Opinions on Speed Work

Training Powerlifting
61

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
If you really think being quick, which is the by product of speed work is part of the equation please explain to me why powerlifters peak in their mid 30s-early 40s when it is common knowledge that they’re not at their fastest. Just look how olympic lifters, football players, and even track runners are all out of their prime by 30 because speed deteriorates with age. How fast or quick you are has minimal impact on how strong you are.[/quote]

They may have slower absolute speed, but that is not what we are talking about.I can still blow past 20 year olds with a crossover dribble at 48, but i can’t reach any sort of top speed on a fast break. I can move 80% of my max faster than I could at 30. The combination of strength and speed is what is important…Shot putters need more speed than strength with a lighter implement. The more weight is being lifted the more strength is the limiting factor, but you still must have speed in the equation. You don’t need Usain Bolt speed, but you can’t be a marathon runner either…If you are already super explosive then you don’t have to focus on it, but you can’t totally ignore it forever or you will lose it…trust me.[/quote]

What we are talking about is rate of force development. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky which is a well respected book and even recommended by Louie himself talks about how if an athletes max squat improved and his jump did not then rate of force development was the limiting factor, not maximal muscular strength.

No where does it say in the whole book that if your rate of force of development improves your 1RM or maximal muscular strength will improve. My first post was a picture of what Zatsiorsky suggest for maximal strength and it also doesn’t include speed work. Your cross over and self perceived speed on 80% are bad examples of why you think speed work works. I suggest you take a break from your mind and look into science books on the study of strength training and come back with a legit argument for the good of this forum. [/quote]

The Russians also found that after training at 90% they had to train at a lighter percentage at least once to re-set their nervous system or they could not make continual progress at 90%+00. No amount of rest alone would reset the neuromuscular apparatus.

The reason that I feel that speed training could help for powerlifting is because we know that the highest force production occurs when one attempts to move somewhere between 42-68% of a max load as fast as possible. This is from Russian research. Of course you know its the speed/force curve. The very highest forces occur during a reversal of 42-68% max mass. The greatest tendon deformation occurs with the greatest force, and the faster the force rises (the jerk) the quicker the tendon can be deformed before shutting down muscular contraction. The greater the tendon gets deformed, the more it thickens to prevent future deformation.
[/quote]

Piggybacking off of that, people don’t seem to understand that Westside (most seem to be passively referring to westside when talking about speed work) works at relative training intensities over 85% on speed day. For example, a basic speed strength wave could be something like 55, 60, 65% on squats. Well, add to that the suggested 20-30% in band tension and also the suggested 20% of DE volume being over the suggested percentage wave, the majority of DE work is in an extremely high intensity zone.

So, with an actual fundamental understanding of the wave loading and how to progress through the different blocks (Westside uses an old Bulgarian block periodization system to progress to a meet) there is very rarely a time that speed work is being done with under 85%. [/quote]

Good Post. Louie says to START at 60% for raw lifters, but says 70% is maybe even better for the beginner (of course he’s changed this back and forth over the years… My favorite way of doing speed work for the squats was the same as Chuck V evolved to for a while at Westside … Do your usual speed work as the warm up into a max effort band Squat and then substitute the dynamic day for accessories/repition method et…
[/quote]

Does Louie suggest that beginners use accommodating resistance?

I’m trying a 10 week cycle where I don’t use any for my ‘DE day’. I’m waving 70-80 percent following prilepin’s table sans box and accommodating resistance. I figured more weight might be necessary since I’m not using that stuff and since I’m going for raw maxes, I might need more weight to develop the bottom of the lifts since I never miss lifts at the top.

62

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
I really don’t have the time to sort though your arguments and agree/disagree/disprove your points. So I’ll just use a good counter example. As many of you know Mike Tuchscherer is one of the most technical, smartest, respected people in the powerlifting community. Someone with all his credentials with both lifting and coaching’s opinion means a lot more than anyone writing in this forum and a lot of people in the Powerlifting community. He does not believe speed work works for the reasons you’ll read in the article. I attached his follow up too that he posted after such a crazy response.

http://www.jtstrong.com/articles/2013/03/28/speed-work-not-this-again/[/quote]

From the article"For those who want a reason why, here it is. It takes time for your body to ramp up to maximum force (Fmax). In a heavy lift the bar speed is slow enough to get there (or get close). In a light lift, the bar speed is too fast for you to have time to get to Fmax.

Force, the most important quality for a powerlifter, is not practiced with speed work. Doing speed work does not produce maximal force. In theory it should, but in real life it doesnâ??t. My numbers indicate that even at 75% of 1RM (too heavy to be considered â??speed weightâ?? by most), force production is still only 85%."

Still reading but he’s wrong in his understanding of physics, and kinesiology.

  1. At a certain amount of tendon deformation your nervous system will reflexively shut off any higher force production. Force plate show that a hypothetical 300 pound max bench presser will exert about 330-350 pounds of force to attempt to reverse just about any weight from 180 to 360 pounds. In the case of 360 the bar will not be reversed. He says that it takes time to develop force, but the bar is already being a) held isometrically at the top and then b) lowered to the chest under tension. The muscles have already developed force by the time the weight is reversed. At a near isometrically slow speed, say half way up, there is no “physical” way to exert more than 300 pounds of force on a 300 pound bar. The force created by plyometrically reversing a weight has the advantage of deceleration and acceleration. Now he may be saying that if a 75% rep takes 1 second then the average force is only 85%, but the peak force is definitely higher than 100% of max. Its just that the force decreases because maximal force gets shut down at higher speed. With a 180 pound weight done plyometrically what you get is over 100 through the first half and much less in the second half.

