[quote]frankjl wrote:
Didn’t Ed Coan do some kind of “speed work” – although different than what Louie prescribes?[/quote]
He treated every weight like it was a max weight, so all his sub-maximal sets were very explosive, because he was applying maximum force (and perfect form as though he were maxing out) to the bar every time. That was his “speed work” per se as far as I’m aware.
Personally I can’t do speed work, because I just don’t really believe in it. And if you don’t believe in something, whether it works or not, you’re probably not going to get shit out of it.[/quote]
Not a bad take. Over thirty years ago Ernie Frantz( he trained or trained with Coan ) said to lift light weights like they’re heavy and heavy like they’re light.
[quote]frankjl wrote:
Didn’t Ed Coan do some kind of “speed work” – although different than what Louie prescribes?[/quote]
He treated every weight like it was a max weight, so all his sub-maximal sets were very explosive, because he was applying maximum force (and perfect form as though he were maxing out) to the bar every time. That was his “speed work” per se as far as I’m aware.
Personally I can’t do speed work, because I just don’t really believe in it. And if you don’t believe in something, whether it works or not, you’re probably not going to get shit out of it.[/quote]
[quote]Brian14 wrote:
IMO, not as useful as many Westsiders seem to think. It can be useful, but it is not necessary. Like anything, you have to find what works for you.[/quote]
Bingo . I don’t use it anymore for a few reasons . One being is that I do not believe it is always necessary .[/quote]
It’s good to see you post again.
I know that some “Westisders” don’t do speed work for various reasons. I know AJ Roberts didn’t do it because it bothered his elbows. I know of another that only did it before meets and used the usual “DE Bench” day for upper back work only. Then you have others that swear by it (Dave Tate comes to mind). Like I said, I don’t think it’s a magic bullet but it does seem to help quite a few people.
One thing that gets me is people see someone that says they do speed work and has great results so they assume the speed work must be doing something. Westside for example uses the conjugate method, maxing every week and they do hypertrophy work every training session which is exactly what Science and Practice of Strength Training recommends for maximal strength so of course they’re going to have great results.
It is hard for me to see how getting quicker is going to help you lift a 1RM. It is a true test of maximal strength not speed. How quick you are has nothing to do with how strong you are.
I think a great example is Stan Efferding. He’s 45 years old, probably the best all around powerlifter in the USA, maybe even the world. It’s common knowledge that the older you get, the slower you get and he does no speed work. I think that example alone makes it obvious but there’s more.
If speed was truly part of the powerlifting equation like in Olympic lifting and football you’d see competitors in their peaks from young to mid 20’s and falling off by their 30’s just like in Olympic lifting and football but no this is powerlifting. It is not uncommon for a guy in his late 30s or early 40s to break an all time world record. Stan Efferding(45), Andrey Malanichev(36), Eric Spoto(37) just to name a few. Now show me an Olympic lifter that old breaking a world record, or a football player that old being the best at their position. You won’t find it because speed deteriorates with age so I think it’s pretty obvious that powerlifting has nothing to do with speed.
Just because I provided one example of how another lifter uses speed work? Chad Smith still utilizes lighter loads in regards to his speed work. But he also points out in recent times that things like box jumps and med ball throws are great too. You might not be working on that EXACT form of exercise. However, it is teaching you the two of the three things I mentioned in my earlier post… Maximum force, and explosive power.
Form work is just a superb added benefit of doing it the way simmons and hatfield had mentioned.
As for speed work not working for form? You have proof in this thread that it works… How about guys like Matt Wenning? Go watch his 1000lbs squat. Looks like he is doing speed work… Shit does not just automatically break down because it gets heavy if your body has been trained with thousands of hours how to do that movement perfectly. Ever heard, perfect practice makes perfect?
There is a sweet spot for everyone, try speed work for a year… I bet you learn something new… Everyone wants to be the big dog on the block and bash all the theories, but how long have you tried it for steadily? 12 weeks? 9 weeks?
I liked speed work for my equipped squat and bench. Never did much for my pull and never did much for my raw lifts. I’m lifting raw now and have been for a while so I’m not using it. If I went back to single ply, I’d bring in some speed work, especially on squats.
[quote]Mahoney wrote:
One thing that gets me is people see someone that says they do speed work and has great results so they assume the speed work must be doing something. Westside for example uses the conjugate method, maxing every week and they do hypertrophy work every training session which is exactly what Science and Practice of Strength Training recommends for maximal strength so of course they’re going to have great results.
