Peter

Strength, Speed and The Vertical Leap By Peter Mundy

As most of you reading this will be training to become faster, stronger and to jump higher. I am going to help you achieve those goals over the next few paragraphs. As the word on the grapvine goas, apparently we have to train diffrent fiber types to achive these goals. So before i start, here’s a little background information on type I and II muscle fibers.

The subject of muscle fiber types and their role in weight training can be a complicated and sometimes confusing issue. Here's a quick and, admittedly, very general primer. The fibers in your muscles are "typed" according to their oxidative capacities and how fast they fatigue. (Ian King 04) Typically, fast-twitch White (type-II) fibers respond best to heavy, low-rep training.

In other words, fast-twitch fibers are recruited in the performance of high-intensity, short-duration amounts of work, like heavy lifting and sprinting. If your goal is to be big and strong, then you probably long for a high fast-twitch fiber makeup.

Slow-twitch Red (type-I) fibers respond best to higher reps and are recruited for endurance exercises typified by aerobic activity or long sets of exercise. Predominately slow-twitch (type-I) individuals are long distance runners. On the other hand, fast-twitch (type-II) dominant athletes would be sprinters. Of course, everyone has both fast- and slow-twitch fibers, but some individuals will genetically lean either direction. Individual muscles such as the hamstrings are made up of both fiber types, but they tend to be predominantly fast-twitch (type-II) in most people. This means the hamstrings probably respond better if you use heavy weights and low reps. Training at 4-6 reps of 3 sets @80% of your 1 rep maximum.

Although i belive all the above true i still think that it is more important to train the muscle cross-sectionl area (read below)

While training for strength you should ALWAYS perform compound movements. Isolation lifts can be good to fix a lagging body part, BUT if you have never performed isolation lifts and only compound lifts. Then there would be no lagging body parts. There for isolation lifts wouldn’t ever need to be performed. Well this is just a theory I have put together over my year (I know it’s not very long but I have spent countless hours researching and performing every method I have came across) of training and research.
There really is no debate whether compound exercises are more efficient for strength and size increases compared to single-joint isolation exercises. Virtually every lifter who has any training experience at all will know that compound exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body part. Take for example the squat, while performing one simple squat repetition you are using over 550 different muscles in your body to complete the lift!
While training for strength, you must choose exercises that allow for the greatest load. One of the main reasons why squats are superior to leg extensions for quadriceps development relates to the fact that the load you can expose the quadriceps to is much greater with squats. (Chad Waterbury 04)
While performing compound lifts for strength, you still need to remember the rule of antagonists.
Antagonist training is executed by alternating exercises that target opposing muscle groups. (Chad Waterbury 03)The list of benefits of training antagonists includes: quicker recovery, greater strength levels and shorter workout times.
Antagonist training allows you to recover more quickly between sets due to the arrangement of the nervous system.(Chad Waterbury 03)When you maximally activate a muscle group, the nervous system inhibits the opposing muscle group for greater movement efficiency.

For example, when you perform a set of biceps curls, the triceps are forced to relax so they don’t oppose the elbow flexing action of the biceps. This is accomplished by a "loop" within the nervous system structure (i.e. when certain motor units are activated, others are inhibited). If this action didn’t occur, you wouldn’t be able to move at your joints because each set of opposing muscles would be attempting to contract against each other.
This design can be used to your advantage. If you alternate exercises for opposing muscle groups, the nervous system will inhibit the muscles that aren’t being worked and you’ll recover your strength more quickly.
While training antagonists you’ll be able to perform your chest/back cycle in less time than if you performed each body part separately.

Training to failure is also a mistake made while training for strength by many people!! Failure training mandates extended rest periods. One of the most evident downfalls of training to failure is the amount of fatigue it induces. The cardiovascular demand, excessive lactic acid build-up, and nervous system fatigue caused by a single set of squats or deadlifts to failure is enough to have you hurling and trembling. When you’re pushing the clock, there’s no time to sit around and wait for your muscles to pull themselves out of the hole you’ve dug for them.
In addition to longer rest periods that must be incorporated within the workout, failure training also extends your recovery time between workouts.

Efficiency = Productivity! (Chad Waterbury 03)

Well enough of the information, here is how to increase strength with compound movements. This program will help train for overall body strength!
Examples of OL movements are clean and jerk, snatch, split jerk, hang snatch, high pulls and jump shrugs. Examples of squat variants are pretty straight forward: Front squat, back squat, jump squat**, overhead squat and full squat. The press movement will not change, it should always be bench press BUT you can vary it up by changing grips or doing incline or decline bench press. Examples of a pull movement would be chin ups or pull ups at different grips or a bent over row. Examples of Posterior chain movement’s are GHR’s and SLDL’s.

