013 Rate of force development

But they are rarely defined very uh you know, very accurately. A rate of force development sometimes is is given a definition, but explosiveness generally is not. Um and that does lead to confusion. So what we're gonna do is I'm just gonna chat through very quickly the physiology of rate of force development and try and get into this idea of what explosiveness actually is.

And then we'll talk a little bit about training programs that will improve those qualities. Although it I'm going to be a little bit uh I'm going to be a little bit sort of upfront now and say that essentially You don't really need to target them directly the way that most people think you do, uh in the same way that you don't really need to target power in the way that most people think you do. So um

Essentially, when we say rate to force development, what we're saying is the rate at which force increases um during a maximal effort contraction. So essentially if you have a high rate of force development, you get up to a high rate of force quicker than somebody who doesn't have that same ability. So ultimately that sounds like a very good thing and it sounds like it will contribute to athletic performance and indeed it does. So what's the problem? Well the problem is

When you look at the underlying adaptions, because obviously rate of force development itself is not an adaptation that you can obtain. It's an outcome that we can measure you increasing in. So the same way that strength is not an adaptation, strength is an outcome that you increase. and the adaptions underpin that. Um, similarly, when you look at rate of force development, it must have underlying adaptions.

Now, essentially, um, when you go and look at those underlying adoptions, what you discover is that for the very early part of the contraction, say the first You know, maybe fifty milliseconds. Um ultimately that is pr pretty much determined by the same adaptations.

that determine maximum speed. And once you get past that early kind of fifty milliseconds or so, you start to blend um uh essentially the adaptations that govern maximum strength and the adaptations that govern speed. So essentially there isn't anything unique two rate of force development that we can't get from training for either speed or strength um in our normal training programs that we're already doing.

Now, just to be clear, um what generally uh you know, kind of um has been found in context of that early sort of first fifty milliseconds is that it's pr pretty much rate coding or motor unit firing frequency that's the important factor for rate to force development. After that, it's basically pretty much um everything uh that governs both the speed and the strength uh kind of adapt. So essentially.

The reason why um rate of force development on the one hand is, you know, kind of very useful is that of course it does allow us to achieve a high rate of force or sorry, a high level of force relatively quickly. Um, but of course it doesn't really have anything unique behind it in terms of adaptions. So if you say to yourself, Okay, I'd like to train to increase rate of force development, then basically you could just train to increase speed and strength and you would get

An increase in rate of force development. There isn't a way of avoiding that or preventing that from happening because the same adaptations are underpinning all of those qualities. Now

That's essentially rate to force development, relatively quick explanation. In terms of explosiveness, ultimately the problem here is we don't have a good definition. So either you can say, well I I just meant rate of force development, in which case you could say, Well why do we why are we using the word explosiveness then if you've already got a perfectly serviceable terminology that you can use that

you know, that actually does have a definition. Um, but ultimately, um, if you mean something different, then okay, maybe it means, you know, sort of something more like power or, you know, speed or strength or whatever. Well we already have good definitions for all of those things.

Uh and ultimately, you know, essentially strength and speed both have their own unique adaptations beneath them, and power is something that, you know, is just a combination of strength and speed. And so again, it is subservient to those two. So again, you're kind of back to the square one, which is to say that the only really uh kind of um major qualities that we have to focus on are simply strength.

and speed. Now of course all of that is going to be, you know, kind of dependent on the specific movement that we're doing and there are other biomechanic factors like uh before we jumped on the podcast today we were just chatting through how the proximal to distal sequence um can be really interesting in this particular context.

But ultimately, uh where we get to with all of this is that essentially if a program is already focused on the adaptations that underpin maximum strength gains and the adaptations that underpin maximum speed gains There is actually no need to consider rate of force development or the concept of explosiveness. Separately. They're automatically going to be covered by the programs that are designed to improve these two major qualities.

So that's basically the physiological introduction, very short one this week. There's not really very much to say. Rob, um, over to you. We were talking before this podcast about programmes that you're writing, programs that you're uh, you know, kind of um developing for use with your athletes and how they improve uh maximum strength and speed.

