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The Fundamentals Of Strength Training
Goal: Understand what strength is, why it is important when it comes to jumping higher, and
how we choose exercises in a training program.
Five biomotor capacities
1. Strength
2. Speed
3. Flexibility
4. Endurance
5. Coordination
What is adaptation?
● Adjustment of an organism in response to its environment
● If environment changes, organism changes to survive
● Exercise/physical activity is a powerful stimulus for adaptation
● The goal of exercise is to induce adaptation
The four features of adaptation
1. Overload aka stimulus magnitude
2. Accommodation
3. Specificity
4. Individualization
Overload
● Adaptation only occurs if training load is above habitual level
● Two ways to overload
○ Increase training load through intensity or volume
[Link]
○ Variety: Changing the exercise
● Three types of training loads
○ Stimulating: Adaptation
○ Retraining: Maintenance
○ Detraining: Performance decrease
● The more elite the athlete, the easier it is to detrain, thus a higher training load is needed
Accommodation
● The response of a biological object to a constant stimulus decreases over time
● The principle of diminishing returns
Specificity
● Training adaptations are highly specific
● The more similar a training stimulus is to the activity you are trying to improve, the more
transfer the stimulus will have
Individualization
● All people are different
Supercompensation & fitness/fatigue model
Terms to understand:
● Preparedness
○ How well equipped an athlete is to handle a training session or competition
○ Affected by training fatigue, psychological overstress, illness
● Fitness
○ An organism’s ability to survive its environment, which in our case is training!
○ Think of it as long term preparedness
● Fatigue
○ Decrease in physical performance due to exercise
○ Affects your preparedness
● Fitness-fatigue model determines supercompensation curve
● Each biomotor capacity has its own supercompensation curve
[Link]
Effects of training
● Changes that occur within the body as a result of training
○ Acute effects: Happen during exercise
○ Immediate effects: Manifested soon after working out
○ Cumulative effects: Occur as a result of continued training sessions
○ Delayed effects: Manifest over a given time interval after exercise
○ Partial effects: Changes produced by a single exercise
○ Residual effects: Retention of changes after cessation of training during which
adaptation can take place
What is strength?
Strength
● The ability to generate maximum external force
Force
● Instantaneous measure of the interaction between two objects
● Characterized by
○ Magnitude
○ Direction
○ Point of application
● Human body
○ External: Athlete’s body vs. environment
○ Internal: bone on bone, tendon to bone, etc.
○ Muscle exerts forces on bone while
■ Shortening
[Link]
■ Lengthening
■ Remaining the same length
Why is strength training important for increasing your vertical jump?
● Strength training improves your ability to generate force
● Your bodyweight provides high resistance
PS. If you want my team to program a training cycle specific to your needs based on these
principles click here (use the code JUMP2025 to get 90% off your first month, that’s a $114
discount!): [Link]
The role of resistance and extrinsic factors
● Different types of resistance
○ Inertia
■ Law of inertia: An object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an
outside force
■ F=ma
■ In jumping, your body’s mass is the parameter. So the force you apply on
it determines how fast you can accelerate it upwards, which determines
how high you jump
○ Elasticity
■ F=kD
■ Force, coefficient of stiffness, displacement through deformation
■ Bands, springs, stretch cords
○ Hydrodynamic resistance
■ Swimming, rowing, kayaking
○ Compound resistance
■ This is when there a multiple forms of resistance
■ Bands + weights
● Overcome barbell weight, barbell inertia which is proportional to
acceleration of barbell, and elastic force
Force Constraints
● Time available for force development
○ Time to peak force varies with each person and with different motions
○ Typically when measured isometrically, time to peak force is 0.3 to 0.4 s
○ Here is how long some track and field movements take:
[Link]
● In jumping and sprinting, the time available to complete the movement is less than than
the time needed to get to the maximal possible force in ideal conditions
● As resistance decreases, you’re able to move faster, so the difference between peak
force and peak possible force in the most ideal conditions increases. This difference is
called the explosive-strength deficit
○ The explosive strength deficit shows the percentage of an athlete’s strength
potential that was not used in a given attempt
○ Explosive strength is the ability to exert maximal forces over a minimal time
○ There are two ways to increase explosive strength
■ Increase max force capabilities (typically most effective for novices)
■ Decrease explosive strength deficit by improving rate of force
development
■ When an athlete improves jump technique, they’re able to put themselves
in a position where they can apply more force and they’re also able to
complete the jump in less time. This means that RFD plays a bigger role
as the athlete becomes more advanced
The force velocity curve
● Is the interplay between force and velocity with time as a constraint in muscle actions
● In concentric muscle actions, motion velocity decreases as external resistance increases
[Link]
● Consequences of the force velocity equation in sports
○ It is impossible to exert high force in very fast movements
■ In a power clean, the position where a lifter is strongest in a pull is around
knee height. If there is too much initial velocity there will be less force able
to be generated when the bar reaches knee height, so you essentially
miss your golden opportunity to accelerate the bar upwards.