The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.

So saying that it takes time to develop force and not understanding the almost instantaneous force production from a plyometric reversal shows me that he has no concept of the physics. Maybe in practice what he is saying has merit, but his justifications are just wrong.

The Russians did find though that when pulling a heavy olympic pull, if you pulled too fast from the start your speed would reach a point that could shut down higher force production at the critical point. So 60% for speed causes problems. Yes the force off the chest can be at or around 100%, but your speed will be great enough within 2-3 inches off the chest that your reflexes are going to limit force production in the second half of the lift.

In fact here is something that pretty much defeats the “takes time to develop force” argument. If you take a 350 pound bench presser, and you attach reverse bands to a bar so that the average load is 350, say 300 at the bottom and 400 at the top, he will be much slower and exert less force with the reverse band set up than without because the lowering speed of the bar is decreased and the stretch reflex is less profound, but the mass is the same so it still has to be accelerated. I have seen 350 pound bench pressers who used reverse bands so that there was 215 pounds at the bottom and 350 at the top, and yet they lifted the weight at the same speed as a max, and couldn’t do any more because the reflexes were not as highly activated.

By the way, I am not for DE work as specified at all. I don’t think that someone needs to use that degree of aggressive plyometric work and it ends up hurting me.

With bands plus bar about the lightest I benefitted from of the squat was a net of 65-70% used about 1/3 of the time. In the bench I stopped making progress until I raised my lightest day up to 70% and again only 1/3 of the time. With a lighter weight though you may get more force right at the point of reversal, but the near 100% force drops off quicker in the rep. It may only be effective for 1-2 inches. More weight means longer high force, but less peak at reversal.

63

Read it when it came out. He has some reasonable points, but there are many more that disagree or are open to more research. Everyone is entitled to their own view and things are in no way settled on this point. He focuses entirely on peak force. He ignores the possibilities of the training effect of ROFD, accommodating resistance affects on the force curve, neural recovery benefits from sub maximal training with a peak force that is only slightly less. If you are already training peak force with the max effort method, does that preclude training any other way for any other reason. Is more always better?

A nice article from T Nation fav Bret Contreras - red the entire comment section for some nice info some of question marks that still need to be answered on this topic:

64

[quote]bilski wrote:
Read it when it came out. He has some reasonable points, but there are many more that disagree or are open to more research. Everyone is entitled to their own view and things are in no way settled on this point. He focuses entirely on peak force. He ignores the possibilities of the training effect of ROFD, accommodating resistance affects on the force curve, neural recovery benefits from sub maximal training with a peak force that is only slightly less. If you are already training peak force with the max effort method, does that preclude training any other way for any other reason. Is more always better?

A nice article from T Nation fav Bret Contreras - red the entire comment section for some nice info some of question marks that still need to be answered on this topic:
bretcontreras.com/dynamic-effort-training-bs-or-legit/[/quote]

I think you said it perfect, it’s not settled at this point. As far as some of the stuff he didn’t mention i’m sure he had a reason, since it was Mike Tuchscherer and he’s not the type to post without knowing what he’s talking about. But yes, questions need to be answered. I just think it’s good to question the norm if there seems to be a grey area, or if you don’t believe it to be true.

Too many people will just follow blindly. I’ve been doing speed pulls for my deadlift for the past few months and it’s gone from 585 to 610 in that span. It’s not like i’m saying speed work doesn’t work for fun, i’m just not sold on it.

65

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
If you really think being quick, which is the by product of speed work is part of the equation please explain to me why powerlifters peak in their mid 30s-early 40s when it is common knowledge that they’re not at their fastest. Just look how olympic lifters, football players, and even track runners are all out of their prime by 30 because speed deteriorates with age. How fast or quick you are has minimal impact on how strong you are.[/quote]

They may have slower absolute speed, but that is not what we are talking about.I can still blow past 20 year olds with a crossover dribble at 48, but i can’t reach any sort of top speed on a fast break. I can move 80% of my max faster than I could at 30. The combination of strength and speed is what is important…Shot putters need more speed than strength with a lighter implement. The more weight is being lifted the more strength is the limiting factor, but you still must have speed in the equation. You don’t need Usain Bolt speed, but you can’t be a marathon runner either…If you are already super explosive then you don’t have to focus on it, but you can’t totally ignore it forever or you will lose it…trust me.[/quote]

What we are talking about is rate of force development. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky which is a well respected book and even recommended by Louie himself talks about how if an athletes max squat improved and his jump did not then rate of force development was the limiting factor, not maximal muscular strength.

No where does it say in the whole book that if your rate of force of development improves your 1RM or maximal muscular strength will improve. My first post was a picture of what Zatsiorsky suggest for maximal strength and it also doesn’t include speed work. Your cross over and self perceived speed on 80% are bad examples of why you think speed work works. I suggest you take a break from your mind and look into science books on the study of strength training and come back with a legit argument for the good of this forum. [/quote]

The Russians also found that after training at 90% they had to train at a lighter percentage at least once to re-set their nervous system or they could not make continual progress at 90%+00. No amount of rest alone would reset the neuromuscular apparatus.

