Nice Squat mate and definitely more to come. Quality
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Sorry man, I didn’t notice the notification saying you’d replied.
In all honestly, you’re probably right. It was definitely a change from what had become my “normal.” I didn’t know freeze was a third option - I’ve always just heard fight or flight. I suppose that makes sense though.
I appreciate it 
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Nice pr!
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Thanks, peeps! Appreciate you all.
23/08/2021
TECHNIQUE
ENDURANCE — MUSCULAR
Start time: 2030
Solo throwing drills (band uchikomi, various throws), boxing (footwork, lunging jab, cross power), cimande silat forms (open-hand & double sticks)
- 10 min each
Double DB C&J
- 3x90 sec, 2.5 min rest @ 50
Cyclist squats
- 100 total reps @ BW
Band arm circles (rear anchored)
- 50 each direction
Notes:
- I’m gonna change my technical practice to just 2 of the three at a time, because I was getting to the end of those 10 minutes and realizing I still had more I wanted to work on. Hell, I could spend 30 minutes alone on the cimande forms, especially adapting them to double stick, single stick and knife. So much to work with there.
- DB endurance will follow a stricter progression next block too: first cycle will be a weight bump, then the next two will be rest decreases, before resetting the time and upping the weight in the following block.
- Gonna keep arm circles and dislocations as my upper body endurance. Having a history of touchy shoulders, and with all the benching, pressing, jerks, etc etc I do, it seems a good idea to flood my shoulders with blood.
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Endurance muscular
Sounds so manly
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Basically my middle name.
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Hey @j4gga2, what would be some staple speed and agility drills you would recommend? I switch between differing throw and plyo moves for my upper body, but my lower body is pretty relegated to various jumping/bounding movement. I’d like to swap between jumps and speed or agility movements too.
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Hey man, appreciate the tag 
I understand you’re training in your garage? How much space do you have available?
In the actual garage, not a ton of space. But my backyard is fairly sizeable, with a roughly 15-20m strip of concrete and brick patio, as well as lots of grass. Same length as the patio, with about 10-15m of depth.
Great squat. I hear 400 calling
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Sorry for the delay mate
15-20m is plenty of space for most things. I’ll break this response into two sections, one on linear speed and the other on multi-directional speed (aka agility)
Linear Speed
The way you train linear speed is going to depend on the quality you are aiming to develop, maximum speed or acceleration. It takes most field/team sport athletes 20-30m to reach top speed, so a 15-20m space may be enough for you to reach 90-95% of your top speed for a few strides. Whilst this isn’t enough for true max speed development, I’ll put some suggestions below for how you can still (try) to train max-V.
You can emphasise acceleration with shorter distances and more static starts. In general, 10-15m is a distance regularly used to train acceleration.
Static starts refer to your starting position. From least to most stressful, options include:
- Semi-squatted, 2-point
- Kneeling
- 3-point
- 4-point / block
- Push-Up
- Belly or back starts
Training acceleration places an emphasis on concentric force production, particularly from the quadriceps and calves. Training max speed, in contrast, places an emphasis on hip flexors and hamstrings, and also serves as a huge neural stimulus.
Usually, training max speed requires distances over 20 metres, but you can get around this by using bounding variations. Straight-legged bounds (aka scissor runs) place a large amount of stress on your hamstrings that may carryover to sprinting, whilst speed bounds emphasise ankle stiffness. You can also do “booms” (aka sprint switches or tall switches) to work on your hip flexors.
In general, I find aiming for 100-120m of volume for linear speed work to be sufficient.
Change of Direction
COD is a lot more complicated, and includes a massive variety of possible movements:
- Speed cut: A small, fast change of direction executed at high speed e.g. side step
- Sharp cut: A large, somewhat slow change of direction greater than 90° e.g. typical football run route
- Deceleration: rapidly stopping from high speeds
- Backpedal: running backwards
- Turns: turning from a static position e.g. Olajuwon’s dreamshake
- Spins: turning at high speed e.g. CJ Anderson’s spin move
- Curved Running
- Shuffling: moving sideways
- Lateral Running: running with your upper body rotated to the side e.g. wide receivers catching a Hail Mary
Note that these moves aren’t mutually exclusive. For example, I can shuffle to the left, perform a sharp 180 degree cut and then shuffle to the right. Because of the massive variety of potential skills, it is usually a good idea to focus on one or two skills as a primary focus of the session. For example, last time I did a COD session my focus was on spin moves, whereas the time before that was on lateral running.
When it comes to training COD, you increase the difficulty of the drill by increasing your speed going into the COD move. You decrease the difficulty by reducing your speed going into the drill. You can also increase difficulty by increasing the number of moves you make in succession.
As a whole, COD places a large emphasis on the groin, glutes and quadriceps. Sharp cuts also have a large eccentric force production component.
You have lots of room to play with when it comes to programming COD drills. In general, 100-120m of volume is sufficient, and each drill should take no longer than 15s.
Warming-Up for Speed Work
I’m not really a fan of sprint “drills” and COD “drills” (heavily regressed versions of sprinting/COD that do not have a horizontal force component). They have limited carryover other than generally improve CV arousal.
In contrast, I like to utilise the “9-Vector Framework” of warming up, which is really pretty simply. It basically means that your warm-up must include some form of movement/locomotion in the following 9 directions:
- Forward
- Backward
- Left
- Right
- Forward-Left
- Forward-Right
- Backward-Left
- Backward-Right
- Rotational
You can walk, hop, jump, gallop, skip, shuffle, run, carioca, lateral run, bound, backpedal or any combination thereof. Asymmetrical combinations (e.g. skip on the R, walk on the left or carioca with a double bounce on the L foot) are encouraged. Do not repeat the same movements. Once you have learnt a coordination pattern you will not get further adaptations by repeating it. Instead, be creative and try as many different patterns as possible week to week. This component of your warm-up should take no longer than 5-6 minutes.
