How do we optimally progress plyometric training throughout the year? Do some athletes need to get more “specific” in the weightroom than others? How do we optimally harness the “short-recovery” of the stretch-shortening cycle for maximal performance?
These are some important questions when it comes to writing training programs.
Several weeks ago, I ran a podcast with Daniel Martinez on a variety of training topics related to vertical jump and athletic performance, and in the ensuing conversation, I realized that I wanted to get Daniel to expand in a written long-form format on some of these ideas. In this question and answer, we’ll cover:
- Short and long plyometric training recoveries
- Progressing general and specific training throughout the year
- Weightroom specificity
- Thoughts on phase potentiation and cluster set training
If you are interested in getting athletes faster and more powerful, this is an awesome interview.
Just Fly Sports: What is the difference between long and short stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) recovery and what does this mean for plyometric training in respect to the next workout session or competition?
The term bi-modal recovery pattern simply means that there are two complementary recovery processes to the stretch-shortening cycle:
- A short recovery that is more immediate and reflects a rebound effect where the acute fatigue from a difficult exercise or training session is removed and more quality plyometric work can be performed in a relatively short window of time (60 min to 24-hour window). As I mentioned in my recent article this is supported empirically from Dan Pfaff’s work and others re: workload distribution.
- A long recovery period that is a secondary decline in fatigue that reflects the body going through a more rigorous regenerative process, like a repair crew reinforcing a building after an earthquake. This is the part that works more consistently with our traditional view on preparedness and supercompensation, although this is across a shorter time frame (several days to a week).
The most important thing here is your distribution of work. If you have team sport athletes, or an athlete with specific travel demands in-season, we can alter the distribution of work away from typical high-low organization to better reflect the needs of this compressed training schedule. For example, if a team or athlete has Friday travel and competition on Saturday/Sunday, with an off day on Monday then the micro may look like this:
| MON | TUES | WED | THURS | FRI | SAT/SUN | |
| FOCUS | OFF | STIMULATING | ADAPTIVE | RESTORATIVE | TRAVEL | COMP |
| PRINCIPAL LOADS |
SETS: 3-5 REPS: 1-3 |
SETS: 6-12 REPS: 2-4 |
NON- LOADING |
|||
| MEANS | SPEED-STRENGTH | STRENGTH-SPEED | GENERAL STRENGTH |
|||
| METHODS | BALLISTIC/ PLYO |
BALLISTIC/ WEIGHTLIFTING AND Mx STRENGTH |
MED BALL/ BW CIRCUITS |
So we are still consolidating stress towards a 24-hour period but how we do so is by using a distribution of work that is very much based on that used when training twice/day: the first session is biased towards specific fitness adaptations while limiting fatigue, and the second session is organized to force a stronger, adaptive response.
Just Fly Sports: What should the progression of general and specific training throughout the year tend to look like for speed and power athletes? Does this change as they become more advanced in capabilities?
The primary thing here regarding this progression is that the mastery required for competitive excellence means that from a progression perspective the specific means, and those complementary means to support them, cannot be contained to specific training phases alone. Like the phase transitions described by Frans Bosch these progressions require more fluidity because we know that there is a disruption that occurs technically-mentally-physically and delaying practice addressing this limits the problem-solving potential of the athlete’s development.
A great analogy from the work of Dave Snowden is he grew up in a Welsh school system where they were forced to debate weekly on a random topic and if you wanted to be a good student this forced you to study and develop your abilities across the spectrum. The cross-pollination that occurred allowed for concepts from seemingly unrelated fields to be integrated quite fluidly into a specific debate performance. This is complex, emergent phenomenon and not a deliberate, mechanistic progression. We use the mechanistic as the basis for performance but challenge it in a way that allows for performance solutions to emerge.
Using one example is looking at traditional jump and stick progressions of box jumps or hurdle jumps: a standing jump to a box or over a hurdle is a slow stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) activity and an elastic jump is a fast SSC activity. For this reason, I have suggested for years to incorporate short, hopping movements early in development to better emphasize the elastic response from the fast stretch-shortening cycle. This video is from 7-years ago, and is sorely in need of being updated, but still captures the intent of this quite well:
The most basic distribution I would work from that demonstrates this would be using the example of the hurdle jumps:
Typical Distribution:
- Phase 1:
- 4 Sets: Hurdle Jump + Stick
- Phase 2:
- 4 Sets: Hop + Jump + Stick
- Phase 3:
- 4 Sets: Elastic Response Hurdle Jumps
Improved Distribution:
- Phase 1:
- 2 Sets: Hurdle Jump + Stick
- 2 Sets Hop + Jump + Stick
- Phase 2:
- 2 Sets Hop + Jump + Stick
- 2 Sets Elastic Response Hurdle Jumps
- Phase 3:
- 4 Sets Elastic Response Hurdle Jumps
Final phase is the same but how we got there is biased towards improved fast stretch-shortening cycle activity with the improved distribution of the second example. This is an example of specific exercises being bled into the other, but one can organize such movements so that you do the same thing within a single training exercise as you have done a fantastic job of emphasizing in many of your recent posts.
