[quote]Shedosk wrote:
Personally i use both strategies to an extent. On my big lifts (bench, squat, DL) my goal is to train speed and strength. By training speed and strength, you train your CNS to recruit more muscle fibers to explode the weight up. Time under tension is more of a hypertrophy training tool. When used to together though you can really get great results for building both size and strength if that is the goal.
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Agree with Shedosk…I never intentionally train to fail. I miss lifts left and right, but it’s not like I’m under the bar and I’m not stopping until I fail. It’s more like I’m shooting for a triple with X weight and I only make a double and miss the 3rd rep. Or I’m going for a single and I get buried.
That training to failure was a Mike Mentzer program, I believe it was called HIT and from what I understand, it only worked well for Mike Mentzer, so there’s been some debate about whether or not he actually trained like that.
In the powerlifting world, speed is king. That doesn’t mean blast out every rep with speed and blow your joints apart in the process…The idea with speed/percents/explosive training is to use a weight that you can exert maximal force on without overaccelerating the weight.
Consider this-(basic physics)
If you have 100 lbs. barbell, how much force do you need to move said barbell? If you said 100 lbs. you’d be wrong, 100________100 = stalemate. You have to exert MORE THAN 100 lbs. of force on 100 lbs. load in order for it to move. So, if you exert 101 lbs. on 100 lbs. how fast is it going to move? Very slowly. What about 110 lbs. or 120 lbs.? The more force you exert on the barbell the faster it’s going to move right? right.
This illustrates the fact that you can exert more force on a barbell than is actually loaded. In fact, everyone does it, every day at every gym across the world. They just don’t think about what is happening.
Now, here’s part II
There reaches a point where you cannot exert any additional force on a particular weight. I’m not a physics major, but the best way I know how to explain this is a whiffle ball. I don’t care if you’re a major league baseball player, there’s not enough mass in a whiffle ball to exert much force on it. It tops out pretty quick. Meaning, regardless of how well you can throw a baseball, it’s impossible to exert much force on the whiffle ball.
Apply this to the weight room. If you bench press 500 lbs. and you have 100 lbs. on the bar, that weight might top out at 200 lbs. So it is impossible to apply 500+ lbs. of force on that 100 lbs. of weight. This is where you get into Westside Barbell Philosophy etc. on percentages etc…after awhile the percentages don’t matter once you know what you’re looking for speed wise. The percentages have changed over the years but it has always been something like 50% of your max for speed training. So if you’re a 500 lbs. bencher, you’d use 250 for speed work and do your best to apply 500+ lbs. of force on that 250 lbs. of weight.
And finally…when you’re lifting maximal weights, you’re trying to apply max force on the weight regardless of what is actually on the bar. So if you trained with 250 lbs. for speed/explosiveness, and you have 500 lbs. on the bar, you’re still trying to be explosive…it just doesn’t look like it because you’re applying say 501 lbs. of force on a 500 lbs. load.
Explosiveness / speed training in a nutshell. Hope it was helpful.