As just as a way to introduce this topic and for people who maybe haven't caught all of our podcasts before, can you just give us a a brief explanation of how you're writing programs that allow you to simultaneously increase maximum strength and maximum speed at the same time, you know, uh for, you know, long periods of time throughout a training year, for example.

So we'll just take the example of a combat sports athlete. We've talked about those quite a bit. And then use the the proximal to distal sequencing there, which Chris and I have mentioned plenty of times now on the podcast. more proximal muscles need higher force production capabilities, and more distal segments are gonna wind up needing more uh towards the maximum speed end of things.

So if you're looking at maybe what someone would say a typical program would be for a fighter to improve rate of force development. A lot of times you're going to see things like Olympic lifting variants, power cleans, power snatches, poles, things like that. And I don't typically program any of those.

for my athletes. I like them myself. I love Olympic lifting. They're great, you know, exercises if your goal is Olympic lifting. But if you need someone who needs to be more explosive and have, you know, more overall power, you know, for a fighter, you need to have exercises that are a lot more specific with uh the proximal muscles, for example. If you take a hip thrust, um, even an RDL, things like that.

the force production there is gonna be way higher than it will be in like a power clean or something like that. power clean you're working with a a lower load and kind of a like mid speed, it's not super fast either. So it's not really going to improve. Strength to a really relevant degree, and it's not really going to improve speed much. So, in my opinion, I would use something like a hip thrust, focus on strength. Low reps, few sets.

And then, you know, cap it there for the hip. And then if I'm thinking of, you know, stuff for the ankle, stuff for the upper limbs and that, again, a power clean and exercise that people typically think of for RFD. isn't really giving me anything interesting there in terms of maximum speed. So I'd much rather use jumps, um, light throws, things like that to improve the the speed end of things.

So that, you know, I'm not just kinda like sitting in the middle getting good at a specific exercise when I don't even need that exercise in my program. And like an Olympic lift may be fun, but you only need them if you're gonna compete in the Olympic lift. People will probably get mad that you know I say I don't use them but kinda is

It's way higher than you're gonna see in any other exercise. Or they look at the rate of force development and they go, Wow, this rate of forced development is really, really high. You know, this is really interesting. This exercise must stimulate really big gains in power and in rate of force development.

And the p the f the trap that they've fallen into is mistaking the outcome for the adaptation. They've gone, because the outcome is high, it must stimulate gains in the outcome and that's not how the body works. The body isn't interested in outcome. If you look at a standard uh sort of force velocity chart, you'll notice that smack bang in the middle, there is a maximum point for power output. That's because when you multiply force by velocity, you get power. So by definition,

the value in the middle of those two is gonna give in mid m you know, kind of middle middle approximately middle of force, middle of velocity is gonna give you maximum power outputs. That, as we explained in our power episode, is terrible.

for increasing either strength or speed. You're you're as far away from everything as you can possibly be. You know, you're as far away from the speed energy can be, you're far away from the strength energy can be. You're not really gonna kind of at the same time as being far away from the speed end obviously. So you're kind of not really very good at uh improving anything that is um underpinned by its own specific adaptation.

Power is underpinned by the force time velocity. So it's basically you can't get an improvement in power without increasing strength or speed. You can't get an improvement in race of rate of force development without increasing either strength or speed. Either.

So ultimately, when people are getting confused about these Olympic weightlifting uh uh uh derivatives and they're going, Oh well, no, it you know, they're amazing'cause look at the how how high the power outputs are or look at how high the rate of force development is

um they're mistaken because they're confusing outcomes with adaptions. And so you're not programming those. So as you said, you're programming some heavy strength training for the hip because you're focusing on the proximal to distal sequence.

Um how does the rest of the kind of programme fit around that? I mean, are you are you doing uh high velocity stuff before that?

