Ben the bike

And parts of other articles:

you'd be better served by doing powerlifting speed work. What you're trying to accomplish is more neurological adaptation than muscular adaptation because your CNS controls the firing pattern and recruitment of your musculature. Speedwork trains your brain to recruit the largest % of muscle fibers instantly to overcome a load. Benching would yield minimal benefit IMO, but squats, deadlifts, and stiff legs would be perfect.

Find your 1RM, then cut that load to ~40% and do speed doubles where you control the eccentric but perform the concentric as quickly as possible. Seven to ten sets of two is about right. They won't beat you up either. I actually use speedwork for active recovery. Next workout, add 10# and repeat. Keep adding 10# with each successive workout. The goal is to add as much weight and maintain or decrease (preferably) the time to required to complete the concentric portion of the lift. Just make sure you use perfect technique. Try to make it to 60% or more while maintaining the speed you had with the 40% loads. On the deads, just make sure to reset at the bottom so you disconnect the eccentric from the concentric. That will yield the greatest improvement in starting strength. On the stiffs and squats, just control the negative and fire it back up without resetting.

The people who advocate the radical jump squats, 1-legged leg presses throwing the sled, etc. are the people who don't have to live with the consequences of doing that kind of ballistic lifting. Lift that way for 15 years and then come back and tell me how you feel.


don't know of any sites off hand that will present the information you're looking for. I'm not even sure myself what you're asking for. If you're asking about the effectiveness of this type of training, I can tell you from personal experience that it works. It's no substitute for max effort work or riding your bike, but taking all things together, it will definitely help. If you're looking for technique advice, I'd recommend attending a local powerlifting meet - they're usually advertised in the local fitness clubs - and check out the form of the guys putting up the biggest numbers. If it's not a RAW meet (IOW, guys are using squat suits and DL suits - NOT singlets), then just realize that you'll need to take a more narrow squat stance because you won't have the equipment helping you in the hole. If you start off squatting too wide, you'll wreck your hip flexors. In the deadlift, it doesn't matter if you go sumo or conventional. I'd probably recommend conventional because that will more closely replicate the firing pattern of the quads used on the bike. Sumo stance (my stance in my avatar) goofs up the recruitment pattern in the quads vis-a-vis conventional, and that makes breaking the deck much more difficult for most people. That will do it for the squats and deads, but not the stiffs because that is not a competition lift. PM your email address and I'll email you some of my vids doing these lifts.

If you're looking for strength training theory, some of the best work on the subject has been done, not surprisingly, by the Russians. Zatsiorsky's "Science and Practice of Strength Training" is a good balance between "heavy" theory and applicable concepts. Verkhoshansky's "Programming and Organization of Training" is also very good.

The problem with plyometrics is that the load never changes, unless you've got a bunch of 45's laying around or people who can climb on you. Your body will only adapt to the extent of the demands imposed upon it. That is the whole idea behind both the SAID and overload principles. Eventually, it just turns into a big cardiofest. If your goal is mitochondrial adaptation, aerobic capacity, or capillary enhancement, then great. But if you're trying to continually and maximally improve neurological efficiency, it's just not going to work. Your brain is smart enough to only recruit those super high-tensile fast-twitch muscle fibers when it's absolutely essential because there is a significant metabolic cost assosciated with their recruitment. That's why I said speedwork is no substitute for max effort work because no matter how hard you try, you just can't fool your brain.

I dropped $40K and builit my own commercially-equipped facility, so I don't think $40/mo is that big of a deal. Just depends on your goals and how far you want to take them, I suppose.

oger, I emailed you a stiff leg vid, subject is "Stiffs" so you know it's from me. So you can get an idea of what speedwork did for me, I'll also send you a vid from the US Open a couple years ago - bar is loaded to 365 kilos.

Supertraining" - the title of Mel Siff's book.