If you are working out in the exact same format that you were five years ago, it is doubtful that you are making much progress in your speed and explosive power.
In order to make training gains, the following is necessary:
- Train specifically
- Do more specific training (effective up to a point)
- Train more intensely (also effective, up to a point)
- Improve the quality of your specific training
- Improve the quality of your non-specific training, aka, resistance training
- Improve the interaction and potentiation effects between non-specific training (weights) and specific training (jumping, sprinting, throwing, etc.)
This article is largely about that last point, maximizing the interaction between weights and explosive work.
Much of the above list, we realize intuitively, even if it’s not at the top of our head. I do think, however, that there are a few styles and themes of working out for better explosiveness that are out of mind for many an athlete, yet incredibly effective.
In order to refute explosive stagnation, and hop back on that “PR Train”, I have 5 tested ideals that will help you to squeeze some extra power out of that training sponge for higher jumps, faster sprints, and more powerful athletic movements. These ideals are as follows.
- Warm up properly and thoroughly (more important than you think)
- Reverse the exercise order
- French Contrast
- Potentiation Clusters
- Power Circuits
Buckle up, here we go.
Ideal #1: Warmup Properly (The art of the potentiation warmup)
Wonder what warming up, playing basketball, doing “complex training”, French contrast, and the like all have in common? They all work on the basis of PAP, or potentiation. The goal of a warmup, as far as speed and power training is concerned, is to usher an athlete into the realm where their highest power output is available to them. Funny enough, this doesn’t happen after 10 minutes of your average, dynamic stretching, sprint drills, and submaximal sprints/jumps.
Why you ask? Riddle me this: why have 100% of my online clients interested in jumping high enough to dunk a basketball told me that their best “hops” were always right after a several pickup games of basketball? Could this “random” assortment of accelerations, jumps, and cuts in random directions somehow be better than doing A and B skips, focusing hard on dor-see-flexshun? Um, in a nutshell…. hell yes.
Lets keep this quick and look at why basketball (or football, soccer, volleyball, etc.) is such a great warmup for power. There are really two main reasons. One is variability. Explosive movements, done in a format of heavy variety keep the jump and sprint pathways somewhat fresh (because there is no movement overuse), while ramping up CNS firing sensitivity to epic proportions. Team sport is a freaking montage of high variability alactic efforts that has serious potentiation ramifications. No, your exercise science degree, and the NSCA won’t teach you this.
Variability is king. I’ve have amazing success recently by using a variety of plyometrics with a significant skill demand, formatted in a dense package, to potentiate vertical jumps significantly better than just using jumps themselves as the main portion of the warmup. (we’ll talk more about this in point 5).
So what’s a good warmup for power? Easy, go play a sport for 20-30 minutes. Done. Easy. What if you don’t want to play a sport? Sure, we can do that. Try a descending sprint ladder. Although you won’t get the movement variability, you’ll get a great potentiation boost, as the longer sprints will potentiate each of the shorter sprints. A descending sprint ladder would look something like this:
Sprint 200m at 85%, walk 200m slowly. Sprint 150m at 90%, walk 150m slowly. Sprint 100m at 95%, walk 100m slowly. Sprint 50m fast. Do a few jumps and plyos, and prepare to dominate.
Bottom line, many athletes don’t do enough dense package work to make for a proper warmup. Don’t worry, doing work in the warmup that “makes you tired” can actually be OK for intense speed and power down the road.
Before we get to the next point, realize that you can and should utilize this type of warmup philosophy prior to any of the workouts in ideals 2-5.
Ideal #2: Reverse the order of exercises
Here is an old standby for athletes who are in a rut. I’ve heard this from a few coaches in my day, but the most prominent of which is track coaching legend Loren Seagrave. His advice: when you hit a plateau, reverse the order of your workout. Here is a typical workout order.
- Sprints
- Plyos
- Weights
Loren recommended switching this order for a unique training effect that helps overcome a plateau. This would mean you are now doing:
- Weights
- Plyos
- Sprints
Whoa there. You may be asking me, are you sure this is a good idea? This isn’t what so and so fancy textbook or coach told me about working out. I thought I was supposed to do the fastest work first, and the more grinding lifting last? Well sure, most of the time, this is probably a good idea, but by never switching the order, you’ll never gain the opportunity to harness the potentiation found in descending style training that starts with weights first, and speed last. This type of exercise sequence actually works on the same idea of doing the 200-150-100-50 sprint workout. The 200 sprint has a high neural breadth, and potentiates the shorter sprints. Strength training also has a larger neural breadth, and potentiates the plyos, which potentiates the speed work.
