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Well I'd like to do more of a transition from strength to strength-speed and then speed-strength. So basically, the idea is to move from squats to jump squats to depth jumps. I was thinking of combining squat and 1-2 jump squats one day, and the other day 1-2 squats with depth jumps. So strength - strength speed one day, strength speed - speed strength the other (if you consider depth jumps as speed strength).

I could probably do the sprints on Wednesday if I take care and lower the volume of the other stuff the other days so I won't burn myself up with overtraining.

Yea, thats fine, what I was saying was the bounds and sprints need to be kept together on the same day, you can do the other reactive/plyo exercises on different days as long as the overall volume isnt too high for you to recover from.  Sprints and bounds are going to be real similar to the body, the jumps, depth jumps, jump squats etc., are also real similar movement patterns, so keeping those together on the same day will work best. 

Hey guys,
Iv got a bump/lump on the top of my knee cap which has been causing me some pain when i jump or squat.. Or even just flex my quad.

Iv seen a doctor and had an xray and bone scan done, and the doc just recons its quad tendonitis...

Can tendonitis actualy cause a lump ?

Yea, thats very common with tendonitis to be able to actually see some of the swelling around the knee, particularly the sides.  Make sure you rest it, anti inflammatory meds can help but they wont stop you from aggravating the injury if you dont get to the route of the problem.  Foam roll the it bands, stretch the quads, glutes, hams, and hip flexors, make sure form is good on squats and other lower body lifts, and include plenty of hamstring work in your training.   

 Nice man, thats not "horrible" at all, its a max dead and you rounded a little and kinda str8 legged it, easy to fix those things.  Congrats on pr!

This may be a late post, but I'm reading this and I have to point out:

Lifting with 100% intensity on every rep is going to kill your CNS. Think about it, 25 maximal reps (not including warm ups! some ppl ramp up the weight with all that intensity too) and then maybe another 50 maximal reps for the rest of your workout. And some people train 3x a week!

 This is wrong, and I am not advocating psyching up for all sets and reps, the point is the intent of maximal bar speed.  Lifting with a premium on SPEED of the rep, not grinding out rep after rep, is alot more cns friendly and will give more carryover to athletic performance than lifting a heavy weight slowly, the time under tension alone will be much greater for the latter, causing much more fatigue and cns drain.  Explosive lifting is used by many as a recovery method, and it works very well in that way, in fact, a good way to deload from a heavy, low rep, maximal strength block is to perform an explosvie strength block and let the cns recover.  

 The body will also obviously not be able to maintain max speed or intensity on every rep regardless of intent, so the mere fact that you say "50 maximal reps" sounds like something out of a Schroeder article, makes that impossible, and is bullshit also.  The body is very good at allowing what it can and cant handle, TRYING to move the weight as explosively as possible, will keep the rep speed higher, but it will obviously not be MAXIMAL later on in the workout.  

  Last, there is really no need to go any further into this, but many olympic lifters lift VERY CLOSE TO MAXIMAL, if not maximal, weights several days per week, in multiple sessions per day, at maximum speed, regardless of load.  They do very well with it.  The time under tension on a slow, heavy, lift, is going to cause more overall fatigue and systemic breakdown than accelerating a weight through its entire range of motion, END OF STORY.

 

BUTTTTTTTT what people don't realize is that the body is highly adaptable. It's not just your muscles that will be able to adapt and recover faster from workouts and be able to put out more force when fatigued than before. It's also the nervous system that will slowly adapt to this new stimulus as well. So make the most of your workouts people. It's literally like fast fowarding through a huge macrocycle in your training because you'll learn to recover faster while making better gains.

Wish I knew this before. Smolov jr taught me a lot.

Thats the goal of ATHLETIC training, to not only stimulate the musculature, but become more powerful and explosive as a whole, a highly trained and hard to fatigue cns.  Football, basketball, track, etc., all require extremely intense burst of speed and power, over and over and over again, throughout game after game, and practice after practice.  This is a quality that can be improved, and one of the best ways to do so is the intent to move loads as quickly and powerfully as possible.

