Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - steven-miller

Pages: 1 ... 5 6 [7] 8 9 ... 33
91
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 12, 2012, 06:15:26 am »
I am going to emphasize this again, because it might have been lost somewhere... Yes, you will eventually not be able to get to 5 reps. Dreyth told you what can be done then. But if that happens to you as early as the next 2-3 months, you are doing things wrong. There is NO reason why you should get stuck so early, so get this out of your head right away. Getting only 4 reps is not even acceptable right now. Make sure (through, diet, sleep, recovery, focus, etc.) that you always get all the reps.

92
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 11, 2012, 08:55:36 pm »
Quote from: PointerRyan on April 11, 2012, 08:19:12 pm
Right k man. Right will do that. So well . I remember someone on another topic advising 50to75 ground contacts for plyos.  What you think about that? Hmm i dont know man even my own bodyweight my lower back still will round a little if i do a full squat. Well doctor said i was stiff, particularly my back a year ago when i went to check up my tailbone issue. But well i'll check with my form again. And k man . Oh btw, about the 15reps thing, what should my rep ranges be? If i keep adding weight i might be down to 4 reps.that fine? Or  maybe i can go with a 5to6or7 concept, one workout doing heavy with 5, the other more volume with 6or 7 of 3 reps?thanks again

Ground contacts does not matter as much as intensity and context. I am sure you will find good guidelines in the Q&A, which you will now go and read before you write another post, right? Read the damn book I cited regarding your form as well. Also, I said 5 reps of 3 sets is optimal in my experience. Nowhere is there mentioned something about going down to 4 or up to 7 reps, right?

93
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 11, 2012, 05:33:13 pm »
Quote from: PointerRyan on April 11, 2012, 07:26:16 am
For the mother fucking third time. Fuck you phone.gosh. Anyways i'll cut it short . I meant i'm not flexible  enough for atg squats. Also , i'm guessing 2to 4 minutes rest for squats, powercleans. And deadlifts? By the looks of it i'm suppose to drop my me jumping completely? Is it alright to rest 30seconds between legs, for lunges? I'm aiming two leg jump as my priority, but i'm slowly working my single leg jumping, thats why i do lunges. I'm lifting twice per week. Thats enough frequency?Do i stick to the routine you suggested, or maybe add lunges as a lift every workout and not alternate it with squats?also whats the reason for doing deadlifts instead of rdl, which i've been doing since it targets my pchain more specifically and would help with hip driving my squats, right?and only a set? And not expecting to be spoon fed but just to reconfirm you're talking about andrew and lance q and a section right? Cheers and thanks again

Yes, I am talking about that Q&A. Deadlifts are nearly the same as RDL, except longer ROM and no stretch reflex. Due to longer ROM they are a more "complete" exercise, RDL's are auxiliary. One set is enough, more is wasting your time. Twice per week is fine, you should not drop the jumping, but not overdo it either. You are probably flexible enough to do squats below parallel, you just need to learn correct technique. I already wrote out exact recommendations for rest times. No way to be more precise than that. Find out about the lunges / ask someone that knows single leg jumping. Once per week squatting is not enough. If you have to do lunges, do them in addition to squats. Always squat.

94
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 11, 2012, 06:02:03 am »
Quote from: PointerRyan on April 11, 2012, 03:11:50 am
Well sorry actually meant i dont have the flexibility to go full. The reason i go above parallel slightly is cause i probably progressed too fast in the past, hurting my range and thats why i'm doing above parallel. I guess i should cut down the weight?how much you recommend?so really just 15reps ? Hmm explosive lifts like what you recommend?also plyos from lance performance blog you mean? Man so basically just 1set of each variation of the boundings yeah? If thats not it there's lots of topic in andrew and lance q and a not sure which you talking about. Also how may sets and reps for lunges and explosive lifts?

I don't quite understand everything you said there, but I am trying...

If you need to take weight off to make a proper squat, you obviously have to do it. How much? As much as necessary.