○ Forces applied in the intermediate ranges of the curve are very dependent on an
athletes max strength
■ This means that an athlete’s maximal strength determines the force that
can be exerted dynamically, which is what we care about in jumping
(more reasons why getting stronger is so important for jumping!)
■ Now the slower the speed of the movement, the more related
performance will be to max strength
■ In extreme areas of the curve, this correlation falls off
○ Maximal power is achieved in the intermediate range of force and velocity
■ Generally this is around ⅓ of max velocity and ½ of max force, with it
varying based on the movement
● Eccentric muscle contractions
○ Forces in the yielding phases of motion during stretch shortening cycles can
easily exceed the maximal isometric strength of an athlete
○ Eccentric forces substantially increases with initial increase in movement velocity
and the velocity of muscle lengthening
● We will go over stretch shortening cycles more in depth in the plyometrics section of the
jump training course
The role of torque in jumping
● How much force you can apply is also related to your body posture in a lift/jump and limb
lengths
[Link]
● The farther away the point of force application is from the axis of rotation, the more
torque is required to apply force to a resistance ie. deep squatting vs quarter squatting
● Longer limbed athletes also have to generate more torque in order to apply the same
force as a shorter limbed athlete
● The more torque you can apply, the higher you’ll be able to jump!
Peripheral and neural factors in force application
Peripheral factors
● Capabilities of individual muscles
● Capabilities of the muscle are largely influenced by your muscle dimensions
○ Muscles with larger cross sectional area generally produce higher forces
○ Cross sectional area increases with proper training and nutrition
○ Muscle size growth occurs from hypertrophy and NOT hyperplasia
○ The way we grow muscles is through resistance training. Heavy resistance
training breaks down muscle proteins, creating conditions for synthesis of
contractile proteins during rest periods
○ Generally athletes with greater body weight have greater levels of absolute
strength, and athletes with lower body weights have greater levels of relative
strength
■ Because of this, managing weight loss correctly can sometimes increase
your relative strength
■ Relative strength is what is important for jumping higher!!
● Neural aka central factors
○ This is coordination of the muscles by the CNS
○ Intramuscular coordination
■ How individual muscle fibers are innervated
○ Motor units
■ Motor units are motor neurons connected to muscle fibers
■ Slow motor units are used in activities with slow velocity and vice versa
for fast motor units
○ How do motor units coordinate muscles?
■ Recruitment of motor units (how many)
■ Rate coding (how quickly)
■ Synchronization of motor units
■ Motor units are recruited through the size principle(small first)
○ Intermuscular coordination
■ How different muscle groups coordinate with each other
■ The complexity of intermuscular coordination is why compound
movements have better transfer to jumping higher… jumping is complex!!
● Elite athletes have better intra and intermuscular coordination
[Link]
Types of muscular strength
Static strength
● Isometric and slow concentric actions
Dynamic strength
● Fast concentric actions
Yielding strength
● Eccentric actions
Explosive strength and SSC’s are independent components of motor function that rely more
heavily on tendons
*These are not all inclusive, and in real life there are hybrids and smooth transitions between all
of these types of strengths
Methods of strength training
How exactly do we put all this information together to make a training program that is going to
make you jump higher?
● We choose the exercises and put them together in a training plan in a way that causes
long term adaptation, and continues to spur on adaptation year after year!
