulation leading to the need for recovery, and high intensity stimulus designed to bring about an adaption. Your 75% reps, in any volume, will not produce the same stimilus that a 95-100% Max V session or a 90-95% Speed End would. It might require the same recovery time, even more, but it will not provide the stimulus required to acquire the desired adaption. If Charlie ever wrote that multiple Extensive Tempo reps/sessions would accomplish the same adaptions as a 90-95% Speed End. or a 95-100% Max V session, I’ve never seen it. And there would be a lot of sub 10-11sec marathoners out there.
The same can be said in the gym. The whole TUT and Total Tonnage myths not withstanding, if you want a positive adaption in terms of increasing your strength, you will need to 1) perform an adequate number of reps/sets at near maximal intensity and/or 2) perform an adequate number of reps/sets at a submaximal intensity, preferably over 75%, using sets that bring you fairly close to failure (within 1-3 reps).
I won’t claim to be an expert in either area. I will say for a bobsledder, I would think that acceleration would totally dominate the training, and you could include more and heavier posterior training, sled training, sled pushing, etc., along with heavier core training as opposed to a sprinter. I say heavier core training because, like a football player, much of the power generated in the PC is being transmitted through the upper body under heavy resistance, at least compared to a sprinter. Since the acceleration is going to be performed against resistance and GCT’s should be longer?, max strength should be more important as RFD may not be quite as critical, although still important.
For a sprinter, I have come to learn that, considering Max V is king, it would depend totally on the type of sprinter (i.e. Ben vs Carl or Usain), and heavy weight training that works wonderfully for acceleration may not only do nothing for top end speed, but actually intefere with developing it. I’m still looking for means that impact MaxV directly and have been ‘proven’ to do so emprically, not just theoretically.
I will cop out and say at this point I do not feel qualified to lay out a full training macrocycle for either that I could feel good about putting my name on. I could, but I would simply be pulling from other programs and picking and choosing things that I ‘think’ or ‘feel’ should work, but I don’t have the experience to ‘know’ that my plan would be more effective than any other.