Graduate Student Ball State University

Training for sports and being a strength coach is a difficult job. Many hours are spent designing programs and hopefully trying new innovative ways to get athletes stronger and more explosive. We are limited by equipment, time, coaches’ expectations and wants, but what’s our biggest limitation? It’s our imagination. A thought process must be in place to be a successful strength coach; the thought process consists of making an athlete better at his or her sport.

Now you’re asking, what does this have to do with reps, sets, and rest intervals? Well, a whole lot. If you’re an explosive athlete (I.E. Football, throwing, etc), then does doing sets of 12 reps in the classical lifts help you develop power? You see reps, sets, and rest intervals train you to your environment. Have you ever wondered why Louie Simmons has his guy’s squat with high amounts of sets and usually reps of 2? Well I did, and the idea was quite innovative. Mr. Simmons looked at how long it takes to complete a max effort squat, turns out doing sets of 2 for speed is almost exactly the same amount of time as the max effort lift 3-5 sec. Same thing for the bench, doing sets of 3 on the dynamic day almost exactly matches up to the time it takes to complete a max effort bench press 3 sec. They are training be able to press max effort weights. If Westside trained to be strong for only 1.5 seconds and the lift takes 3 seconds, then chances are the lifter may miss the lift. On the other side of the coin, if his lifters trained with high amounts of reps in the classical lifts, they would increase hypertrophy, but would diminish their strength in an explosive manner.

It holds true for football. If you train with long rest intervals, or high amounts of reps, then you are training your body to conserve energy so it can be expended over a 10-15 second period (which means no power and way too much recovery). So, if your doing sets that require you to lift for 25-30 seconds, you may be developing hypertrophy, but not able to display power. So what did Louie do? He analyzed his sport and made his training more specific to the goal. Now all the coaches out there please think about when you took this factor into consideration? It’s almost so simple, that it is overlooked. They key for football is to be explosive for 5-7 seconds, then recover in 45 seconds to 1 minute, why not train that way.

Watch a game like Soccer, lots of walking and resting with quick bursts of sprinting in between. The type of energy that needs to be abundant is explosive strength with quick recuperation. Training soccer players, football players, etc like distance runners and bodybuilders, will create the wrong desired effect.

Back to powerlifting, I hope that it is clear why a higher amount of reps in a given set in the classical lifts is a waste of time for the moderate to advanced lifter. Your classical lifts should be trained to the specific stimulus, pressing or overcoming the greatest amount of weight in a max effort attempt, or more importantly for athletes, becoming more explosive with greater amounts of weight. (A large component of 1-RM). Doing reps will teach you to conserve energy not expend it. Doing lots of reps in a given set will increase hypertrophy, rep strength, but may be minimal in the development of explosive power.

Assistance work should still be higher reps (between 6-15) with as much weight as possible. This will develop hypertrophy in the lagging areas, and also raise the athletes work capacity. Change the assistance work regularly to keep the body growing and adapting. This is definitely a must, and requires a good imagination and proper choice of weakness. Rest intervals should be very short, keeping workout times low, and growth high.

Workouts should last no longer than 45min to an hour. The reason for this is, it has been proven that hormonal levels (I.E. Testosterone) will start to diminish after this time. Training after that point is overkill, and repair to the tissue is limited. This means that short rest intervals should be used regularly (an increase in workout density). Most workouts can be done in this time. Just remember, that a main lift (or core lift) should be the emphasis that day. Then 3-5 assistance exercises should be used after that. I’ve seen many workouts with 2 or 3 core lifts, with 8 or more assistance exercises. Is this overkill? Just remember you can only work on so many things in a workout.

So what have we learned today? Well, for one design your rep schemes around specific energy systems that the sport requires (after a base has been established). Train quickly and keep workouts under 1 hour (increase workout density). This will raise work capacity. And lastly, keep an open mind, and analyze the sport that you’re coaching or competing in. Many times coaches get comfortable doing things certain ways, but the only thing that should stay the same is change.

For more info, look at Westside articles, translated Russian text by Verkoshansky, Roman, and the prilipin chart for loading parameters specific to weightlifters/strength and power athletes.

Matt Wenning