One of the best jump workouts I have ever done was the “BFS” (Bigger Faster Stronger) jump series. When I first saw this workout, I thought it was kind of backwards. Here is was: 3×3 deadlift, 3×3 clean, 3×3 snatch. Then I did the workout, and it freaking ruled! I was jumping out of the gym the next day. Why? Potentiation. Neural breadth. It stuck with me all the way to the next day. I don’t use that particular workout that often anymore, but much of what I do is based on it.
Ideal #3 French contrast
Cal Dietz is the man. If you don’t have his book on Triphasic Training, go do yourself a favor and buy it right now. I had heard of French Contrast before Cal’s book, but I never paid much attention. After reading Triphasic Training, I gave it a go when I was in a bit of a training lull. Before I get any further, what is French Contrast? It is the alternation of two ladders of a strength and speed exercise. It looks like this:
- Heavy strength exercise, often a partial movement.
- Force oriented plyometric, like a depth jump.
- Quick strength exercise, like a clean or power jerk.
- Quick plyometric, like assisted jumps, or quick hurdle hops.
In performing a couple different versions of this workout, at age 29, I took my standing vertical jump up from 29 to 34 in about 3 weeks. I gained 2” in the first day of the workout, just from the powerful effect that the French contrast series had on my jump. I actually increased my jump about an inch after each round of the series in an individual workout (I did 4-6 rounds each workout).
There are a ton of ways to create and implement French contrast style training. It all works on the same principle of high force à high speed, and then repeating that sequence multiple times over the course of a workout. Doing this type of training is a certain recipe for success in key points of the training year, and athletes love it.
A quick sample of an actual French Contrast workout (with sets and reps) would be:
- ¼ Squat hold for 5 seconds x 1 rep at 150% 1RM
- Depth jump x 3
- Speed half squats with bodyweight on barbell x 4
- Assisted jumps x 5
Take 20” between exercises, 4-5’ between reps, and repeat this circuit 4-6 times.
Ideal #4 Potentiation clusters
The workout construct known as “potentiation clusters” is also another Cal Dietz method I’ve come to know and love. My favorite versions of this exercise revolve all around speed. Check out Cal’s article on potentiation clusters for more information.
An example of a potentiation cluster would be as follows:
3x rounds of the following (for 12 efforts total)
Rest 20” between reps, and 3-4’ between sets.
Hex deadlift at 75% effort x 1 + 2x hurdle hop
Hex deadlift at 75% effort x 1 + 2x hurdle hop
Hex deadlift at 75% effort x 1 + 2x hurdle hop
Hex deadlift at 75% effort x 1 + 2x hurdle hop
This is yet again, an amazing method for building power. One of my favorite personal adaptations of this involves the Olympic lifts and bounding, two movements I’ve loved pairing together anyways over the years.
Here is an example of my own adaptation of the workout sequence:
1x round of the following. Rest about 90” between sets.
Power clean from the floor: 45% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 50% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 55% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 57% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 60% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 62% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 64% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 66% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 68% x 1 + 15m of “speed contact” bounding
Power clean from the floor: 70% x 1 + 15m of regular bounding
Power clean from the floor: 75% x 1 + 15m of regular bounding
Power clean from the floor: 80% x 1 + 15m of regular bounding
The emphasis of this particular power circuit is that the cleans are done for bar speed (so feel free to use your bar velocity unit of choice), and then the cleans are done for “speed contacts”. In this way, the core of the series is that of contact time and speed. The density of the training takes care of the potentiation effect, so it’s in the athlete and coaches best interest to keep things fast until the end.
At the end of the circuit, when you add weight to the cleans, the bar is simply flying, and the bounding feels insanely powerful. Give it the college try, and you’ll be surely impressed.
Ideal #5 Make a Power Circuit
The last one is a bit more random, and creative, but effective none-the-less. The idea is a “power circuit”. This is essentially a circuit of 4-8 different types of explosive movements, done “boot camp!” style. Athletes will rotate form one explosive movement to the other with about 30” rest in between efforts. Again, the density of the circuit takes care of the potentiation, and the movement goal of each exercise denotes the skill outcome effect of the circuit.
My boss works with the volleyball team at my job, and the players routinely achieve their highest jumps of the year in the midst of performing his jump circuit, which includes a variety of box jumps, depth jumps, and similar plyometric activities in circuit fashion on limited rest.
This type of work is limited only by your own creativity, but you could even consider it “organized basketball”, or “organized volleyball” in terms of the actual training effect. A power circuit for athletes could look something like this:
- Lateral barrier jumps
- Vertical medicine ball throws
- Jump squats
- Clap pushups
- 3 jumps for distance
- Hang clean and jerk
- Med ball slams
- Depth jump
- Max vertical jump
This type of circuit is limited only by your creativity.
Conclusion:
So there you have 5 great explosive ideals to take your training to the next level. Through utilizing the art of potentiation, and a hefty dose of creativity, you can create workouts that leave no sprint or jump gains to chance. Go get it.
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