The reason that I feel that speed training could help for powerlifting is because we know that the highest force production occurs when one attempts to move somewhere between 42-68% of a max load as fast as possible. This is from Russian research. Of course you know its the speed/force curve. The very highest forces occur during a reversal of 42-68% max mass. The greatest tendon deformation occurs with the greatest force, and the faster the force rises (the jerk) the quicker the tendon can be deformed before shutting down muscular contraction. The greater the tendon gets deformed, the more it thickens to prevent future deformation.
[/quote]

Piggybacking off of that, people don’t seem to understand that Westside (most seem to be passively referring to westside when talking about speed work) works at relative training intensities over 85% on speed day. For example, a basic speed strength wave could be something like 55, 60, 65% on squats. Well, add to that the suggested 20-30% in band tension and also the suggested 20% of DE volume being over the suggested percentage wave, the majority of DE work is in an extremely high intensity zone.

So, with an actual fundamental understanding of the wave loading and how to progress through the different blocks (Westside uses an old Bulgarian block periodization system to progress to a meet) there is very rarely a time that speed work is being done with under 85%. [/quote]

Good Post. Louie says to START at 60% for raw lifters, but says 70% is maybe even better for the beginner (of course he’s changed this back and forth over the years… My favorite way of doing speed work for the squats was the same as Chuck V evolved to for a while at Westside … Do your usual speed work as the warm up into a max effort band Squat and then substitute the dynamic day for accessories/repition method et…
[/quote]

Does Louie suggest that beginners use accommodating resistance?

I’m trying a 10 week cycle where I don’t use any for my ‘DE day’. I’m waving 70-80 percent following prilepin’s table sans box and accommodating resistance. I figured more weight might be necessary since I’m not using that stuff and since I’m going for raw maxes, I might need more weight to develop the bottom of the lifts since I never miss lifts at the top. [/quote]

Yes he does. I know for squat he recommends the bar 50-60 percent with 25% accommodating resistance on the top. The most important thing is that the bar speed is between .7-.9 meters per second. You would need a tendo unit to measure that but that’s what he recommends. But when I talk about following blindly, you’re exactly what the type of person i’m talking about.

You would know the answer to that question within 5 minutes of research. On Westside’s website there’s articles Louie wrote from 2000-2012. If you go on his personal page you can see his most recent articles. There’s so much more to speed work than that basic percent range.

66

I use 80% almost all the time on bench press exercises, including closegrips, 2-3 boards, and band combinations. For the bench it is really easy for me to self regulate. 5 x 3 completed in 10 minutes flat with no form breaks means that the weight is good, or I can add a little bit next time. As long as my 5 x 3 in 10 minutes goes up I don’t mess around with other percentages, and that is going to be 80%-85% of my max consistently. I might do a month with 6 x 2, 4 x 3, or 6 x 3 .

I will do 1 extra rep on all sets if I use 2 boards, and 2 extra reps if I use 3 boards, so 5 x 4 or 5 x 5.

For the squat I tend to cycle 70, 80 and 90% for about 8 x 2, 6 x 2, 4 x 2 in 10 minutes. I might go 70-80-70-90. I need the 70 to basically give my back a break but my hips the work. And its always bands on the squat. At least 60 pounds at the top. Sometimes up to 200-240.

67

I was trying find the middle ground by emphasizing the dead lift because it seems to be the lift that is most in sync with my whole MU spiel and seems to be the one type of speed work that is used by most raw lifters. It is the one lift that raw lifters may miss at the top, therefore lending itself to accommodating resistance.

My instincts and science background along with many years of empirical evidence leads me to believe that it has an important role in the ENTIRE programming picture. Sometimes everyone gets caught up in labeling something, when we should just say we want to lift shit fast at a variety of weights.

I personally am not genetically gifted enough to endure any sort of volume in max effort movements, but I can do a lot of volume with dynamic and repetition method… I ran a 4:24 mile just after I turned 18, but have NEVER benched 315. My squat has been pretty good, but I credit that to great form, a big ass and smart programming … so for a genetically average guy I have no doubt it has it’s place…

For a guy like Stan Efferding – maybe not so much. You have to try to increase whatever variable you can… when you reach you maximum absolute strength and you still have average ROFD what do you add to your program to continue to improve?

68

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
If you really think being quick, which is the by product of speed work is part of the equation please explain to me why powerlifters peak in their mid 30s-early 40s when it is common knowledge that they’re not at their fastest. Just look how olympic lifters, football players, and even track runners are all out of their prime by 30 because speed deteriorates with age. How fast or quick you are has minimal impact on how strong you are.[/quote]

They may have slower absolute speed, but that is not what we are talking about.I can still blow past 20 year olds with a crossover dribble at 48, but i can’t reach any sort of top speed on a fast break. I can move 80% of my max faster than I could at 30. The combination of strength and speed is what is important…Shot putters need more speed than strength with a lighter implement. The more weight is being lifted the more strength is the limiting factor, but you still must have speed in the equation. You don’t need Usain Bolt speed, but you can’t be a marathon runner either…If you are already super explosive then you don’t have to focus on it, but you can’t totally ignore it forever or you will lose it…trust me.[/quote]

What we are talking about is rate of force development. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky which is a well respected book and even recommended by Louie himself talks about how if an athletes max squat improved and his jump did not then rate of force development was the limiting factor, not maximal muscular strength.

No where does it say in the whole book that if your rate of force of development improves your 1RM or maximal muscular strength will improve. My first post was a picture of what Zatsiorsky suggest for maximal strength and it also doesn’t include speed work. Your cross over and self perceived speed on 80% are bad examples of why you think speed work works. I suggest you take a break from your mind and look into science books on the study of strength training and come back with a legit argument for the good of this forum. [/quote]

The Russians also found that after training at 90% they had to train at a lighter percentage at least once to re-set their nervous system or they could not make continual progress at 90%+00. No amount of rest alone would reset the neuromuscular apparatus.

