Andrew, really appreciate the time you put into that post. That link was also a good read. One question I have after digesting all of that is:
Does the concentrated loading block HAVE to be accumulated fatigue from high volume/high intensity weight room training? Can't the accumulated fatigue in this block be from a mixture of high intensity weight room stuff AND high intensity plyo's (volume split between the two)? Because bottom line, the fatigue accumulated that creates supercompensation is CNS fatigue and both weights AND high intensity plyo's can induce this CNS fatigue (thus reducing maximal and especially explosive strength) right?
hey,
It probably could be BUT the risk of injury would be far greater if you're attempting max effort plyos in a "depleted state". I havn't seen any plyo blocks from Verk & such that has you training through accumulated fatigue. He mostly advocates against it. Since RFD is so important, training through significant fatigue becomes counter productive when it comes to ME plyos. He does promote gradually introducing exercises from the next block, within the concentrated strength block. But this is just a gradual increase so to get back to being familiar with those movements/jumps etc. They aren't max effort yet.
But what you're saying makes sense.. CNS wise, I don't think there would be too much of a difference. With strength work (barbell movements etc) you can achieve various levels of fatigue through intensity (weight on the bar), volume, and frequency. The same goes for plyos (depth jumps for example). However, increasing intensity/volume on depth jumps isn't as easy as barbell work, it's riskier & has far more precautions. If you're in a fatigued state and doing depth jumps 4-5d/wk, the risk to injury of your joints/ligaments probably rises exponentially.
So you would have to use submax variations of plyos/reactive work and focus on volume/frequency. It sounds harder to measure/implement this compared to strength training. Sounds like alot of experiments with volume and such.
In the end though, why not use strength work to manage fatigue & just incorporate submax reactive work throughout the routine to maintain/improve movement efficiency and such? Not necessarily using it to try and accumulate CNS fatigue?
pc!