Variables that we manipulate:
● Training Intensity
○ Single vs multi joining
○ Velocity of movement
○ Total load
○ How close to failure
○ Intent
● Volume
○ How much work you are doing
○ Sets/reps*load
○ Distance
[Link]
How we manipulate these variables in order to have an athlete peak in performance at certain
times of the year and continue making long term progress is called periodization
● Sets/reps
● Deload weeks
● Exercise selection
● Defining different types of training cycles
How we periodize the training based on these variables will be covered in the periodization
section of the jump training course
Types of exercises
We break exercises down by:
1. Muscle groups
● Posterior chain
● Knee extensors
● Lower leg
● Core
● Upper body
○ Pulling
○ Pushing
○ Shoulders
2. Where they fall on the force velocity curve
a. We want to surf the force velocity curve from right to left in eccentric muscle
actions
Injury Prevention
Load management considerations
● Type of injury
● Severity of injury
● Sports
● Goals
[Link]
Plyometrics and the stretch shortening cycle
Forces in the yielding phases of motion under conditions of imposed muscle lengthening are
called eccentric or plyometric muscle actions
● These can easily exceed the maximal isometric strength of an athlete
The stretch shortening cycle aka reversible
muscle actions
Stretch shortening cycle
● Movements that consist of an eccentric(stretching) phase and a concentric(shortening)
phase
When a muscle shortens immediately after a stretch:
● Force and power output increases
● Energy expenditure decreases
[Link]
How the SSC augments force production and
decrease energy expenditure
1. At the transition from eccentric to concentric, force is developed in an isometric
condition. Because of this, the influence of high velocity is avoided and you can tap into
your maximum possible force (refer to the force velocity curve when velocity is at zero)
2. Since force begins to rise in an isometric phase, the time available for force development
is greater (ie. paused squat jumps has no isometric phase vs. countermovement jumps
gives more time to apply force through the isometric phase)
3. Muscle and tendon elasticity
a. When a tendon and muscle is stretched, elastic energy is stored
b. This deformation energy is recoiled and used to enhance motor output in the
concentric phase of the SSC
c. Magnitude of stored energy is proportional to applied force and induced
deformation
d. Muscles and tendons are arranged in series, so they are subjected to the same
force and the distribution of stored energy between them is only a function of
their deformation
e. The deformation is a function of muscle and tendon stiffness or it’s inverse value,
compliance
f. The stiffness of a tendon is constant, while the stiffness of a muscle is variable
and depends on the forces exerted
g. A passive muscle is compliant aka it can be easily stretched and an active
muscle is stiff
h. It takes great force to stretch a stiff muscle
i. Superior athletes can develop high forces and the stiffness of their muscles while
active can exceed the stiffness of their tendons. What is the implication of this? A
sh*t ton of elastic energy is now stored in the tendon because they are extremely
hard to stretch!
j. This is why elastic energy in elite athletes is stored primarily in the tendons rather
than in the muscles
[Link]
4. Neural mechanisms
a. During stretching phases of the SSC, there is a rapid change in both muscle
length and the forces developed. Muscles are forcibly stretched and at the same
time muscle tension rises sharply. These changes are controlled and partially
counterbalanced by two motor reflexes
b. Myostatic or stretch reflex
i. keeps muscles close to preset length
ii. Muscle spindles are arranged parallel to the muscle fibers. When muscle
is stretched by external force the muscle spindles are also stretched. This
stretching induces a discharge of alpha-motorneurons that causes a
reflex contraction of the stretched muscle
c. Golgi tendon reflex
i. prevents unusually high and potentially damaging muscular tension
ii. Golgi tendon organs are arranged in series with muscle fibers. The
receptors are sensitive to forces developed in the muscle rather than
length changes. If muscle tension increases sharply, the golgi tendon
reflex inhibits muscle action. The ensuing drop in muscle tension prevents
the muscle and tendon from incurring damage
iii. If an athlete(even experienced ones) is not accustomed to a plyometric
exercise, the activity of the extensor muscles are inhibited by the golgi
tendon reflex
1. Specific training can result in inhibition of the golgi tendon reflex
and the athlete would be able to sustain very high landing forces
without a decrease in exerted muscular force
2. This is also why HELLA jump reps are so crucial!!!
3. This is also why experienced jumpers would mop the floor with
even the most elite powerlifters in depth jump exercises
4. In beginners, just weight training can improve the SSC. But as an
athlete becomes more experienced, very specific plyometric
exercises are needed to see progress
How do plyometrics increase your vertical?