Template

Day 1
OL movement
Squat variant
Press movement
Pull movement
Posterior chain movement

Day 2
Tempo

day 3
OL movement 50%
DL variant 50%
Press movement 50%
Pull movement
Posterior chain movement

Day 4
Tempo

day 5
OL movement light
Squat variant light
Press movement light
Pull movement
Posterior chain movement

Day 6
rest

Day 7
Rest

Week1: Example

reps x sets
3 minutes rest per set

day one
Clean and Jerk 2x4 @80%
Bulgarien Split Squats 3x6 @80%
Bench Press 4x6 @80%
Close Grip Chin Ups 3x10 @Bodyweight
GHR 3x10 @Bodyweight

day two
Tempo

day three
Clean and Jerk 2x8 @50%
Jump Squat 3x6 @50%
Arch Drop Bench Press 3x10 @50%
Close Grip Chin Ups 3x10 @Bodyweight
GHR 3x10 @Bodyweight

day four
Tempo

day five
Clean and Jerk 2x4 @80%
Full Back SQuat 3x6 @80%
Bench Press 4x6 @80%
Close Grip Chin Ups 3x10 @Bodyweight
GHR 3x10 @Bodyweight

day six and 7 rest

(During week one of this routine there is not much backwork but you can rotate Bent over rows and shrugs into the workout.)

**Jump Squats, if you considering your bodyweight (specifically non-lean muscle mass) for your squat jumps, If you're a heavier guy, this could create problems. I believe the research says when you're squatting you are pushing about 75% of your own bodyweight and on jumps it's obviously (impact wise) going to be 100% of bodyweight + gravity, so if you add your bodyweight to the jump impact plus your squat % you're starting to get pretty heavy. I'll always go for lighter on a barbell squat jump. Michael Boyle has a pretty bright formula (albeit a bit conservative) on squat jump load:

[(Squat + Bodyweight) x .4] - bodyweight = jump squat weight

I think there still has to be consideration for fat mass vs lean mass as bodyweight and consideration towards training age, etc., but Michael's formula will give you a much better standard and his experience gives him the ability to give more broad suggestions than mine. Also make sure to not (for whichever way you decide to do the barbell squat jumps) create hesitation on the jump. The higher loads will tend to do this and will decrease the effectiveness of the exercise. Most people want to slow the weight on the descent so be careful to not remove the stretch-reflex from the movement.

So IMO you should use only 20-30% max on jump squats, as you need to go up as fast as possible but down slow as you don’t want to take away the stretch-reflex.

Unilateral Exercises, when used as complimentary lifts to squats they can be excellent.

There is one thing i would also like to adress, a frequently asked question about the calves role in vertical jump. Well IMO they may not seem as important as other muscles during the vertical leap, but you have to train your body as a unit not as peices or it will be ineffecient and you will not maximise potential.

But most power in the lower leg is produced by the achilles tendon(calf insertion point) rather than the gastrocnemius. As the gastroc mainly plays the roll of planter flextion so a stronger gastroc would mean less chance of injury during take off and landing!

But do we need to train the calves directly after they reach a certain strength limit? As really calves get indirectly trained from nearly all leg involved compound movements! example squats or deadlifts. But this doas not mean you can directly ignore them.....

One last thing before I finish, There is no such thing as "lower abdominals"..........

There is the rectus abdominals, the transverse abdominals and the oblique’s.........

Vacuums targets transverse abdominals, while I’m guessing leg raises will target rectus... you have to remember that just because the rectus abdominals is in the shape of six muscles (six-pack) doesn’t mean you can train them separately. You are falling for the old assumption of "i can feel it here so it’s working out here!" As if you had done any research you would know that the rectus abdominals is all just one muscle and you can not target any areas so sit-ups, crunches, jacknifes what ever variation for rectus you do will not actually make a difference.

To train the rectus abdominals you should be training them with high reps as they are mainly red (type I fibres) so they should be trained as type II fibres, so doing weights for explosiveness on the rectus is pretty pointless as you have to use it to stand up all day anyway. So all the type II fibres you recruited will just be replaced with type I fibres in the long run so your vertical gains, if you can actually get any from training rectus will be diminished within weeks of stopping the training.....

IMO it is better to train the lower back and the transverse abdominals, stop training the look good muscles and start training the jump higher and run faster muscles. When training the lower back do them in a compound movement such as the GHR so you are training it along with two other parts of the posterior chain.

Rember follow your body, not your routine. Think smart, train smart and maximise your potential!

References: Ian King 04, Chad Waterbury 04, Chad Waterbury 03, Bobbert, M.F., K.G.M. Gerritsen, M.C.A. Litjens, Van Soest, A.J.V., (1996), Hedrick, A., Dahoda, J., Rogers, R., Bennett, S., (2003) Hewett, T. E., Lindenfeld, T.N., Riccobene, J.V., Noyes, F.R., (1999). Tamil (unilat)

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ravadongon

As usual Peter, great article...

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