There is a belief among trainers, coaches and trainees that exercises should be done slowly. Reason for this belief is coming from safety of the exercise, work requirement of the muscles, but also not properly understanding how power works.
When training to increase power, performing exercise at high velocity must be done.
Power training should be utilized for multi-joint exercises including squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, pull ups and so on.
Safety of High Velocity Exercise
I do realize that safety issue is still there since when you do anything fast, there can be a risk of injury. For example, when you ride your bike fast, the potential of injury is higher. However, this is depending on skill of biker and not speed itself.
This will be same with your exercise. Safety will be determined not by the speed of exercise but correct application of the exercise by the trainee. Therefore, if you are new to exercise, yes it is dangerous for you to be working at higher velocity. If this is the case then you should work on improving your technique before applying high velocity training.
Once you learn the exercise technique properly, high velocity exercises will be productive especially to those who are training for sports.
How to Apply High Velocity Training
Application of high velocity training is simple. One of the applications is contrast training. Contrast training is performing exercise with higher intensity then performs second exercise with lower intensity with higher velocity.
Sample application would be 3 reps of squat at 90% of 1 RM then, 3 reps of higher velocity squat at 50% of 1 RM. Then after 3-5 minutes of rest in between sets, repeat 3-5 more sets.
So if your 1 RM in squat is at 225lb then the first squat will be 3 repetitions at 200lb. Then reduce the weight for second squat and perform 3 squats at 110lb and use the same effort you applied in 200lb, which will be higher velocity than the first squat.
Let’s get started!
Kota Shimada
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