● An environment conducive to creating adaptation is created by overloading eccentric
muscle actions through exercises such as drop jumps, repeat jumps, and overspeed
approaches. The adaptation is being able to generate more force in all parts of the SSC
● Plyometrics also self intensify, so as you get better at doing plyos you continually
overload your body and keep spurring on adaptation
○ This is why someone can do no weight training and only jump for years and
make progress, assuming they can stay healthy. You essentially bypass the law
of accommodation, until you start reaching elite levels of jumping
● Makes your muscles and tendons able to store more elastic energy
● Improves the stretch reflex of muscles
● It inhibits the golgi tendon organ response
[Link]
By the way! We have built over 250 unique weeks of training each with their own plyometric
progression. To apply the one that best fits your specific needs click here and use the code
JUMP2025 to get 90% off your first month of vertical jump coaching: [Link]
Planning Plyometrics For Your Training
Progressive Overload
● Progressive overload is used to induce adaptations
● In plyometrics the goal is to improve power development
○ Progressive overload is achieved through exploiting the equation for power
○ Side note: Jump height is directly 1 to 1 related to impulse (a change in
momentum). However there is a correlation to power, and it is easy to plan
plyometrics when looking at the equation to power
● Power = Fxd/t
● Where F=force, d=distance, and t=time
● With this in mind, here is how we can overload plyometrics within each variable of the
power equation
1. Resistive overload
a. Gravitational
i. Falling from a height
b. Inclination
c. External
2. Spatial overload
a. Range of motion
i. Move limbs through much wider or much shorter ROM’s
ii. Start from a standstill instead of an approach
b. Sagittal, transverse, and frontal planes of motion
i. Split lunge
3. Temporal overload
a. Operating rate
i. Executing movements with more intent and more speed
b. Impulse
Specificity
● Exercise creates specific neuromuscular and metabolic adaptations to overload
[Link]
● Transfer to your sport depends on how similar the plyometric is to the activity you’re
trying to improve
Evaluating exercise objectives
● SSC appears everywhere
○ Warm up, weight room, speed portion, agility portion
● Sometimes SSC will be used specifically, and other times generally
Time lapse for the SSC
● Minimizing the time lapse between the eccentric and concentric contraction is extremely
important
● Two periods of delay exist
○ Between signal from brain for muscle contraction and onset of muscle activity
○ Between appearance of muscle electrical activity and development of tension in
the muscle
■ This delay is shorter in eccentric contractions which supports concept of
producing the greatest force in the least amount of time
■ SSC enhances force production from the series elastic component (SEC)
during stretching AKA eccentric efficiency is improved using the stored
elastic energy of the SEC
SSC factors that determine timing, volumes, and intensities of plyometrics
● Rate of eccentric action aka amortization phase aka the stretch
● Rate of concentric action aka the recoil aka the summation phase aka shortening
● Delay time between cessation of eccentric and onset of concentric muscle action aka
coupling time
● Amount of external load involved
Different types of SSC movements
● Intensive elastic and reactive method
● Speed strength (loaded and not as elastic or reactive)
● Shock methodology
○ If coupling time is longer than 0.15 seconds during high impact/intensity/RFD
drills than it’s NOT classical shock-method plyometrics
● These can more simplistically be defined as short vs long SSC’s
○ Short: < 250 ms
○ Long > 250 ms
Which plyometrics should you do?
● Plyometrics fall along a large continuum of exercise and load factors
[Link]
● Evaluate specific goals for each training phase, and this goal will tell you where on the
continuum you should choose plyometrics from
Volume and dosage
● Number of repetitions are usually 8-12
● Eastern Europe scientists suggest 6-10 sets
● Russian sport scientists suggest 3 to 6 sets
Single and multi response drills
● Two categories for SSC drills
○ Single response
■ Single intense effort
○ Multi response
■ Several efforts in succession
■ More emphasis on elasticity, speed, and coordination
■ One huge goal of plyometric training is accomplishing high-impulse
landings and takeoffs in succession
○ There’s also a third type
■ Multi response with pauses
● Both responses should be used to properly progress through the plyometric training
continuum
● Objective of drills
○ Improve nerve-muscle reactions, explosiveness, quickness, and ability to
generate forces in certain directions
○ An athlete will only benefit from the number of repetitions that are done well, this
includes intent and proper execution!