For this example, the single exercise is not inherently specific to any sport but is specific to the type of SSC activity, so a better example is the way Dan Pfaff trains jumpers to use short approach jumps further out from the season moving towards full approaches as they approach competition. The refinement of the specific activity’s needs means we need to spend a lot of time working with those specific forces and velocities but we can contain them, using constraints, to limit the full intensity based on our current developmental needs. So relative intensity on a short approach jump may be maximal but it exists under the umbrella of a larger intensity that we cannot achieve because of the brief approach distance.
As far as general relationships using either of the examples from the above the important thing is that general is certainly foundational but because of the increased specific focus earlier on my feeling is that we will better represent dynamic correspondence in this way and therefore even if our general development is a bit slower our efficiency is in fact higher. Making better use of these distributions means we are always closer to peak competitive form even if that is not our current target or goal, it’s a natural balance. This also means that it will take less of a reach, that of grinding for strength improvements, to see the effects of strength training in competitive performance.
It’s a compromise, but one that skews towards quality. This is the same thing trying to be achieved with much of the current velocity-based training literature, but I am referring to this process in a micro-macro way where these processes lay over each other through every part of your program (micro-macro, general-specific, force-velocity, program-KPI, quality-quantity, etc).
Just Fly Sports: How specific should one attempt to get in the weightroom? Do some athletes demand more special strength work than others?
Specificity functions differently in the weight room based on the sport’s training load demands. The example I refer to often is that with Bondarchuk’s model you have large athletes who have to throw a small object, therefore specificity can be very high. But when you have sports or movements where is more of an impact basis, either in contact sports or in repetitive jump and landing or acceleration and deceleration basis, one must more carefully select the appropriate balance to be achieved for successful integration.
Dynamic correspondence dictates that we be specific, but there is a tactical basis for the application of these stressors that is primary. The point mentioned in our discussion recently, that of moving too far away from strength or power limiting performance, is based on Hakkinen’s research on volleyball athletes but the rationale is there for all athletes. The key is the sequence and the emphasis on each.
There also has to be consideration for body types relative to special strength and this is an area where I am going to be highly speculative based on my experience: athletes that fall within the narrow range of the structure and anthropometrics of the elite in their sport will very likely require the least amount of special strength as this has some tremendous implications for their ability to express the specific qualities of their sport in an optimal way. For example, in volleyball if an athlete has the tall height and long limbs common to the elite then this checks a lot of the boxes for combining high jumping heights with high limb velocities for the overhead motions. Those on the lower end, with lower body masses and smaller body size, have to generate a ton of velocity to be effective and this has, for the most part, a higher cost. Larger body masses that increase the impact load of each movement also have high costs.
Beyond that we would also obviously see the same type of thing from a muscle architecture perspective and within their specific force-velocity/muscle fiber type profile. This should all influence where the distribution of work is focused for each specific athlete based on structural and functional needs.
Just Fly Sports: What are your thoughts on periodization in the context of phase potentiation?
Again, I am going to speculate as I think there are some huge implications from the Zamparo and Minetti papers, but I think of many things we are looking for in the adaptation process based on power law distributions (law of diminishing returns). To me, if we take the phase potentiation literature seriously we cannot not emphasize the sequence of hypertrophy → max strength → power, however, for me I would still attempt to bias solutions for this sequence based on “a base of what” as Dan Pfaff says.
I prefer to use cluster sets with brief rest between longer and higher repetition sets to skew velocities towards less drop-off, or simply reverse the set/rep distribution and modify the rest there as well to reflect that (moving from classic 3×5 with 2-3 min rest to 5×3 with 1.5-2 min). I have also lately been using cluster sets using such schemes where we perform a single “drop set” performed in the traditional way and have seen a positive resilience effect where the higher rep speeds demonstrate a “strength reserve” effect against the typical velocity drop-off’s on such sets.
Are those mechanisms exactly the same? No, but if we can capture a high percentage of the positive adaptations while limiting the negatives of spending more time with reps performed under fatigue I view that as a net gain. I was speaking with Jonas Dodoo recently and we share very similar thoughts on this, perhaps confirmation bias but perhaps not. My comment to him was that based on some of the great new research on cluster sets and potentiation complexes it scares me to death that we accept phase potentiation in such a rigid view only to find in the next 15-20 years that Dan Pfaff was right all along…
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