Again, everybody thinks because, you know, a punch, a kick, et cetera, is moving fairly fast that you need to train only fast, but certainly not the case there. So that heavy core work is gonna be great. And then just following that up, standard strength, hypertrophy stuff. Um and again, you know, like for an athlete we're not talking like anything hyper specific, just the normal basic

presses, pull downs, um, really for whatever muscles you think are important for the athlete. And, you know, for most people it's gonna be just most of the major ones. It's not anything super fancy that's being done. And like we just said for like RFD specifically. There's really nothing fancy. It's really the same basic program setup.

Same basic weekly, you know, frequency two times a week, maybe three if you don't have much else going on. And then, you know, normal keeping a few rep shy failure and all those things low to maybe moderate rep. Not going crazy with anything for, you know, high reps and high volumes. And yeah, I just I mean I had a I did have a chat with a guy recently and he

was asking me about the Olympic glyphs and if I did them myself and years ago I did and I don't currently but I do like them and he asked my opinion on them actually for, you know, improving power and that. And I said for that purpose I didn't think they did really much of anything and he said, Well why is it called a power clean? Well I'm I don't know, man. कर दो कर दो

We want to avoid any fatigue from anything else before we do that high velocity stuff because high velocity work is very um negatively affected by fatigue. And actually this is a useful opportunity just to reiterate an important point, which is that um The effects of um fatigue mechanisms, um pretty much all fatigue mechanisms will tend to produce a reduction in movement velocity.

Um some of them also increase uh sorry, some of them also decrease um muscle fiber force, but pretty much all fatigue mechanisms will have a negative effect on muscle fiber shortening velocity and on movement velocity as a whole. Rate coding, motor unit firing frequency, which is essentially one of the major adaptations that underpins speed gains and and has been linked to the rate to force development, especially in the early phase of rate to force development.

is very, very um linked, very closely linked to movement speed, especially muscle fiber shortening velocity. So if we see movement velocities reduce, that will imply that we've reduced um rate coding. And as a result, we are unlikely to be stimulating an increase in rate coding because the thing that stimulates increases in rate coding is almost certainly hitting high levels of rate coding in the exercise that we're doing.

So ultimately, uh any kind of fatigue present is gonna stop us from triggering that adaptation. So this is a really, really important point because if people are programming in ways

uh where they're trying to increase rate of force force development, whether they're calling that rate of force development or whether they're calling it explosiveness, doesn't really matter. They are gonna want to make sure that the part of their workout that is doing that or that they hope is doing that has minimal fatigue

you know, hopefully the athlete is arriving in a fresh state and they're able to go, you know, through a basic warm up and then start doing some high velocity jumps, throws, that kind of thing. And that should be the time in which our rate to force development and our speed gains are being achieved by means of multiple adaptions, but in the case of rate deforce, as I say, definitely getting some increases in rate coding the muscle fiber, um sorry, the motunit firing frequency.

So um yeah, really important point there. Fatigue is very, very negative for those adaptions, especially that one. It's

Just don't do that. It makes things pretty simple. It's that's the thing is it makes programs too simple and then people are afraid that, you know, no one's gonna no one's gonna buy into this. It's It's too easy. It it can't be this I've had people tell me it can't be this simple when I read them a program and I'd say give it, you know, X number of weeks and let me know how you feel. And then when they jump higher, they run faster. One of my volleyball girls who's uh plays semi pro

She's jumping like inches higher than she ever was. She's so much better than all these girls in the court who don't train. And I'm like, I told you, like just It looks hilariously simple on paper, but that is all you need. Just don't you know overthink it.

Um, all of these things are going to be very negatively affected by fatigue, not just within session but also from previous sessions. And that r requires not just a conversation about the strength training programme, but also about any conditioning that's being done and also about any sports practice that's being done.

And the reality is, um, it may be the case that the sports coaches um may not appreciate that they need to have the same conversation with you or us in the case of the straight and listening coach, because the same thing applies to the skill.