The reason that I feel that speed training could help for powerlifting is because we know that the highest force production occurs when one attempts to move somewhere between 42-68% of a max load as fast as possible. This is from Russian research. Of course you know its the speed/force curve. The very highest forces occur during a reversal of 42-68% max mass. The greatest tendon deformation occurs with the greatest force, and the faster the force rises (the jerk) the quicker the tendon can be deformed before shutting down muscular contraction. The greater the tendon gets deformed, the more it thickens to prevent future deformation.
[/quote]

Piggybacking off of that, people don’t seem to understand that Westside (most seem to be passively referring to westside when talking about speed work) works at relative training intensities over 85% on speed day. For example, a basic speed strength wave could be something like 55, 60, 65% on squats. Well, add to that the suggested 20-30% in band tension and also the suggested 20% of DE volume being over the suggested percentage wave, the majority of DE work is in an extremely high intensity zone.

So, with an actual fundamental understanding of the wave loading and how to progress through the different blocks (Westside uses an old Bulgarian block periodization system to progress to a meet) there is very rarely a time that speed work is being done with under 85%. [/quote]

Good Post. Louie says to START at 60% for raw lifters, but says 70% is maybe even better for the beginner (of course he’s changed this back and forth over the years… My favorite way of doing speed work for the squats was the same as Chuck V evolved to for a while at Westside … Do your usual speed work as the warm up into a max effort band Squat and then substitute the dynamic day for accessories/repition method et…
[/quote]

Does Louie suggest that beginners use accommodating resistance?

I’m trying a 10 week cycle where I don’t use any for my ‘DE day’. I’m waving 70-80 percent following prilepin’s table sans box and accommodating resistance. I figured more weight might be necessary since I’m not using that stuff and since I’m going for raw maxes, I might need more weight to develop the bottom of the lifts since I never miss lifts at the top. [/quote]

Yes he does. I know for squat he recommends the bar 50-60 percent with 25% accommodating resistance on the top. The most important thing is that the bar speed is between .7-.9 meters per second. You would need a tendo unit to measure that but that’s what he recommends. But when I talk about following blindly, you’re exactly what the type of person i’m talking about.

You would know the answer to that question within 5 minutes of research. On Westside’s website there’s articles Louie wrote from 2000-2012. If you go on his personal page you can see his most recent articles. There’s so much more to speed work than that basic percent range. [/quote]

I’m actually not following the Westside DE day thing by their standards much at all. I did the the 50-60 percent with accommodating resistance thing for quite a while and now I’m just following Prilipen’s table without bands or chains to try something different and see if I got anything out of it.

I was just asking because I remember Dave Tate saying something about beginners using higher percentages. The reason higher level lifters need lower percentages was largely recovery.

How is doing it differently from Louie’s programming following him blindly? I’m really not sure if you read my whole post.

69

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
If you really think being quick, which is the by product of speed work is part of the equation please explain to me why powerlifters peak in their mid 30s-early 40s when it is common knowledge that they’re not at their fastest. Just look how olympic lifters, football players, and even track runners are all out of their prime by 30 because speed deteriorates with age. How fast or quick you are has minimal impact on how strong you are.[/quote]

They may have slower absolute speed, but that is not what we are talking about.I can still blow past 20 year olds with a crossover dribble at 48, but i can’t reach any sort of top speed on a fast break. I can move 80% of my max faster than I could at 30. The combination of strength and speed is what is important…Shot putters need more speed than strength with a lighter implement. The more weight is being lifted the more strength is the limiting factor, but you still must have speed in the equation. You don’t need Usain Bolt speed, but you can’t be a marathon runner either…If you are already super explosive then you don’t have to focus on it, but you can’t totally ignore it forever or you will lose it…trust me.[/quote]

What we are talking about is rate of force development. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky which is a well respected book and even recommended by Louie himself talks about how if an athletes max squat improved and his jump did not then rate of force development was the limiting factor, not maximal muscular strength.

No where does it say in the whole book that if your rate of force of development improves your 1RM or maximal muscular strength will improve. My first post was a picture of what Zatsiorsky suggest for maximal strength and it also doesn’t include speed work. Your cross over and self perceived speed on 80% are bad examples of why you think speed work works. I suggest you take a break from your mind and look into science books on the study of strength training and come back with a legit argument for the good of this forum. [/quote]

The Russians also found that after training at 90% they had to train at a lighter percentage at least once to re-set their nervous system or they could not make continual progress at 90%+00. No amount of rest alone would reset the neuromuscular apparatus.

The reason that I feel that speed training could help for powerlifting is because we know that the highest force production occurs when one attempts to move somewhere between 42-68% of a max load as fast as possible. This is from Russian research. Of course you know its the speed/force curve. The very highest forces occur during a reversal of 42-68% max mass. The greatest tendon deformation occurs with the greatest force, and the faster the force rises (the jerk) the quicker the tendon can be deformed before shutting down muscular contraction. The greater the tendon gets deformed, the more it thickens to prevent future deformation.
[/quote]

Piggybacking off of that, people don’t seem to understand that Westside (most seem to be passively referring to westside when talking about speed work) works at relative training intensities over 85% on speed day. For example, a basic speed strength wave could be something like 55, 60, 65% on squats. Well, add to that the suggested 20-30% in band tension and also the suggested 20% of DE volume being over the suggested percentage wave, the majority of DE work is in an extremely high intensity zone.