It is hard for me to see how getting quicker is going to help you lift a 1RM. It is a true test of maximal strength not speed. How quick you are has nothing to do with how strong you are.
I think a great example is Stan Efferding. He’s 45 years old, probably the best all around powerlifter in the USA, maybe even the world. It’s common knowledge that the older you get, the slower you get and he does no speed work. I think that example alone makes it obvious but there’s more.
If speed was truly part of the powerlifting equation like in Olympic lifting and football you’d see competitors in their peaks from young to mid 20’s and falling off by their 30’s just like in Olympic lifting and football but no this is powerlifting. It is not uncommon for a guy in his late 30s or early 40s to break an all time world record. Stan Efferding(45), Andrey Malanichev(36), Eric Spoto(37) just to name a few. Now show me an Olympic lifter that old breaking a world record, or a football player that old being the best at their position. You won’t find it because speed deteriorates with age so I think it’s pretty obvious that powerlifting has nothing to do with speed. [/quote]
How fast you are determines whether or not you run out of energy before you complete the lift or not. In that regard, it has everything to do with “how strong you are”. Before any given attempt, your body has X seconds of all out fight before it can no longer exert maximum force. You can either train to go farther in that X amount of time by getting faster, or increasing the amount of time your body can exert that amount of force.
You can debate on whether or not “speed training” works, but saying speed of a barbell doesn’t matter is a little off in my opinion. Mike Tuscherer, one opponent of speed work, still uses the Tendo Unit to measure his bar speed. He might not do speed work, but still knows the importance of a quick moving barbell.
The question of whether is speed work is necessary or not is up to the individual and what their weaknesses are. Yes there are may lifters who use speed work and have found success yet there are others who eschew such methods and still set records of all kinds.
Personally you should try to do every rep with the highest speed possible and “teach” your CNS to exert the highest maximum force possible with every weight, regardless of load which is one of the main principles of the Sheiko programmes.
[quote]DmitryKlokovFan wrote:
The question of whether is speed work is necessary or not is up to the individual and what their weaknesses are. Yes there are may lifters who use speed work and have found success yet there are others who eschew such methods and still set records of all kinds.
Personally you should try to do every rep with the highest speed possible and “teach” your CNS to exert the highest maximum force possible with every weight, regardless of load which is one of the main principles of the Sheiko programmes.[/quote]
[quote]halcj wrote:
Also, to those saying that speed work can help with technique, I would like to add that, in powerlifting, technique is technique with a heavy weight. It cannot be learnt with 50-60% 1RM as used for conventional speed work.[/quote]
I am going to politely disagree with this statement. You may not be able to, which is understandable as many agree with you, but there are people who can fix technical problems with lighter weight while moving it as quickly as possible[/quote]
It depends on the issue, but once basic form is mastered very few problems are realistically going to be solved with 50%. Most people using speed work already understand the ideas and form for the movement, but need practice with some moderate weight. Really, sets of 3 with 70% are still light, but more beneficial than sets with 50%.
I don’t know about that halcj. it depends on the person. I agree with you that 50% is a little bit light for most people, but it depends on how high your max is. For a lifter whose max deadlift is 315, they can do all the reps they want to at 155, it’s probably not going to help them much with form, strength, speed, or anything.
They would do a lot better to work with a weight that is like 225 or so. But think about how much some guys are pulling - for an 805 deadlifter, 405 is 50%. That’s pretty substantial weight, and I think one can definitely improve technique, speed, and strength working with 405. Granted, most of the people reading this aren’t 800 lb pullers. But I think the percentage at which doing form work is ideal changes as you get stronger. For someone pulling 315, maybe it’s 75 %, for someone pulling 405 maybe it’s 70%, someone pulling 495 maybe it’s 65%… you see what I mean.
[quote]N.K. wrote:
I don’t know about that halcj. it depends on the person. I agree with you that 50% is a little bit light for most people, but it depends on how high your max is. For a lifter whose max deadlift is 315, they can do all the reps they want to at 155, it’s probably not going to help them much with form, strength, speed, or anything.
