Tendo Speed Targets
by Bert Sorin on 12/12/2003 12:20:56 PM.
As you may know, the Tendo unit has become wildly popular in the speed and strength world lately. For those of you who don’t know, the Tendo is a computerized unit that attaches to the barbell, dumbbell, weight stack or athlete to measure speed. When the mass of the object is entered into the microcomputer, wattage is displayed in relation to the speed (shown in meters per second) of the lift attempt. Reps are counted and shown as a percentage of the maximum effort of that set. Target percentages can be set for the athletes to strive for, assuring maximum speed and quality of movement. In my training I have come up with some rough parameters to moniter my SPEED work. I generally try to achieve 1 m/s in the back squat, 1.5 m/s in the hang clean, 1.3 m/s in the power clean, and 2 m/s in the snatch. Now, I try to achieve these values the majority of the reps in a set (i.e. 3 out of 4 reps). When I can knock out a few sets in this fashion, I go up in weight. I have found that this system always keeps my focus on the quality of the movement and bar speed, not the weight used. This has not only transfered to better power production on the athletes field, but higher 1 Rep Max PR’s in the weight room. For example, The heaviest squat I did in a workout (for 6 months) was 435lb.x3, but a week later I smoked 608lb.x2 (which was a 23lb. pr, after a year of not squatting over 500lb. in training). Also, I did a training cycle to test the theory with cleans. I cleaned 6x4 every 5 days for 6 weeks, starting at 90k and only increasing the weight when I could go 1.5 m/s or faster. At the end of the cycle I had worked up to 115k at 1.7 m/s. The next week (with no other heavy pulling movments during that 6 weeks) I nailed a 160k clean. The next week I cleaned a wattage PR at 140k. The Tendo has been a huge window into the mystery of strength training for me. Best of Luck. Live Strong, Bert