Intensity
● Described in two ways in regards to SSC
○ Force at impact
○ Intent or level of effort
■ Quickness of execution is essential for optimal training effects
■ Rate of muscle stretch is more important than the magnitude of stretch
■ Greater reflex response occurs when you load the muscle rapidly which is
done by using maximum effort
Maximize force and minimize time
● Both force and velocity are important
● In many cases the critical concern is the speed at which you can perform a particular
action
○ Example: shot put
■ The quicker you execute the action sequence, the greater the force you
will generate and the longer distance you will achieve
● Impulse of the movement is key
○ Movements must have high impulse for plyometric training to be effective
[Link]
Guidelines for workouts and microcycles
● Rest periods
○ 1-2 minutes is usually enough rest for the neuromuscular systems stressed by
SSC exercises to recuperate
○ Low impact and low intensity plyos may require minimal rest of 30-60 seconds
○ At the shock end of the plyo stress scale exercises may require 2-3 minutes of
rest for systems to be able to handle and produce forces necessary for optimal
execution
● Frequency of loading
○ 2-3 days per week usually gives optimal results
■ Consider total training load, type of activity, and inverse relationship
between frequency and intensity
● Order of exercises
○ Dynamic and more intense first
Complex training
● Pairing strength exercises with plyos that have similar movement patterns
Types of jumps
- Jumping
- Landing on both legs
- Squat jumps
- From static position
- Counter movement jump
- Using a pre stretch by flexing at ankle, knee and hip and then extending
- Depth (drop) jump
- Jump after dropping from height
- Bounds
- Takeoff leg to leg
- Can also be double leg to double leg
- Usually Emphasis on max horizontal distance
- Hopping
- Same leg to same leg
- Either for distance or height
- Leaps
- Single effort exercise emphasizing max horizontal or vertical distance
- Skips
- Alternating step hop
- Left-left to right-right to left-left to etc.
- Emphasis on max height or distance
[Link]
- Ricochet
- Emphasis is purely on fast leg and foot movement
Choosing depth jump height
1. Test your standing vertical
2. Perform depth jumps starting with a low box
3. Increase height progressively until you test a lower vertical than your standing jump
4. Perform depth jumps at the the height where the depth jump matches your standing
jump height
PS. Plyos are one of the hardest parts of training to get right. They’re perfect for some
athletes… or they could make other athletes jump lower! That’s why coaching is so important. At
THP you’ll always know you are doing the right training for YOU. If you want to sign up click
here (remember if you use the code JUMP2025 you get $114 off your first month!):
[Link]
PERIODIZATION
The deliberate manipulation of training variables to enhance sport performance at specific
times. The main obstacle is timing the training correctly while dealing with an athlete’s schedule
Structural units of training and definitions
● Training session
● Training day
○ Can consist of multiple training sessions that are spaced by more than 30
minutes of rest
● Microcycle
○ Grouping of several training days
○ Usually one week
● Mesocycle
○ System of several microcycles
○ Usually 4 weeks
○ Range of 2-6 weeks
○ Types of mesocycles
■ Accumulative: Enhance athlete’s potential
■ Transmutative: Increase non specific fitness into specific athlete
preparedness
■ Realizational: Planned to put on best sport performance attainable within
given range of fitness
[Link]
● Macrocycle
○ One entire competition season
○ Includes preseason, in season, and post season periods
■ Aka preparation, competition, and transition periods
○ Usually lasts one year for winter sports, and half a year for track(and dunking!)
○ Olympic macrocycle is four years in length
● Short term planning
○ Planning workouts, training days, microcycles, and mesocycles
● Medium term planning
○ Planning macrocycles
● Long term planning
○ Deals with training intervals of many years
Short term planning
Principle of fatigue specificity
● The main influencing factor in short term planning is fatigue
○ Fatigue effects from different types of muscular work are specific. One's ability
to execute drills of another type is restored more quickly than one’s ability
to repeat the same routine
○ If athlete is too tired to repeat the same exercise in an acceptable manner, they
may still be able to perform another exercise to satisfaction
○ Sequencing drills appropriately makes it possible to assign more work and
increase training volume
○ The same applies for exercises of different directions like sprints vs. strength
work
○ If two similar training workouts are executed in a row, the traces of fatigue
from the two sessions are superposed (see image)
[Link]
Optimal number of motor abilities to focus on?
