• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

"speed training"

0ni

Registered Rustler
Henneman's size principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The size principle dictates that low threshold motor units are recruited and fatigued before the high threshold motor units. You can't recruit the high threshold units without also recruiting the low threshold units.

Does this mean that "speed training" is fucking bollocks? I'm failing to see how power as a quality is even important to a powerlifter over force production. It's force production that makes your lift, not power.

Would people here agree with the sentiment that DE or "speed" training simply gives more volume on the competition lifts and gives the trainee a break from heavy work as it is very low stress? Just how important is being explosive in powerlifting? Does it change with Raw/Wraps/Single/Multi?

As an example, people lifted for centuries without "speed work" and put up big numbers. Olympic lifters do mostly speed work but yet do not put up as big numbers as powerlifters in the pulls despite doing a massive volume of pulling and applying as much force as they can to the bar.
 
power = time (speed) x force (strength). In the same way in automotive/mechanical engineering power = rpm x torque

For a lifter that is not highly skilled, speed work allows development of technique via reps and volume without the stress of maximal work. This effect alone probably makes it worth while for novices/intermediates?

There seems to be some research (I'm not going to go looking for citation right now) indicating ramping up with maximum speed stimulates/primes the nervous system for efficient motor recruitment. For this reason I like to use speed work as my warmup, regardless of what else I might be doing.

Personally, I can certainly quantity the effects of speed work one way. Prior to doing it, anything above ~80% 1RM bar speed would slow quite significantly. Now that threshold is more like ~90-93%.

Also I can now bang out much more volume before fatiguing in the higher % range, though it may not have anything to do with speed work.
 
Last edited:
I know all about speed training, do i think it's necessary for people who have not hit a certain threshold? No.

Hence, less thinking more lifting.
 
power = time (speed) x force (strength). In the same way in automotive/mechanical engineering power = rpm x torque

For a lifter that is not highly skilled, speed work allows development of technique via reps and volume without the stress of maximal work. This effect alone probably makes it worth while?

There seems to be some research (I'm not going to go looking for citation right now) indicating ramping up with maximum speed stimulates/primes the nervous system for efficient motor recruitment. For this reason I like to use speed work as my warmup, regardless of what else I might be doing.

Personally, I can certainly quantity the effects of speed work one way. Prior to doing it, anything above ~80% 1RM bar speed would slow quite significantly. Now that threshold is more like 90-95%.

I can now bang out much more volume before fatiguing in the higher % range, though it may not have anything to do with speed work.

This is what I am thinking. Are you actually getting "faster"? Has anyone actually hit a true max and though "damn that was a slow rep", done speed work for a while and actually lifted a max weight faster than before? I know that's very hard to get right but I don't see how you can move a limit weight faster. If anything the most important thing for me would be to develop the ability to lift a weight for LONGER to give more chance of completing the lift. With raw lifting this is, I have no idea about geared lifting and most the records seem pretty fast
 
I know all about speed training, do i think it's necessary for people who have not hit a certain threshold? No.

Hence, less thinking more lifting.

Why don't you give insight instead of shitposting?
 
For a lifter that is not highly skilled, speed work allows development of technique via reps and volume without the stress of maximal work. This effect alone probably makes it worth while for novices/intermediates?
Volume and speed work are not one in the same. using 45% of your max is not going to be all that beneficial for learning the lift once the load starts to increase. Doing 40kg speed squats won't help you learn to squat with 90kg if your max is 100. Does that make sense (tired and not sure if it makes sense).

There seems to be some research (I'm not going to go looking for citation right now) indicating ramping up with maximum speed stimulates/primes the nervous system for efficient motor recruitment. For this reason I like to use speed work as my warmup, regardless of what else I might be doing.
I thought most people did this, but training for speed is different to using speed to warm up.

You also have to remember that people have different abilities to produce force. For example, 205kg for me was just as fast as 185kg, but put 207.5kg on the bar and i couldn't get it off the floor Some people are the opposite, they would benefit from speed work, whereas i doubt i would.

Most novices and beginners just need to get stronger, not faster.
 
Although the deadlift can be a tricky one, as being faster off the floor allows more momentum through the lift, but i think this is achieved better with deficit deadlifts/band/chain work, rather than speed work.
 
Doing 40kg speed squats won't help you learn to squat with 90kg if your max is 100. Does that make sense (tired and not sure if it makes sense).

Absolutely but you're talking about just beginners which is only half the picture
What if you squat 300kg? Does speed work make your lifts "faster" at all? Or are you just reinforcing good technique while having a break from heavy loading? IE are you "training speed" or are you "training the lift"?

If you're faster from the floor, do you miss higher? I've never seen so. People tend to miss in the same place every time unless technique changes (raw). Surely you just got stronger?
 
Last edited:
Absolutely but you're talking about just beginners which is only half the picture
What if you squat 300kg? Does speed work make your lifts "faster" at all? Or are you just reinforcing good technique while having a break from heavy loading? IE are you "training speed" or are you "training the lift"?

If you're faster from the floor, do you miss higher? I've never seen so. People tend to miss in the same place every time unless technique changes (raw). Surely you just got stronger?

I don't think doing speed work increases the speed of your lifts at maximum, as your rate of force production depends on the number of fast twitch fibres you have, both type II and IIa fibers (plenty of research to support this). And provided you train relatively explosively already (which i think most people do), i am not sure that doing speed work would recruit any more fibers.

BUT, in saying that, you need to learn the ability to turn on the fast twitch fibers as fast as possible after the start of the lift and then keep them turned on as long as possible in order to complete the lift. The snatch and clean and jerk (as well as variants of these), in my opinion are the best way to develop these 2 abilities.

Some people also have little power development but can lift just as much weight as those that can lift very quickly.

Argh, it's too late for this lol.

And with the dead lift, the more momentum you can generate quickly the better.
 
Regarding fiber types, the low threshold fibers will be recruited before the higher threshold fibers (fast twitch first then slow twitch). This is why squatting a max after a marathon would be fucking horrible but not the other way around (OK the marathon would still be horrible)

Because of this, I don't see how doing DE work increases the recruitment of the fast twitch fibers through fatigue when reps would do the same thing. Now I'm not saying that DE sessions are bad or don't work. They do. But is it for other reasons than "speed"
 
If you are doing max squats will not recruit slow twitch muscle fibers. Type II are recruited first, then IIa if required, then I as you move into the aerobic energy system.
 
Top