Speed

I was thinking about the whole speed work thing and I got worried about it. I figure you would probably mention to me before you tried anything but just in case:

I don't want you to overgeneralize what I said about speed-strength versus power, versus strength-speed and the training at the higher percentages of 1rm. While it is all true think SAFETY first. It's one thing to hit some bench work at 65 or 70% for speed. I just don't want you to suddenly decide one day to try that with some deadlifts or jump squats or something . It would of course be better to start with the lighter loads on stuff like that and then increase it after you see how it goes. So just making sure because sometimes you get a wild hair up you butt

BRW, I noticed you did 55% bench work. Something I do (and this is done by westside also) is to move up and down through the loads ("waved" lol). So like 55% to 60% to 65% to 70%. Most like to only go to 70 and then back down to 50 and start over (if they want to). I like to go all the way to 80. This is something you could try also for your bench.

Again, though, I think at this point you will find more benefit with work in the strength-speed area. I.E. it would be better to tend towards increasing maximum strength rather than trying to maximize "power".

So that this makes sense to you I will use your F=MA thingy to help explain it. That's not a perfect physical description for barbell lifting but it's the closest thing we've got. We'll ignore distance since it will never change.

To explain what power means as opposed to speed-strength or strength-speed look at the equation.

So Force=Mass x Acceleration.

We think of mass simply as the actual amount of pounds we exerting against the bar. For acceleration we'll look at that in very simple terms to, while it is not really that simple in fact because you have peak acceleration versus "starting strength or acceleration" (aka EXPLOSION). All of that makes for complicated reasons to train speed in different ways. But most people when they do speed training they are looking to increase starting strength which is about recruiting many fast twitch fibers as quickly as possible PLUS elastic or plyometric energy.

But let's ignore all that and try to just keep it simple.

If you look at the equation F=MA you can define POWER as the place where mass and acceleration are contributing equal amounts.

So like if Force is 16 then mass and acceleration are both 4

SO that is the realm that most people are going for. The percentage of load that allows them to get just about the same contribution from MASS (strength) and ACCELERATION (speed).

If there is more contribution from speed than mass then you are getting in the speed-strength area. Think loads like 25% rather than the 40 to 50% that most people talk about. So maybe say if force is 16 than speed is 8 and mass is 2 (you get the point, it's exagerated).

Ok, so strength-speed is when MASS gives more of a contribution than speed.

Now think about specificity. What does specificity tell us? Working on POWER, while it will give us some improvement in are absolute ability, will really only give us the most most improvement in POWER. I mean power in the sense that we are using here. There are of course other ways to use it.

If you look at it that way you see why I say we should look at the whole continuum.

When coaches and scientists use studies to determine the best percentages to develop power they are not looking at whether it improves 1RM! Most people don't seem to realize that. They are using a pre-measured 1RM to see which percentages allow the best POWER for the althletes (which is measured and collected in various ways and not always the same so....)

You see the difference there?

That is not to say that working in the power range doesn't help improve many people's max strength. Of course people have great success with that. Especially those that are slow grinders.

But it is one thing to try it and no that it works for you. It is another when authors say "use 40 to 50% for speed" based on studies that don't even have much to do with absolute strength. So in other words you have to try stuff through the whole continuum.

OK, that's about it. The only other thing is that INTENTION is everything. Even a 90% load if done with the very focused INTENTION of doing it super fast can make all the difference, even if it is not actually all that fast.