My Off-Season Training Part 2 - Baseline Testing Week

I the week before my official off-season pan started, I did a little testing week.

On the topic of testing, here are the rules of testing:

1 - A test must be performed under the same conditions, with the same equipment and in the same environment to be valid.

2 - Only test what you intend to train

3 - Test before and after the program you do to improve a specific trait.

4 - If possible, use a similar but far less taxing test of the same trait to keep track of your progress throughout the program.

Back to my testing week I wanted to develop a force-velocity profile of myself for the following qualities/exercises:

 - Sprinting
 - Seated Military Press
 - Chest Supported Row
 - Bench Press
 - Chin Up
 - Jumps

A force-velocity is a profile is where you perform sets at various % of your repetition max and track the velocity of each lift.

To measure velocity I use an iPhone app called Iron Path Pro.

I used the method described by US Strength Coach Cameron Josse where he suggests to perform 1 set of 3 at 29, 65 ans 86% of your max which pretty much puts 1 set each in the velocity, power and max strength ranges.

From there you record the peak velocity, or highest jump height from the 3 reps at each load.

So for my seated military press, my velocity looked like this:

29% x 3.45 meters per second
65% x 3.7 meters per second
86% x 2.45 meters per second

NOTE - there is a special equation you can use with jumps that takes into flight time so let me know if you need it.

For sprints, what you're looking for is  sled load that decreases your velocity to 48 - 52% which looks like this:

Step 1 - 20m Sprint Time - 3.37secs

Step 2 - Meters Per Second - 20 / 3.37 = 5.93m/s

Step 3 - 5.93m/s x .48(%) = 2.84 + 5.93m/s x .52 (%) = 3.08

Step 4 - 20m / 2.84 = 7.04secs + 20m / 6.49secs

So you're looking for a sled load that will result in 20m being covered between 6.49 - 7.04secs.

Once you have load determined, then that's the starting point during the resisted sprint program.

So now I have a force-velocity profile for each of my main lifts (seated military press, chin up, bench press, chest supported row as well as jump squats and sprints) and I can retest these after each main phase training to see my progress.

A lesson to be learnt is that there's more to progress than adding load to the bar - more then adding to the bar can ever do to in fact.

When you add load to the bar then you'll lift slower but what in footy is performed slowly?

Absolutely nothing.

So although some max strength training is required for body strength, which will requires relatively slow bar speeds, there should also be emphasis on accelerating the weight, regardless of the load you are using.

This acceleration is what will hopefully be the all important "transfer" you're hopefully looking for from your gym training, so it will actually affect your performance, in a positive way , unlike slow weight training does.

My next post will look at my first training block.