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Strong post. This has been my experience, as well. I can DL 370# at a bw of 168 but my BEST running jumps are 30.5". That's because I spent a long time wanting to get stronger to get my vert better but not actually jumping while I was doing it. In retrospect, this was beyond stupid.

I don't think jumping is the end of it all in terms of making max strength usable. Sure, you need to jump if that is what you are training for, but people neglect resisted power work such as cleans and snatches and getting better at these, too. The advantage that I see for the olympic lifts and their variants over exercises such as jump squats is that they are better scalable and also involve a more complete pattern of hip flexion/extension. That does not mean that jump squats are a bad exercise, Kelly Bagget posted a nice variation here a while ago where you make jump squats and try to touch a band overhead with each rep. I like this idea since it makes progressing in that exercise a lot more quantifiable.

So in my opinion making use of max strength boils down to making the correct exercise selection and make objective, quantifiable progress in those exercises. If that cannot be done, choose a different exercise. Actually jumping is a part of that, too, but I don't think it is the answer to consistent progress for people that are beyond the novice stage.

I agree with Lance here, because I think that this mind set is broken and might not lead to where you actually want to go. Although hypertrophy and strength have a lot to do with each other, the primary goal can only be one of those two and it should not be hypertrophy if you are an athlete that needs basic strength. Your primary goal needs to be to get as strong as possible with whatever hypertrophy comes along with that. And you need to measure your progress accordingly, namely how much stronger you got in a specific period of time by work weights going up instead of circumference of your thighs or massiveness of your glute muscles.
I think what Lance means with "bodybuilding type training" is that you think about hypertrophy increases more than strength increases rather than the topic of rep ranges. And I agree with that, although I think that there will be an optimum rep range that will work best for a specific goal in a specific situation. I am personally not a fan of the egalitarian thinking that everything works best. Because that is not how the universe operates, but that again is another topic altogether. It's just that in this field, where most of the exercise science is just either crap or does not have clear implications for the real world (think studies done an the cellular level), there is hardly enough objective, scientific data for everyone to see and draw conclusions from about what actually works best and what is not. So trainers and trainees will come to their own conclusion and it boils down to who you believe has the most experience and the best knowledge and data to support their findings. But just because this is the current stage of practice does not mean that everything works best. Again, it is not. [/rant]

But yes, you need to think about getting strong and forget about that nonsense that you need a hypertrophy phase of training where that is your primary goal.

He will need the powercleans...

So you guys are suggesting sets of 5 instead of sets of 8?

I'll consider that. I'll work for a while with the what I have planned for now, and observing what is going on, I might adjust it. I have like 4-5 months of strength training planned if no injuries occur, so that's plenty of time to change stuff it I need to.

Do you really think a 3x5 is enough stimuli for good hypertrophy to occur (if the food intake is right)? I'm more into hypertrophy than strength as my target right now, I want to switch to a more strength-focused rep range later (4-6).

See, that type of periodization is what I don't understand for someone with your levels of strength. It is unnecessary complicated for a beginner- intermediate, especially in face of the fact that hypertrophy and strength go hand in hand. I never in my whole training life did more than 5 reps as a work set and I have thigh circumferences somewhat over 24". Regardless of hypertrophy or strength as a primary goal - mid to long term you are better off with 5s at this point in time. You can use higher volume for hypertrophy once you manage appreciable weights IMO. That is if you are into bodybuilding now.

I think what you write might be time efficient - for a late intermediate to advanced lifter. You are far from that and you should not over complicate things. There is really no need for this kind of complex programming where you have a hypertrophy stage, a strength stage and a maximum intensity stage. That would typically be useful for an advanced guy, who might want to gradually decrease volume but increase intensity, but certainly not for you. You should just worry about getting your 5 rm up and you will experience lots of hypertrophy and lots of maximal strength gains in a shorter period of time than what you are shooting for now.

That's my take on it.

@Raptor: I had the same thing for a while with the low-bar squats, I even logged it way back in my journal. Although I had decent technique my elbows did hurt doing heavy weights. The same happened to some people on Mark Rippetoe's board. Adjusting the grip width has helped in all those cases as far as I know - including myself. I have had problems for weeks with this and taking a slightly wider grip made a small but noticeable difference until the pain subsided completely after a few work-outs. I have never had any elbow problems with squats again after that, even when going max. So you might want to give that a try!

Man, the guy got small as hell. He is really looking scrawny there and I liked it better when he performed his ugly but heavy squats, cleans, snatches and deadlifts. He used to have a decent bench, too.

This is used as conditioning, it's not supposed to be a strength exercise primarily I guess.