So, with an actual fundamental understanding of the wave loading and how to progress through the different blocks (Westside uses an old Bulgarian block periodization system to progress to a meet) there is very rarely a time that speed work is being done with under 85%. [/quote]

Good Post. Louie says to START at 60% for raw lifters, but says 70% is maybe even better for the beginner (of course he’s changed this back and forth over the years… My favorite way of doing speed work for the squats was the same as Chuck V evolved to for a while at Westside … Do your usual speed work as the warm up into a max effort band Squat and then substitute the dynamic day for accessories/repition method et…
[/quote]

Does Louie suggest that beginners use accommodating resistance?

I’m trying a 10 week cycle where I don’t use any for my ‘DE day’. I’m waving 70-80 percent following prilepin’s table sans box and accommodating resistance. I figured more weight might be necessary since I’m not using that stuff and since I’m going for raw maxes, I might need more weight to develop the bottom of the lifts since I never miss lifts at the top. [/quote]

Yes he does. I know for squat he recommends the bar 50-60 percent with 25% accommodating resistance on the top. The most important thing is that the bar speed is between .7-.9 meters per second. You would need a tendo unit to measure that but that’s what he recommends. But when I talk about following blindly, you’re exactly what the type of person i’m talking about.

You would know the answer to that question within 5 minutes of research. On Westside’s website there’s articles Louie wrote from 2000-2012. If you go on his personal page you can see his most recent articles. There’s so much more to speed work than that basic percent range. [/quote]

I’m actually not following the Westside DE day thing by their standards much at all. I did the the 50-60 percent with accommodating resistance thing for quite a while and now I’m just following Prilipen’s table without bands or chains to try something different and see if I got anything out of it.

I was just asking because I remember Dave Tate saying something about beginners using higher percentages. The reason higher level lifters need lower percentages was largely recovery.

How is doing it differently from Louie’s programming following him blindly? I’m really not sure if you read my whole post. [/quote]

Oh ok. I figured since you said you’re doing 10 weeks without accommodating resistance that you don’t know much. Louie says how your body adapts to that type of training stimulus quickly which is why every three weeks they roll back and add or subtract some type of accommodating resistance. Changing the exercise should help avoid that stagnation if you’re not going to accommodate resistance.

70

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:

[quote]bilski wrote:

[quote]Mahoney wrote:
If you really think being quick, which is the by product of speed work is part of the equation please explain to me why powerlifters peak in their mid 30s-early 40s when it is common knowledge that they’re not at their fastest. Just look how olympic lifters, football players, and even track runners are all out of their prime by 30 because speed deteriorates with age. How fast or quick you are has minimal impact on how strong you are.[/quote]

They may have slower absolute speed, but that is not what we are talking about.I can still blow past 20 year olds with a crossover dribble at 48, but i can’t reach any sort of top speed on a fast break. I can move 80% of my max faster than I could at 30. The combination of strength and speed is what is important…Shot putters need more speed than strength with a lighter implement. The more weight is being lifted the more strength is the limiting factor, but you still must have speed in the equation. You don’t need Usain Bolt speed, but you can’t be a marathon runner either…If you are already super explosive then you don’t have to focus on it, but you can’t totally ignore it forever or you will lose it…trust me.[/quote]

What we are talking about is rate of force development. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky which is a well respected book and even recommended by Louie himself talks about how if an athletes max squat improved and his jump did not then rate of force development was the limiting factor, not maximal muscular strength.

No where does it say in the whole book that if your rate of force of development improves your 1RM or maximal muscular strength will improve. My first post was a picture of what Zatsiorsky suggest for maximal strength and it also doesn’t include speed work. Your cross over and self perceived speed on 80% are bad examples of why you think speed work works. I suggest you take a break from your mind and look into science books on the study of strength training and come back with a legit argument for the good of this forum. [/quote]

The Russians also found that after training at 90% they had to train at a lighter percentage at least once to re-set their nervous system or they could not make continual progress at 90%+00. No amount of rest alone would reset the neuromuscular apparatus.

The reason that I feel that speed training could help for powerlifting is because we know that the highest force production occurs when one attempts to move somewhere between 42-68% of a max load as fast as possible. This is from Russian research. Of course you know its the speed/force curve. The very highest forces occur during a reversal of 42-68% max mass. The greatest tendon deformation occurs with the greatest force, and the faster the force rises (the jerk) the quicker the tendon can be deformed before shutting down muscular contraction. The greater the tendon gets deformed, the more it thickens to prevent future deformation.
[/quote]

Piggybacking off of that, people don’t seem to understand that Westside (most seem to be passively referring to westside when talking about speed work) works at relative training intensities over 85% on speed day. For example, a basic speed strength wave could be something like 55, 60, 65% on squats. Well, add to that the suggested 20-30% in band tension and also the suggested 20% of DE volume being over the suggested percentage wave, the majority of DE work is in an extremely high intensity zone.

So, with an actual fundamental understanding of the wave loading and how to progress through the different blocks (Westside uses an old Bulgarian block periodization system to progress to a meet) there is very rarely a time that speed work is being done with under 85%. [/quote]

Good Post. Louie says to START at 60% for raw lifters, but says 70% is maybe even better for the beginner (of course he’s changed this back and forth over the years… My favorite way of doing speed work for the squats was the same as Chuck V evolved to for a while at Westside … Do your usual speed work as the warm up into a max effort band Squat and then substitute the dynamic day for accessories/repition method et…
[/quote]

Does Louie suggest that beginners use accommodating resistance?