What what is the best approach for motor learning? What's the best approach for learning a skill? If I'm trying to enhance my ability to do these athletic activities, what should I do? treat them like speed training. So avoid fatigue is the first thing that you would do. Now there's a a few other things you can do. You can look at external focuses of attention, you know,

in addition to you know the classic kind of coaching approaches that probably skills uh coaches are already doing. But, you know, they can look at um external focus of attention, they can look at avoiding fatigue. So the reality is that even though It may sometimes feel like you're talking to a brick wall when you're trying to persuade the sports coach to do less because it's interfering with your ability to improve speed. The reality is they should be having the same conversation with you.

to try and do less so that they can improve skill. Because um the idea that we can just kind of throw tons and tons of volume at the athlete

and um that they can recover from anything and that they can make improvements in any quality while being in that fatigue state is nonsense. They can't. Um the reality is we know that you can't learn motor skills in a fatigue state and you can't improve speed in a fatigue state. So I think this is a really important point because like your your comment there was totally true where you said like people want more complex programmes, but I think they also want more work.

Now that gives you kind of a whole uh range of possible motor units to run after and actually create adaptions in. And if you get some C N F D G or you get some muscle damage in the top, motor units of that pool, then okay, you're gonna lose some possible gains there. And that's a problem. But you're still gonna get some stimulus lower down the motor unit pool. And as long as you're not a really advanced bodybuilder, you're probably gonna see some kind of movement forward on that front. So

It's not the end of the world if we're training in a fatigue stake. I mean, it can be if you kind of really dig yourself into a really big fatigue hole, but you know, it's not the end of the world if you're kind of slightly over the edge of of being um, you know, accumulating fatigue over time. The problem with neural adaptations is that you kinda need to hit your max level um of whatever the qualit whatever the

kind of uh thing is that you're trying to improve. So if you're trying to improve motor unit recruitment, you kinda need to hit your current ma maximum level of recruitment. If you just hit like ninety five percent, it probably doesn't do anything. Probably doesn't stimulate the adaptation.

Same thing with rate coding. So like if you're not hitting your maximum level of rate coding, what's the incentive for the brain to actually upgrade you to a high level of rate coding? There isn't really one. It's like So it's neural adaptations and the same with skill. If you're practicing a movement and the brain has a really solid motor program for for a throw and it you kind of then practice a slightly worse one because you're slightly tired.

then the brain is gonna go, Why are we doing this? I'm just gonna go back to the one that you learned last week or establish last week and use that instead. So your current throwing session isn't doing anything for your actual mechanics improvement.

even if your coach is trying to help you improve them, it's probably not changing anything'cause your brain is just going to revert back to the better one that it had last week. Whereas if you can get that throw practice in a f in an unfatigued state and get the coaching and get the external focus in your mind and everything's pulling together, now you've got a chance of actually increasing uh your coordination and getting better mechanics.

So this is really, really important. This I this binary idea of either I get the adaptation or I don't is very, very prevalent in the neural side of things. Where it's not so much in the peripheral side of things. You can kinda get some benefits

even when you're in a very fatigued state. And I think that's one of those situations where the the sports coach and the strength conditioning coach probably need to be having a conversation where they're both trying to get each other to do less. Whereas the reality is at the moment I don't think that's what's going on.

Just thinking about that, that would make absolutely no sense. You're gonna try at the beginning of the day when you feel good. And I would I would think if people just sat for a second and thought on that. They'd be like, you know, if you want to learn anything at all, are you gonna do it when you feel terrible and everything feels awful? Like, no. It just it makes absolutely no sense. And then you have guys like field athletes and all that stuff.

They're doing it all the time and you know, if you really just sat there for a second, you you'd probably come to the conclusion pretty quick.

Um there's probably and this is me just kind of putting this out there. So, you know, this is this is this is what goes on inside my head when people aren't looking. So I've been thinking about how if you're if you're training if you're if you're coaching a complete beginner to do an exercise um that they've never done before Um you know, the chances are that you are going to have to give them some internal focus of attention cues.

Now I'm sure there are people out there who can, you know, not do that. But Generally speaking, say for example you've got uh when I say internal focus attention I'm being in the strict sense of the word. I'm not saying mind muscle connection, which is a subset of the internal focus.