 All that being said, there are times that tempo and slowing down a lift may be of benefit, BUT THIS IS GOING TO BE MORE DRAINING ON THE BODY, AND REQUIRE A LONGER RECOVERY PERIOD, than lifting explosively.  

Quote from: Dreyth on February 06, 2011, 09:46:46 pm

Oh, btw, i think the low bar squat translates a bit less to the VJ. However, since you can use more weight in the low-bar, it pretty much evens out. IMO you'd probably be at the same spot VJ-wise with either approach...

example:

A - After 3 years, Squat high-bar 405lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"
B - After 3 yeras, Squat low-bar 440lbs at 200lbs bw and jump 30"

Choose on preference.

well, i slightly disagree.. depends on how you actually perform the low bar/high bar squat.. if it's low bar PL, then i think it has less transfer regardless.. i feel squatting with more "forward knee shift" transfers better to svj/rvj.

pc

Agree 100%, bar placement does not dictate the many other factors that determine the knee, hip, ankle, angles.  I have had several lifters who are able to stay more upright during a squat with the lower bar placement, actually getting more quad involvement than they do with the higher bar placement that forces them to lean forward more and end up failing at the low back first, rather than the legs.   

 

what I was doing in those 4 weeks was just adding 5kg more to my squats every week (there's one workout a week with squats excluding other days with box squats and jump squats). I'm wary of adding more than that because I had a few knee problems a while back which was aggrevated by squatting although this seems to have got better now and I don't get the pain anymore.
sometimes what I'll do is add another 5kg on the last set to see how I do if I felt the other sets were too easy.

The most important thing at this point in your training is to continue to add weight to the bar linearly, workout to workout, or week to week, for as long as you possibly can.  There will come a time in your training when this is no longer possible and you have add load less frequently, accumulating more fatigue to be capable of adding the 10 or so lbs that you are able to add each week now.  Until that time happens, take advantage of being able to progress in a more timely fashion.

what are your views on wearing weightlifting belts when squatting? I've never done it because I feel hindered and the weights I'm doing at the moment probably aren't heavy enough to call for it. do they make the lift easier by supporting the back or is it just for injury prevention, reminds me of a bench press video where people had commented that the guy was wearing a special bench press shirt which makes the lift easier.

I dont have a problem with athletes wearing belts on their heaviest sets, especially if they are squatting below parallel, as long as they are not wearing the belt around the gym for everything they do.  The belt helps the lifter maintain pressure in the core as it gives them something to push the belly into.  It is in no way similar to a bench press shirt, a bench press shirt is a whole different animal, belts are legal in RAW  powerlifting feds, a bench shirt is 100% "gear" and will aid the lift much more.  Alot of athletes dont gain any extra poundage on their lifts by using a belt, they use it because they feel more secure by staying tighter in the hole.  fwiw, I wouldnt start using a belt unless you are already in the 400lb range with your squats anyway, and even then only on your last sets of the workout, where the weight is maximal.  Squatting 300 is alot different than squatting 400, and squatting 500 is much different than squatting 400, until there is a definite reason to use one, I would continue as you are.  

  Most athletes dont know how to use a belt correctly anyhow unless they come from a more powerlifting type background or a place where their coach has taught them the proper way to use one.  They just feel more comfortable with it on, hence really not getting anything out of the belt.  The back side of the belt does next to nothing, the front side of the belt is where the magic is and unless you understand how to push out into the belt, creating the tightness i mentioned earlier, the belt is a waste of time for you.  If you are not full squatting, the belt is also not going to be necessary.  If you are squatting full, in the 400lb range, and have solid understanding of how to use a belt, on your heaviest sets or pr sets, then it can be a useful tool.  

I'm looking forward to finding out whether I'm weak or not  

Doesnt matter, as long as YOU are improving in a timely fashion, YOU are successful in YOUR training, regardless of what others numbers are.  If your program does not allow for this to happen you need to change things, if what youre currently doing does allow for progressive, linear improvements, for as long as you can possibly make them, then keep at it.