I’m trying a 10 week cycle where I don’t use any for my ‘DE day’. I’m waving 70-80 percent following prilepin’s table sans box and accommodating resistance. I figured more weight might be necessary since I’m not using that stuff and since I’m going for raw maxes, I might need more weight to develop the bottom of the lifts since I never miss lifts at the top. [/quote]

Yes he does. I know for squat he recommends the bar 50-60 percent with 25% accommodating resistance on the top. The most important thing is that the bar speed is between .7-.9 meters per second. You would need a tendo unit to measure that but that’s what he recommends. But when I talk about following blindly, you’re exactly what the type of person i’m talking about.

You would know the answer to that question within 5 minutes of research. On Westside’s website there’s articles Louie wrote from 2000-2012. If you go on his personal page you can see his most recent articles. There’s so much more to speed work than that basic percent range. [/quote]

I’m actually not following the Westside DE day thing by their standards much at all. I did the the 50-60 percent with accommodating resistance thing for quite a while and now I’m just following Prilipen’s table without bands or chains to try something different and see if I got anything out of it.

I was just asking because I remember Dave Tate saying something about beginners using higher percentages. The reason higher level lifters need lower percentages was largely recovery.

How is doing it differently from Louie’s programming following him blindly? I’m really not sure if you read my whole post. [/quote]

Oh ok. I figured since you said you’re doing 10 weeks without accommodating resistance that you don’t know much. Louie says how your body adapts to that type of training stimulus quickly which is why every three weeks they roll back and add or subtract some type of accommodating resistance. Changing the exercise should help avoid that stagnation if you’re not going to accommodate resistance.[/quote]
I see nothing wrong with what fletch is doing. After I swapped out my DE work for a 5x5 my bench exploded. waving the percentages and following prilepins chart should be more than enough to keep lifts moving.

71

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I really don’t have the time to sort though your arguments and agree/disagree/disprove your points. So I’ll just use a good counter example. As many of you know Mike Tuchscherer is one of the most technical, smartest, respected people in the powerlifting community. Someone with all his credentials with both lifting and coaching’s opinion means a lot more than anyone writing in this forum and a lot of people in the Powerlifting community. He does not believe speed work works for the reasons you’ll read in the article. I attached his follow up too that he posted after such a crazy response.

http://www.jtstrong.com/articles/2013/03/28/speed-work-not-this-again/[/quote]

Interesting read.

He seems to be saying in large part that speed work is too easy. To me, 60% plus band tension for 12 sets of squats on like 30 seconds rest goes higher than a 7 RPE by the end. Like lying in a puddle of sweat trying not to vomit hard.

Westside style DE work ainâ??t as easy as he seems to think. Sounds like heâ??s talking about only doing 1 set, but thatâ??s like taking an RPE of a 10 rep set by only gauging the first 2 reps.

72

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?

73

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

Force on the bar is not constant.

74

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

Force on the bar is not constant.[/quote]

I didn’t say it was. Assuming that you are sampling bar position at greater than twice the frequency of the highest frequency change in force that you care about, you can still calculate the force on the bar just based on the changing position of the bar and the known mass of the bar.

Yes, you do have to use basic calculus to determine the force if it is changing. However, basic calculus is over 300 years old and taught in most high schools. Also, it was invented because without it basic physics can’t really be applied to anything.

75

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

Force on the bar is not constant.[/quote]

I didn’t say it was. Assuming that you are sampling bar position at greater than twice the frequency of the highest frequency change in force that you care about, you can still calculate the force on the bar just based on the changing position of the bar and the known mass of the bar.

Yes, you do have to use basic calculus to determine the force if it is changing. However, basic calculus is over 300 years old and taught in most high schools. Also, it was invented because without it basic physics can’t really be applied to anything. [/quote]

okay, yeah with some higher rate sampling, you should get pretty close.

The only real inaccuracy I see would be the elasticity of the system. Not sure how large an error that would cause though.

76

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

You don’t know the acceleration of the bar just from knowing the distance, mass, and time of the lift.

  1. The average acceleration on any bar going from rest to rest, either from top to top, or reversal to top is zero because the bar accelerates and decelerates. Let’s say that someone benches 365 and so 60% of their max is 220 or 100 kilograms. Let’s ignore the lowering and just look at accelerating the weight from zero off the chest (this is actually not accurate because the greatest acceleration probably occurs during the “stopping” in a DE bench press.

Let’s say that using a fairly close grip your bench stroke is .2 meters (just under 8 inches).

And let’s say that positive component of the lift is completed in 0.5 seconds which I have seen demonstrated in video easily. (for starters you can try to calculate the “force” for me here if you think there is enough info).

The force on the bar will be the force of gravity plus the mass times acceleration of the bar.

The force of gravity is 100kg*g
Acceleration is V squared final minuse V squared initial divided by 2 x. Well the V final and the V initial are both zero because the bar is at zero on the chest and zero at lockout.

It does take .5 seconds to raise .2 meters so its average velocity is 0.4 meters per second.

But it might be accelerated to 1 meter per second in the first .1 meters and decelerated in the second half. There may even be negative net force in the second half if the bar is flying up.

So perhaps the bar goes from zero to .8 meters per second in the first half of the time and from .8 to zero in the second half of the time.

That would mean that in the first half of the ROM the bar accelerates by 3.2 m/s per second.

Using that, then we would get an average force equal to “grinding” about 80% of 365 pounds. I suspect that this is the kind of “calculation” he did. However analyses have shown that at 60% the bar is typically only accelerated for about 30% of the positive ROM. Now we have about 93% of 365 grinding force for .3 of the ROM. It is likely to be even higher for portions of that .3 of the ROM. What if force rises for .2 of the ROM and the bar is so fast that a negative force has to be applied at the end?