● Fitness gain decreases if several motor abilities are trained simultaneously during one
workout, microcycle, or mesocycle
○ It is not a good idea to have more than 2-3 main targets in a microcycle or
mesocycle
○ Ie. no reason to train in one microcycle train max strength, explosive strength,
aerobic capacity, anaerobic lactacid and alactacid capacities, max speed, and
sport technique
■ Organism cannot adapt to so many different requirements at the same
time
■ Gains in all these motor abilities would be insignificant compared with
gain from development of only one physical quality
● When training targets are distributed over several mesocycles in sequence, fitness
gains increase
● To enhance performance, decrease number of targets micro- and mesocycles
● BUT to avoid superimposition of fatigue traces from individual workouts and the
hazard of staleness, increase the number of targets in micro- and mesocycles
What is optimal?
[Link]
● Number of motor abilities or targets to focus on in one mesocycle
○ 1-2
○ And one essential feature of sport technique (in our case jumping higher or your
sport)
○ 70-80% of the total work in a mesocycle should be addressed to the development
of targeted motor abilities (35-40% per target)
What is the goal in planning strength training sessions?
● Do as much work as possible while having the athlete be as fresh as possible
● Three facets to timing the workouts
○ Rest-exercise alteration
■ Elite weightlifters do 32-45 sets per day (Most intense THP workouts are
around 20)
■ Rest 4-5 minutes when working with large weights
○ Exercise sequence
■ Objective is to perform most valuable exercises requiring fine motor
coordination and maximal neural output in a rested state
■ Main sport exercises before assistance exercises
■ Dynamic-power exercises before slower exercises
■ Large muscle groups before smaller ones
○ Intensity variation
■ Highest intensity exercises should be performed at the beginning of the
workout
Microcycles and Mesocycles
Two main goals
● Allow adequate recovery between exercise periods
● Find proper balance between steadiness of a training stimulus to call forth an adaptation
and its variability to avoid premature accommodation and staleness
Adequate recovery
● In microcycle
○ Rest-exercise alteration and proper exercise sequencing alleviate fatigue
○ Greatest training adaptation occurs when muscles are recovered from previous
training periods and best prepared to tolerate the greatest overload
[Link]
○ Elite athletes train 5-6 times per week(like in THP), in these cases proper rotation
of exercises in sequential sessions is essential(back to back sessions should not
involve the same muscle groups and repeat the same patterns of muscle
coordination)
○ Recovery time for heavy resistance training varies with muscle size, the smaller
the muscles the more frequently you can train them
○ To increase muscular strength you want to do heavy resistance training at least
three times per week
○ To retain strength gains, at least 2 training sessions per week should be
scheduled (that last about 30 minutes)
Variability
● Variability in training programs within a micro- and mesocycle is realized through
changes in training load and NOT exercise complexes
● One stable complex of exercises should be performed in a mesocycle to elicit an
adaptation
○ Complexes usually consist of ten exercises that are distributed among the
training days and workouts of one microcycle
○ Each exercise is usually performed at least twice per week
● To avoid premature accommodation
○ Training loads should vary day to day and microcycle to microcycle
○ Rule of 60%
■ Training volume of a day with minimal loading in a microcycle should be
60% of the loading of a maximal day in a microcycle
Medium Term Planning (Periodization)
The issues of periodization
● One of the most complex problems in athlete training is finding the proper balance
between opposing demands which is difficult to achieve due to so many factors involved
Four issues
1. Delayed transformation of training loads into fitness
2. Delayed transmutation of nonspecific fitness to specific fitness
3. Training residuals
4. The superposition of training effects
[Link]
Delayed transformation
● It takes time to adapt to training stimulus
● Hard training induces fatigue that accumulates over time
● Period of relatively easy exercise is needed to realize the effect of the previous hard
training session aka period of delayed transformation
● Adaptation occurs when retaining or detraining load is used after a stimulating load
● Time of delayed transformation lengthens as the total training load and accumulated
training fatigue increases
Delayed transmutation
● “Transmuting” the effects of accumulation mesocycles (where you improve your ability in
assistance exercises and thus increase your non specific fitness) into specific fitness
● The number of transmutation mesocycles depends on the number and duration of
accumulation cycles