They would do a lot better to work with a weight that is like 225 or so. But think about how much some guys are pulling - for an 805 deadlifter, 405 is 50%. That’s pretty substantial weight, and I think one can definitely improve technique, speed, and strength working with 405. Granted, most of the people reading this aren’t 800 lb pullers. But I think the percentage at which doing form work is ideal changes as you get stronger. For someone pulling 315, maybe it’s 75 %, for someone pulling 405 maybe it’s 70%, someone pulling 495 maybe it’s 65%… you see what I mean. [/quote]
Fair point. I just feel that if speed is emphasised and weight is lowered to allow this, the weight will be too light for optimal technique work… But, as they say, everyone’s different - if it works in practice then great!
As a raw lifter i have tried the westside style of dynamic work and it didnt do a thing for me. In the last 9 weeks i have been doing pause work after reps and this has made a huge difference. Im able to recruit the muscles in better fashion. I have since started doing CAT style for my reps instead of pauses and my speed is starting to fly. This is not to say that the westside style doesnt work but at the time it didnt work for me at that time. Im an advocate of dynamic training now but have not been for ever.
I err on the side of DE days or speed work being less useful for the Raw lifter. Compounding the point of my lifts not being incredibly big to begin with, I just find that speed days with percentages in the 50-60% simply would not carry over. Of course I can bench super fast with 175lbs on the bar. Its like the tutorials showing someone how to squat, they will show perfect form albeit with 135lbs on the bar. As others have mentioned, be conscience of treating every rep like a max effort movement no matter whats on the bar, focus on speed and power no matter what the load.
As others have also mentioned, paused deads and squats have carried over incredibly well instead of traditional Westside speed work.
I think for me at least it has made me a better lifter. It taught me how to give 100% right out of the bottom, and has let me get about 24 near perfect reps for the squat, and bench. It also lets me practice my set up a lot. To those saying that 50% is too light, they are definitely correct. I don’t think there’s been anyone really 50% recommends to anything but light deadlifts after murdering themselves on DE squats with bands/chains or a strength speed cycle should be used, unless you are talking about 50% bar weight with 15-25+% in band/chain weight then yes that is often recommended.
Whenever I’ve seen it recommended to cycle from 50% to 55% to 60% it is with the accommodating resistance the same, or keep the bar weight at about 50%, and increase accommodating resistance. I also normally hear 60-70% recommended for intermediate lifters if using no accommodating resistance, and that is the range I’ve noticed the best results from.
This is my opinion, I have a long way to go until I am good. I just wanted to pop in on a topic where a method that I think has helped me is being talked about negatively.
[quote]Mahoney wrote:
Does anyone here think speed work is as important as Louie says? Looking at all the raw world record holders I don’t see one that used speed work. It would seem that if speed work was as great as it sounds it would be great for olympic lifting but the greatest results in olympic lifting have come from the Bulgarian method which consists of zero speed work.
I bought the science and practice of strength training by Zatsiorsky and it talks about a dynamic day but it sounds more geared for an actual athlete not a power athlete. For example, it mentions how if an athletes squat improved to 3 times body weight but his jump did not increase, his rate of force development was the limiting factor.
It doesn’t say anywhere that if his jump and rate of force development increase his squat will increase too. The book also gives a recommendation for an athlete training for maximal strength and doesn’t include a dynamic effort day. [/quote]
Speed work and ME work combined worked for me for about a year in the bench. Went from 275 to 320. After that though I made a move to simply lifting heavy (80-100%) but cycling band combinations to force full effort through the full ROM. I cycled single bands, double bands, and a special method of reverse, and lockout zone bands. With double bands I was able to move greater total resistance as fast as what I could do with 60% with only minimal bands.
I came to think that westside speed bench had basically become a plyometric tricep exercise.
As for squats, I do benefit from Wide box squats with significant band tension done fast for 8-10 doubles in about 10 minutes. I tend to use about 60% in bar weight but will have enough bands to make it anywhere from 65% at the bottom and 75% at the top up to 90% at the bottom and 110% at the top.
Then again my max raw squat is 445. My 355 bench is OK though and I definitely know that I did better when I switched to 80-100% net load with significant band tension, most commonly 80% net load for about 5 x 3, with about 40-60% of my max in bar weight, but enough bands so that I can not do more than 5 or 6 triples in 10 minutes.
A typical combination I used to get to 355 was 155 pounds of bar weight, 140 pounds of bottom band tension and 200 pounds of top band tension for a total of 295-355. I could actually do this for 4 to 5 triples in 10 minutes because the bands heighten your reflexes and nervous output. I weighted the bar plus bands combo using a pair of scales at both the bottom and top of the lift.