On top of the 9-Vector Framework, I strongly recommend doing a moderate-to-high volume of extensive hops and jumps, preferably barefoot, in warm-up. Below is the rudiment hop series from ALTIS, a great starting point:
10-15m each
- Backward 2-Foot Pogo
- Forward 2-Foot Pogo
- Backward 1-Foot Pogo (left and right)
- Forward 1-Foot Pogo (left and right)
- Inside foot 1-Foot pogo (hop left with the left foot, hop right with the right foot)
- Outside foot 1-Foot Pogo (hop left with the right foot, hope right with the left foot)
- 2 Right + 2 Left alternating pogos
This hop series would be the very first thing you do in warm-up.
Final Considerations for Programming
Principle 1: Variation is the Spice of Life
When it comes to learning complex, high-speed motor programs like speed patterns, it is essential you provide your body with a variety of scenarios, positions, distances and directions. It turns out that endless repetition of very very similar motor programs is worse for motor learning than getting less practice of a wider variety of tasks. This will also allow to cover the full bandwidth of speed-agility possibilities.
Principle 2: Consolidate Stressors
Experience of coaches a lot more qualified than me have found that certain speed-agility movements pair better with others, both to maximise recovery and to maximise stimulus. It seems that:
- sharper cuts pairs best with heavy, eccentric quadriceps work like squatting
- acceleration pairs best with power work or starting strength work like Olympic lifts, box squats and deadlifts
- Max speed and speed cuts pair best with hinging movements, or upper body movements like heavy bench Press
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Damn, son! Way to go above and beyond. Appreciate this.
Could this be as simple as assigning numbers to the various speed and agility options and combining them in random ways (within reason) each session?
The one issue I might find with this is that I always do full body sessions. However, there are always focuses to each session; one day might be snatch and bench strength, with squat and back supplemental/volume. Should I coordinate whatever speed work I do that day based on the main strength work? Still within the randomized framework, though.
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26/08/2021
SPEED
STRENGTH
Start time: 1345
Belly-start sprint + 90° cut into backpedal (5m+5m), no-spin “discus” throws w/ ball
- 2x5 each
Hang P. Snatch
- 3x5 @ 120
P. C&J
- 160x5
- 180x5
- 205x5
Hang C&P (2020 tempo, constant tension)
- 3x15 @ 110
Weighted chins
- +25x7
- “ x6
- “ x5
- “ x4
- “ x3
EZ bar strict curl
- worked up to 120x1
Wrist roller
- 2x3 rotations/direction @ 15
Notes:
- Love doing that speed work at the beginning. Really fired me up for the rest of the workout.
- Maxed out on curls today like a true bro.
- Little bit of endurance work tonight, then this cycle is wrapped. Next week I’ll be back home visiting my family which correlates to a deload week. I’ll probably do some speed work, little bit of running, maybe some BW stuff, but keep it all light and easy. Depending on how I feel, I might use the following week as a “break-in” week and just do 5’s pro and FSL to get things primed for a new cycle.
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More than happy to help mate, this is one of my favourite topics
Yeah, this is a solid strategy. It’s a good idea to have a common focus or theme to each session, but you can and should randomise other components of the drill.
Say you did 5 reps on a session focussed on speed cuts, you might do something like:
- Standing start, sprint 10, speed cut L+R, slow down
- Standing start facing the wrong way, sprint 10, speed cut L+R, hard stop by 15m
- Standing start, sprint 10, speed cut L+R, 180° cut, repeat in opposite direction
- Pivot+Reverse Pivot, sprint 10, speed cut L+R, “hit the deck”, sprint 10 in opposite direction, cut L+R, hard stop
- Starting on your back, sprint 10, speed cut L+R, 180° cut, sprint 10 in opposite direction, speed cut L+R
Total distance: 120m
Total speed cuts: 8 per leg
See how the drills are same, but different? You could also make it more simple and just change the direction you face at the start of each rep, or add a curved entry/exit into the speed cut rather than straight lines.
Once you’ve got your central focus, the goal should be to explore situations.
If you ever feel like you’re losing time planning these things, what I often do is just set up some cones in some shape and just “be creative” with my focus of the session. In training this way, lots of different situations/ideas can emerge
Yeah this definitely the way to go. I train full body as well, so I organise like that too. In my past cycle of training, where I was doing speed work with my lifts, Day 1 was an eccentric strength development day, so I did my sharp cuts there, whilst Day 2 was a pump/support day, so max speed went there.
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26/08/2021
TECHNIQUE
Start time: 2030
Band uchikomi drills
- 15 minutes
Cimande silat forms
- 5 minutes open hand
- 10 minutes double stick
HLR
- 2x12
Notes:
- Much more enjoyable extending the time and focusing on two styles. Had to slow down the throwing drills because there was a disconnect between my brain and body — probably due to the speed drills I did earlier. Nervous system is tired from the new stimuli.
- Adapting the cimande silat forms beyond their basic form is wonderful. Cimande is a silat style that loves hammer fists, forearm strikes and elbows; I’ve found it blends with muay thai beautifully because both love hard, brutal striking that’s set on crippling your opponent. Many other silat styles use knives and sticks as well, similar to Filipino eskrima, so I wanted to bring those elements into cimande and adapt the basic forms to include blade and stick.
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All good in here, my dude? Or did I just miss something (vacation, travel, …)?
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All good! Just visiting my family and refreshing my soul. Training can wait.
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On a deload are we 
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Damn straight! Trying to experience that supercompensatory effect.
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