● Transmutation and realization mesocycles when considered together as one unit is
called tapering
● To properly program these mesocycles at the right times, training residuals must be
taken into account
Training Residuals
● The reduction or cessation of training brings about substantial losses in adaptation
effects BUT athletes can sustain acquired training benefits for a specific period of
time without extensively training them continually. The longer you spent training to
induce the adaptation, the longer it’ll take to detrain that quality
Four factors that determine time to detraining
1. Duration of the immediately preceding period of training (period of accumulation)
2. Training experience of athlete
3. Targeted motor abilities
4. Amount of specific training loads during detraining (or retaining) mesocycles
Superposition of training effects
● Training effects are specialized
[Link]
○ Methods that induce beneficial adaptation in one motor ability or physiological
system may produce negative effects on another ability or system
○ Transfer of either positive or negative effects between two types of training is not
necessarily symmetrical ie. max strength helps power, but power doesn’t help
max strength
Periodization as a trade off
● A good periodization plan is a subtle tradeoff between conflicting demands. The greatest
gains in any one direction occur when an athlete focuses on a specific type of training for
1 or 2 mesocycles
● Attribute analogy!!!
Strength training in macrocycles
Variables that are most important in macrocycles
(same ones as mesocycles with the addition of)
1. Demand for variability in training stimuli
2. Delayed transformation of a training load
3. Delayed transmutation of nonspecific fitness into specific fitness
4. Training residuals
Variability of training stimuli (mesocycle to mesocycle)
● Variability demands are met by changing training loads and exercises
● Training load variability by itself has limits due to staleness and time constraints, so
changing exercises is preferable in long term planning
● When exercises are changed, there is initial period of decreased performance followed
by improvement after period of adaptation to new load
[Link]
Delayed Transformation (within a mesocycle)
● Because of the time delay between an increase in training load and improvement in
performance, a period of delayed transformation is needed before important
competitions(or in our case, when you want to jump high)
● The length of time of delayed transformation is positively correlated with the amount of
training load
● This period of time has decreased sessions per week, number of exercises, and number
of sets
Delayed Transmutation (mesocycle to mesocycle)
● As time to important competition decreases, exercises become more and more specific
● This is the delayed transmutation of nonspecific fitness into specific fitness
Training residuals and retaining loads
● Levels of strength can be maintained in season with retaining loads
● Retaining loads
○ Two 30-40 min heavy resistance workouts per week is usually enough
○ The more elite the athlete, the higher the retaining loads
Strength training methods in macrocycles
● Submaximal effort
○ Lifting non maximal loads to an intermediate number of times (NOT to failure)
● Repeated effort
○ Maximal number of repetitions in a set
● Maximal effort
○ Max strength and absolute strength
○ Maximal loading with minimal number of repetitions
● In a macrocycle, training generally progress from submaximal effort focused mesocycles
to maximal effort focused mesocycles
○ This is to initially prepare the musculoskeletal system and then improve neural
coordination
Types of periodization
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Four main groups of periodization methods
1. Sequential
2. Concurrent
3. Conjugate Sequence
4. Combination of all of these
Important definitions to understand for the types of periodization
● Long
○ Changes in training goals microcycle to microcycle
● Short
○ Changes in training goals session to session within a microcycle
● Linear
○ Starts with high volume/low intensity and ends with low volume and high intensity
● Undulating
○ Same sequence as linear, but uses waves of inverse volume/intensity within a
cycle(workout to workout in short or week to week in long)
Sequential
● Focus on just one training goal at a time in sequence cycle to cycle
Types of sequential periodization
● Long linear
● Short linear
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● Long undulating
● Short undulating
Concurrent periodization
● Focuses on all training goals at the same time, with the same amount of emphasis
on each goal
Types of concurrent periodization
● Ordinary concurrent method
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● Emphasized concurrent method
Conjugate Sequence System
● Focuses on all training goals at the same time, with increased emphasis on 1 training
goal and decreased emphasis on all other training goals
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