  1. With bands by the way things get more complex. Bands provide “pounds” of force, or newtons, but they do not increase the mass, and its the mass that needs to be accelerated.

There is more force across the calf muscles jumping rope with bodyweight than doing slow calf raises with 300% added bodyweight. The force just doesn’t last as long. And force goes from zero to peak faster (greater jerk) which means that the tendons don’t have time to shut down maximal force. People pull muscles by sprinting and jumping with bodyweight a lot more than moving slowly with 200-300% of bodyweight. Its because there is a higher peak force.

One more thing. Benching with a shirt, the weight rises fast due to the shirt. Force production is reflexively shut down at a certain speed, and speed training can extend the speed at which you can continue to push harder, even if for mere millimeters. When a bar is moving, this is why most people settle into a “cruising speed”. So speed work, especially when a shirt can provide speed at points can raise your cruising speed a little which can have a huge difference on the weight.

77

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

Force on the bar is not constant.[/quote]

I didn’t say it was. Assuming that you are sampling bar position at greater than twice the frequency of the highest frequency change in force that you care about, you can still calculate the force on the bar just based on the changing position of the bar and the known mass of the bar.

Yes, you do have to use basic calculus to determine the force if it is changing. However, basic calculus is over 300 years old and taught in most high schools. Also, it was invented because without it basic physics can’t really be applied to anything. [/quote]

Do it with my example above. You have to assume that change in force is constant. You can have many different force curves that get a mass from chest to lockout in a constant time period. There is one where the change in force is constant, but that assumption is not warranted.

OK. 100 kilograms. .2 meters. .5 seconds. What is the peak force?

78

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

You don’t know the acceleration of the bar just from knowing the distance, mass, and time of the lift.

  1. The average acceleration on any bar going from rest to rest, either from top to top, or reversal to top is zero because the bar accelerates and decelerates. Let’s say that someone benches 365 and so 60% of their max is 220 or 100 kilograms. Let’s ignore the lowering and just look at accelerating the weight from zero off the chest (this is actually not accurate because the greatest acceleration probably occurs during the “stopping” in a DE bench press.

Let’s say that using a fairly close grip your bench stroke is .2 meters (just under 8 inches).

And let’s say that positive component of the lift is completed in 0.5 seconds which I have seen demonstrated in video easily. (for starters you can try to calculate the “force” for me here if you think there is enough info).

The force on the bar will be the force of gravity plus the mass times acceleration of the bar.

The force of gravity is 100kg*g
Acceleration is V squared final minuse V squared initial divided by 2 x. Well the V final and the V initial are both zero because the bar is at zero on the chest and zero at lockout.

It does take .5 seconds to raise .2 meters so its average velocity is 0.4 meters per second.

But it might be accelerated to 1 meter per second in the first .1 meters and decelerated in the second half. There may even be negative net force in the second half if the bar is flying up.

So perhaps the bar goes from zero to .8 meters per second in the first half of the time and from .8 to zero in the second half of the time.

That would mean that in the first half of the ROM the bar accelerates by 3.2 m/s per second.

Using that, then we would get an average force equal to “grinding” about 80% of 365 pounds. I suspect that this is the kind of “calculation” he did. However analyses have shown that at 60% the bar is typically only accelerated for about 30% of the positive ROM. Now we have about 93% of 365 grinding force for .3 of the ROM. It is likely to be even higher for portions of that .3 of the ROM.

  1. With bands by the way things get more complex. Bands provide “pounds” of force, or newtons, but they do not increase the mass, and its the mass that needs to be accelerated.

There is more force across the calf muscles jumping rope with bodyweight than doing slow calf raises with 300% added bodyweight. The force just doesn’t last as long. And force goes from zero to peak faster (greater jerk) which means that the tendons don’t have time to shut down maximal force. People pull muscles by sprinting and jumping with bodyweight a lot more than moving slowly with 200-300% of bodyweight. Its because there is a higher peak force.

One more thing. Benching with a shirt, the weight rises fast due to the shirt. Force production is reflexively shut down at a certain speed, and speed training can extend the speed at which you can continue to push harder, even if for mere millimeters. When a bar is moving, this is why most people settle into a “cruising speed”. So speed work, especially when a shirt can provide speed at points can raise your cruising speed a little which can have a huge difference on the weight.

[/quote]
If you read what Mike Tuchscherer said he did, he used motion analysis software on videos of the three lifts. I suppose that could mean he just looked at the range of motion and the time for the lift to be completed and calculated the average force. However, he goes on to say that he used peak force and not average force (he says this specifically). The only way this would make sense was if he went through frame by frame and tracked the bar position over time and then took the delta of the delta of this data set. This would give you acceleration as a function of time, which is proportional to the force as a function of time. At that point the only error would be if his sampling rate was below the Nyquist frequency. If the video was of decent quality, it probably wasn’t.

You’re right that bands complicate this whole situation considerably, in somewhat interesting ways. Moreover, as I said, you may be maxing out the force on various structures in your body even if you aren’t maxing out the force on the bar. I just felt that you had unfairly called out Tuchscherer by assuming that he made an error in his calculations when if you read what he said that’s isn’t the most reasonable assumption. You’re right that the force on the bar is not a simple thing to calculate, but Tuchscherer’s explanation of his data shows that he is aware of that. And even if he isn’t, it is still possible to calculate.

79

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

Force on the bar is not constant.[/quote]

I didn’t say it was. Assuming that you are sampling bar position at greater than twice the frequency of the highest frequency change in force that you care about, you can still calculate the force on the bar just based on the changing position of the bar and the known mass of the bar.

