-: Alright, we're gonna talk about motor unit recruitment
for explosive or probably more accurately
named acceleration based strength.
So, our goal here is to increase the ability
to call upon more motor units within the motion,
so not upon initiation, but within the motion,
and to maintain that acceleration.
So, it's the ability to keep pushing hard
once that movement is already going.
So speed training is trying to be efficient
when we're moving at our maximum velocity, okay?
So getting more fibers to be able
to be incorporated when we're moving at maximal speed.
And getting more fast twitch fibers.
This is more about being able to continue fighting
resistance and trying to accelerate that resistance
throughout an entire range, so a lot of times
what people condition themselves to
is generate a little bit of momentum
and then take a break, so when we're looking
at acceleration based stuff, what we have
to do is we have to do is we basically train
the body to keep fighting, we have to maintain
that intensity of contraction throughout the range
with the goal of accelerating.
Where this kinda differentiates from maximal strength
is gonna be the loads that we're using
and the speed at which the reps are performed.
So this will still have to be a fairly fast contraction,
at least once the acceleration goes,
so the goal is to have something that you can accelerate,
you can generate momentum, where is when we're getting
with maximal strength, like, if this
is the rep that's fine, right?
So it's, or even maybe a little bit slower
than that is okay as long as there's
no sticking points, where as acceleration training,
we want to be able to like-
(exasperation sound)
like, kind of fight through it, right, almost, right.
Or, we wanna have the intensity increase throughout
so that we have more to fight,
so again this is gonna be another system
for neurological training, where accommodating resistance
is going to be very beneficial.
Alright, so more motor units throughout
the movement, alright, usually this
is gonna involve a point in the mid range
where the contraction increases
or the load increases, or something has to happen
where there's a point that we accelerate from, right
so this is not the following topic, which is gonna
be starting strength where we explode from the beginning,
this is gonna be done with either intent,
resistance, or combinations of both,
that involve somewhere in that middle of the rep
there is a point where we go-
(swooshing noise)
and push all the way through it.
So, you can do this, you can set up your bands
or your chains, or your full speed device,
to like bring weight up at a certain point.
You can set the resistance profile on like a prime cam
or the plate loaded torque arm, so that resistance
picks up in the mid range, and as soon as it does,
you accelerate into it, you can have you know,
just tempo be a factor where we can kinda go slow
and accelerate, lots of different ways
where we can create a point of acceleration,
and then really fight through that.
But what we're usually gonna need is,
we're gonna need to select exercises where
that resistance has to get harder
in either the mid or the shortened position,
so that as we accelerate, we have something
to fight against, so the exercises hardest in the bottom
and then we accelerate the mid range,
well the exercise has already gotten lower intensity
at that point, we're gonna be able to generate too much
momentum, it's going to end up being like, well
we did half a speed rep, and half a just light weight rep.
Alright, so this is where accounting resistance can
be extremely valuable again because
we can essentially set that up
so that the bands provide something
for us to fight into the entire time.
So, this isn't about matching the resistance profile,
this is about going excessive into the shortened bias,
so that the intensity is going up up up up up,
as we're trying to accelerate and push through that,
right it at least needs to be enough
to fight the momentum, and then depending
on whether this is more of a speed quality
or speed quality that I'm looking for in terms
of this acceleration based strength,
I will advise towards a little less weight
and a little more speed, or a little bit more weight,
a little less momentum generation, okay,
so depending on what I'm trying to get out of this.
If my goal is I want to potentiate the ability
to push through and keep, you know
contractions very intense for my hypertrophy training,
I'm going to go heavier, and kind of
a little less momentum, or versus if my goal
is to use this as a way for me to potentiate my
speed training, then I'm gonna go a little bit lighter,
and I'm basically gonna use that accommodating resistance
similar to the speed training it's just a little bit of
a deceleration, just, but, the rep will be
a little bit slower, cause I still need something
to fight, I never quite get to full speed
in this training, where in speed training
I need to get to full speed very fast within the rep.
Here, I should never quite get
to the full speed of my contraction.
So bands can be great here, what they can do
is they can take, like if you want to apply this
to training, there's just so many machines
that aren't gonna work, because they're not hard
in the short position, or they're like,
so even if they are hard in the short position,
if we're doing these at a faster speed,
they generate momentum, so if you look at like
all the hammer strength equipment, it tends
to all be a little overloaded in
the short position but because that weight
moves through so much space, once you generate
some momentum, the resistance profile no longer matters,
the weights are just kinda swinging around at that point
in time because the momentum trumps the resistance profile
of the machine that is low movement.
So you still would need bands or something like that
to do that right, and in this case, you know
because the goal is acceleration,
regardless of the muscle mechanics,
we need something that forces us
to kind of fight throughout that entire range
of motion, okay, between the load
and the resistance profile, we should never
achieve maximal velocity, but the goal should be
that you're trying to, right?
So momentum will be decreased compared
to the, you know, the speed work, right?
The amount of resistance to overcome the mid
versus like, say like, if we were focusing
like on, what we'll talk about is like decelerating
resistance the centric and stuff like that,
will depend on the mechanics of the exercise,
so if we're looking at speed, we're gonna pick a resistance
that, like I said, we can generate a bit more momentum,
if we're looking at more of a hypertrophy potentiation
we're going to pick some heavier stuff,
so it really depends on how that goal works,
and then you really also need to look at the mechanics
of the exercise, on whether or not this is an exercise
where I'm going to kind of overlap into some
of that hypertrophy stimulus, so if I'm looking
at something, like alright, well this Is an exercise
that's fairly heavy at the bottom, and I'm gonna band
it at the top, well now I'm kind of, I have more of
a resistance curve filled up, where if this is
an exercise that's gonna be fairly light at the bottom,
and I'm gonna band it at the top, it becomes
a little bit more speed based, so the more complete
the resistance profile, the more I'm getting into
the like heavier type work that's going to potentiate
hypertrophy training more, the more this is gonna be like,
well it's not very overloaded in the length,
and it's more mid to short, and I'm gonna go
a little bit faster, the more that's going
to potentiate toward speed adaptations.
When we look at tempo, alright the concentric
will consist of that X occurring somewhere in the middle
of the motion, okay, there are like, if you design
an exercise so that it's very hard in the short,
you could potentially explode right from the beginning,
and then just have an, like a huge amount
of accommodating resistance that you're fighting,
that still fights in this context, right,
so instead of like having that slow and then accelerate
like I talked about in the late curl and the speed video,
here if you're looking at this, unless you have
a tremendous amount of increasing resistance throughout
the range, you're likely gonna wanna say, alright
I'm gonna try and accelerate at a certain point,
or sometimes what happens is you make that stop
at that point, so for instance, this is where things
like rack pulls and pin squats and things like that
where it's like alright, I wanna accelerate from
the mid range, you can also have a dead stop there
and you accelerate out of that, right,
you stop there and try to accelerate from that.
That would still kinda fit, that would be kind of a hybrid
between here and starting strength because technically
you are working at a starting point,
you know from a dead stop, but you are trying
to accelerate through that, so don't get too confused
about the nomenclature of these things,
like know what the goal you want to do is, and design it.
It doesn't really matter what the name is,
your muscles don't know, right, so it's like we're doing
a little bit more explosion at the beginning,
does that make it starting strength or acceleration
strength, like look at the net quality
and how that applies to what you want to achieve, right.
So the most important thing here is that you just try
to continue to accelerate through the entire rep range.
So, once it's time to go, you go, and you don't
let off the gas pedal in that contraction
until the end, and that's what's gonna
get you that acceleration based response.