So mind muscle connection is like when you're squeezing a muscle. Internal focus is where you're literally just thinking about a part of your body moving. So at the very earliest stages of of learning a movement, you might say to a um uh someone who's learning to bench press

You know, I want you to tuck your elbows a little bit more. That's an internal focus of attention because you are thinking about a part of your body. Uh you know, an external focus of attention would be to aim the bar towards a particular point in space. Um, so ultimately we've got this kind of uh very early stage where internal focus attention where you're literally just moving a part of your body in a particular way. I think that

If somebody is at that stage of a learning process on a movement that simple'cause obviously, you know, skateboarding that you're describing, the moves are not simple. Um

And they still get better, you know, but like you said, maybe those internal cues initially

but I would expect that once you got the athlete to the point where they were doing the movement, the squat or the bench press or the deadlift, and it looked pretty much correct as far as you could tell. And they were now in the process where they needed an external focus of attention and they were making improvements in coordination on that basis. I would expect now that if they got fatigued you wouldn't see any coordination improvements.

So what I'm arguing for not arguing for,'cause I still don't feel very, you know, convinced by this as a model. I'm just putting this out there. I just have this kind of idea in my mind that maybe there are uh kind of two sort of scenarios in motor learning whereby maybe there's a kind of a gross motor pattern that can be learned with a bit more room for manoeuvre, ri wriggle room if you like, on the fatigue front.

And then there's that refined uh level of coordination where the athlete is gradually iterating and improving and iterating, improving. Hopefully, based on their own external focus of attention, to make the movement better. And that's where fatigue is going to stop us from making those improvements. Is this making sense?

you know, even if they're fatigued. If an internal focus would be useless to you because they've already way past that point and you need an extra then I think probably that's the scenario where you wouldn't make gains in coordination if you were Um, you know, in a fatigue state. It just feels to me like an interesting marker to s to designate these two zones because

I think yeah, there's gonna be these people who who've never done a particular simple movement like a squat or a bench press. Not that simple, but you know, in terms of athletic activities it's simple enough. um probably do make some progress um when we give them an internal focus and as a result they probably are improving with a fatigued state in terms of their coordination. So I'm not saying that we can never, ever, ever improve

um a coordination uh pattern in a fatigued state. But as far as athletes are concerned, it might as well be true because ultimately, you know, we're never gonna be in a scenario where those uh kind of um individuals are, you know, being uh sort of uh um, you know, expected to make serious improvements in their athletic ability by using internal focuses of attention or you know sort of

For for slightly more complex things where you've got a speed involv a speed uh element involved, I think maybe um you probably uh can't improve coordination even if you're a total beginner. Um just trying to create a model like live here as I'm trying to just kind of get my head around it, that I do think there are certain very specific beginner related scenarios where someone doing a slower movement that is a little bit simpler.

potentially will see an improvement in coordination. Um that is to me very, very fascinating. Um so yeah. Um how you would test the quality of that move. The thing is though, with throwing the accuracy thing, you can test by the accuracy. How many objects do you get into the kind of the hoop? Um whereas

testing the accuracy of say a bench press or something is very much more difficult.'Cause it's like, Well, what am I measuring? You know, what what precisely am I measuring here? Um, that's not something that motor learning is very good at doing. Um so uh when I say motor learning is not very good that means in the motor learning research uh kind of uh uh uh you know, sort of um community pot potentially is not is not uh as good at doing that. We don't have the measurement tools. So yeah. Um so

Where was I? Yes. So the reason we introduced this was because we were saying that the sports coach and the strength coach potentially should be, you know, both you know, kind of uh n negotiating with each other to try and bring the athlete's uh kind of overall um workload down a little bit or at least modify it so that it isn't um creating the post workout fatigue. Uh, that then interferes with each other's skill development sessions or speed development sessions. So cool. Um

I think you can probably do a lot better movements for most athletes. I mean, there's gonna be ones where you're using a a lot more low, like a hip thrust, first of all, and they're a lot less fatiguing. Like if you take something like a snatch grip deadlift like that, um It's gonna be very, very taxing. I mean there's a lot going on there. You're hitting a much larger

Sound like we could do a another episode next week on transfer of specific exercises to uh specific sporting applications. I think that would be a really cool follow-up to this to this episode.