Yes, you do have to use basic calculus to determine the force if it is changing. However, basic calculus is over 300 years old and taught in most high schools. Also, it was invented because without it basic physics can’t really be applied to anything. [/quote]

Do it with my example above. You have to assume that change in force is constant. You can have many different force curves that get a mass from chest to lockout in a constant time period. There is one where the change in force is constant, but that assumption is not warranted.

OK. 100 kilograms. .2 meters. .5 seconds. What is the peak force? [/quote]

All physical measurements have some sampling rate and margin for error. Even direct force measurement.

80

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:

[quote]Silyak wrote:

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
The mere fact that he mentions his “calculations” shows me that he doesn’t know how to apply the physics because you can’t calculate force production from the bar and the time and distance. You have to use a force plate.
[/quote]
Why? If you know the acceleration of the bar and the mass of the bar, basic physics tells you what the net force on the bar is. If you have a good approximation of the force of gravity and assume all other forces on the bar are negligible, you can get a very good calculation for the force that is being exerted on the bar by the lifter.

Now, of course it’s not clear that the force exerted on the bar is really the important thing to track during training. In particular, you can’t easily determine what types of tension, compression, and force are experienced at different places in the joints. Also, the peak force may spike much higher at certain points in the lift for a period that is too short to determine the acceleration of the bar based on its changing position. But the force on the bar for any significant period of time is quite easy to calculate. And Mike has a point that in a competition it is the force that is exerted on the bar and the ability to maintain that force until the lift is complete that determines how much you can lift.

So what are you really trying to say?[/quote]

You don’t know the acceleration of the bar just from knowing the distance, mass, and time of the lift.

  1. The average acceleration on any bar going from rest to rest, either from top to top, or reversal to top is zero because the bar accelerates and decelerates. Let’s say that someone benches 365 and so 60% of their max is 220 or 100 kilograms. Let’s ignore the lowering and just look at accelerating the weight from zero off the chest (this is actually not accurate because the greatest acceleration probably occurs during the “stopping” in a DE bench press.

Let’s say that using a fairly close grip your bench stroke is .2 meters (just under 8 inches).

And let’s say that positive component of the lift is completed in 0.5 seconds which I have seen demonstrated in video easily. (for starters you can try to calculate the “force” for me here if you think there is enough info).

The force on the bar will be the force of gravity plus the mass times acceleration of the bar.

The force of gravity is 100kg*g
Acceleration is V squared final minuse V squared initial divided by 2 x. Well the V final and the V initial are both zero because the bar is at zero on the chest and zero at lockout.

It does take .5 seconds to raise .2 meters so its average velocity is 0.4 meters per second.

But it might be accelerated to 1 meter per second in the first .1 meters and decelerated in the second half. There may even be negative net force in the second half if the bar is flying up.

So perhaps the bar goes from zero to .8 meters per second in the first half of the time and from .8 to zero in the second half of the time.

That would mean that in the first half of the ROM the bar accelerates by 3.2 m/s per second.

Using that, then we would get an average force equal to “grinding” about 80% of 365 pounds. I suspect that this is the kind of “calculation” he did. However analyses have shown that at 60% the bar is typically only accelerated for about 30% of the positive ROM. Now we have about 93% of 365 grinding force for .3 of the ROM. It is likely to be even higher for portions of that .3 of the ROM.

  1. With bands by the way things get more complex. Bands provide “pounds” of force, or newtons, but they do not increase the mass, and its the mass that needs to be accelerated.

There is more force across the calf muscles jumping rope with bodyweight than doing slow calf raises with 300% added bodyweight. The force just doesn’t last as long. And force goes from zero to peak faster (greater jerk) which means that the tendons don’t have time to shut down maximal force. People pull muscles by sprinting and jumping with bodyweight a lot more than moving slowly with 200-300% of bodyweight. Its because there is a higher peak force.

One more thing. Benching with a shirt, the weight rises fast due to the shirt. Force production is reflexively shut down at a certain speed, and speed training can extend the speed at which you can continue to push harder, even if for mere millimeters. When a bar is moving, this is why most people settle into a “cruising speed”. So speed work, especially when a shirt can provide speed at points can raise your cruising speed a little which can have a huge difference on the weight.

[/quote]
If you read what Mike Tuchscherer said he did, he used motion analysis software on videos of the three lifts. I suppose that could mean he just looked at the range of motion and the time for the lift to be completed and calculated the average force. However, he goes on to say that he used peak force and not average force (he says this specifically). The only way this would make sense was if he went through frame by frame and tracked the bar position over time and then took the delta of the delta of this data set. This would give you acceleration as a function of time, which is proportional to the force as a function of time. At that point the only error would be if his sampling rate was below the Nyquist frequency. If the video was of decent quality, it probably wasn’t.

You’re right that bands complicate this whole situation considerably, in somewhat interesting ways. Moreover, as I said, you may be maxing out the force on various structures in your body even if you aren’t maxing out the force on the bar. I just felt that you had unfairly called out Tuchscherer by assuming that he made an error in his calculations when if you read what he said that’s isn’t the most reasonable assumption. You’re right that the force on the bar is not a simple thing to calculate, but Tuchscherer’s explanation of his data shows that he is aware of that. And even if he isn’t, it is still possible to calculate. [/quote]

OK yes, frame by frame can give you a curve and tangent slopes will give you forces. Do we have any of his graphs? Also his quoting the axiom that it takes time to develop force is misapplied, though he may have seen that it takes time time reach peak force from his graphs. The whole concept of plyometrics is that one can exceed normal voluntary force production with plyometric activation.