May 032010
The general rule when trying to gain strength is to lift heavy with more sets and less reps. It is considered that how much force one can apply against an object determines how strong that person is. There is an important factor that most don’t consider when trying to reach their maximum strength potential. That factor is explosive power. Strength and Power are two separate things but both rely on each other. Strength is measured by how much force one can generate. Power is measured by speed x force. Just because a man is strong, that does not make him powerful. “A smaller man who can swing a baseball bat faster may hit as hard or as far as the heavier stronger man who swings slower.” Bruce Lee
To develop power and strength you will incorporate heavy weight training with explosive plyometrics. This is called Complex Training.
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Complex training is meant to increase strength and muscle speed, which are the key factors to developing explosive power. This should help you lift beyond you maximum weight limits your were stuck on. Plyometrics and lifting heavy are strenuous on your joints. Since you will be combining the two, you should not perform these workouts more then once or twice a week. You should at least have five days rest in between for whatever muscle group you’re working.
Power is measured by force(strength) times speed. Power = Force(Strength) x Rate of Force(Speed). It is believed that since weight lifting tightens and tenses the muscles it makes it difficult for the muscles to move fast. Also having bulky muscle supposedly makes them slower as well. Truth is, if all you do is lift weights without lengthening your muscle through proper stretching techniques, you will become inflexible and slow. If all you do is lift you will build strength and some power. But through Complex training, along with dynamic stretching you will increase your muscle speed (Rate of Force) dramatically. Rate of force is the speed with which force is achieved in a movement. The key to increasing your maximum lifts is to increase your power output. But you can’t reach your maximum power output just by lifting weights. You must increase the rate of force(speed) that it takes to move the weight.Through anaerobic training(exercise that requires muscles to contract at high intensities for short periods of time), you develop you’re fast twitch muscle fibers, which are responsible for generating power. Heavy weight lifting and plyometircs are considered to be anaerobic.
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When performing any kind of weight lifting movement, it involves pulling or pushing against resistance, the more speed and force that is generated against resistance, the more weight that one will be able to move. For example, when performing bench press, you start by lowering the weight slowly and then at the very moment the bar slightly touches the surface of your chest,(not bounce off your chest) you explode the weight upward with maximum effort. The amount of power applied to that initial explosion can make the difference on whether you finish the rep or you yelling for someone to help lift the weight off you.
The workout will consist of core lifts, such as bench press or squats. For each exercise you will perform five sets of three to five reps. Immediately after each set of a weight lifting movement, you will perform ten to twelve reps of a plyometric movement. Your goal is develop strength and power, so for every set you want to be as strong as possible. You don’t want your muscles to feel fatigued after each set so you should take three to five minute breaks between each set. Do not try to go to muscle failure on your lifts. The plyometric exercise is relative to what ever lifting exercise you are doing. Example would be, if you’re doing bench press, after each set you would do plyometric push-ups. If you are doing squats, after each set you would do jump squats.
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