Don't Neglect Speed Work (Here's Why)
Published: Thu, 06/21/12
Even if you are super dedicated there are 3 big things
that prevent 95% of men from reaching their true
strength potential.
Here's number 1: Don't Neglect Speed Work
First off all you need to know what speed work is:
Another name for it is Dynamic Effort to make it super
simple to understand it's just using a sub-maximal load
or light weight and moving it with as much SPEED as
possible.
This builds explosiveness and helps you move heavier
weights because your nervous system has learned to fire
quickly.
When you miss a max attempt lift it's because the bar
slows down and comes to a stop. If you have greater
speed and explosion you can push through these slow
points allowing you to lift more weight.
Personally I have always been an explosive athlete and
I do believe in speed work even though I don't do it
every week I know how important it is to overall strength
development.
We've all seen guys that are stuck at the same weight on
their squats, bench presses and deadlifts for years and all
they had to do was add some speed work at the right time
and BOOM they'd be hitting PRs in no time.
Most lifters though, they just go heavy, with low reps all
the time and never work on their explosive power.
Even guys that do use speed work, use weights that are
much to heavy so they don't get the bar to travel as fast
and explosively as necessary. Maybe it's an ego thing,
I don't know.
The reality of the matter is that if you do some speed work
or work on your explosive power you'll blow past sticking
points in no time.
Some people do speed work once a week. I on the other
hand would do speed work on my delaod weeks which
would be every 4th week. So I'd go 3 heavy weeks and than
the 4th week would be my speed work.
For the bench press I"d use 55% of my one rep max and
do 6 sets of 3 reps with 60-second rests between sets. Each
reps needs to be controlled, yet as explosive/fast as possible.
Hopefully this helps you get hit some PRs for yourself.
Keep training hard,
Mike Westerdal
CriticalBench.com