Yes, 3 sets of 5 reps (=15 work reps total) is optimal, more is wasted energy for you at this point in time.

I generally recommend either the powerclean or the powersnatch as explosive exercises for jump training. I believe the powerclean would right now be a proper choice for you. Remember what I wrote under 1) though, you need to do this, you can't just skip the learning part or cut it short. Buy Starting Strength 3rd Edition or any kind of book/resource that explains the lifts in some detail. You cannot train effectively without a basic understanding of the lifts. Reading recommended book and following the instructions is one of the easiest ways to gain an understanding of lifting weights.

Regarding plyos, you could do boundings and altitude drops (depth drops). Set and rep schemes are in Lance's Q&A. I am not going there to find it for you. I am sure you are capable of that yourself.

Do 5 triples with the powerclean. 3 sets of 5 with the lunges (per leg, obviously).

Again, do not expect anyone to get to you and present things on a silver tablet. Everyone here is quite willing to help, but some of it you need to take care of yourself. Go and learn.

95
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Kadour Ziani's Legs
« on: April 10, 2012, 12:04:48 pm »
Avishek regarding strength training:
Quote
It does work, but some athletes have other means of jumping higher. As long as they exist, we know that there are other mechanisms besides higher force production as a result of force training such as squatting and deadlifting that increase explosiveness and vertical jump.

Several problems with this. Just because there are characteristics that correlate with VJ besides force production DOES NOT TELL US that trying to improve those characteristics is an effective or efficient approach to train for VJ. I and everyone else here is aware that different factors than strength may be causally linked to the height of a VJ. But no matter how strong such a connection is, it might not have any implications for practical training purposes if there is no good way of improving those characteristics. For example, lets say leg length is strongly causally linked to VJ height. Would you then say that training for leg length is the best way to train for a higher vertical? I would not.

Take away message is that there are numerous factors that determine VJ height. Some of them are effectively trainable, some are trainable and some are not trainable. Strength and power in the weight room are two effectively trainable parameters that have been shown over and over again to lead to higher verticals. There might be other training methodologies that work well. However, I have rarely seen a good documentation of a meaningful VJ increase through flexibility training. The studies that Avishek posted are again meaningless for this discussion. It is essentially said that untrained people (not the population we are concerned about, right?) gain as much strength through flexibility training as through strength training. Show me that the strength group trained effectively (read: following a linear progression in the squat for 5 weeks, which should increase their training weights by ~75 lbs). When they were trained on a leg pressing machine (or similar device) or with no linear progression the study is worthless outside of demonstrating the lack of competence of the researchers.

96
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 10, 2012, 09:36:31 am »
Quote from: PointerRyan on April 10, 2012, 02:13:23 am
Well steven i do slightly above parallel was thinking of changing to full or at least parallel and below since i'm still not flexible enough. Hmm i actually do squats, lunges, rdl, lying leg his raises , some twisting thing for oblique.last is calf raises. I dont take more than 3 minutes. Beyond 4 minutes is rare. So steven you suggest i can take lunges away, me continue targeting about 25 total reps for squats?you can check my journal for my plyos and lower body. Stretching i donot write it down but yeah 20to30minutes. Even so an hour 30minutes is minimum for lower. Plyos i did it in an hour including warm up. Btw i take 20to30minutes for squats including warm up set.20minutes for lunges including a warm up set.normal?

Then it is as bad as I thought it would be. My advice:

1. Learn proper exercise execution
- if you have not read about how to do EACH exercise and evaluated/improved your technique accordingly, you are probably doing it wrong.
- if you squat above parallel the problem is technique, not flexibility (it very, very rarely is) => adjust your stance, post video etc.
2. Adjust exercise selection as I pointed out
- squats => 3 sets with 5 reps works best. Period. More than that and it complicates recovery a lot. Not necessary.
- 1-2 plyo exercises (refer to Lance Q&A, he discussed some good stuff)
- RDL is fine for later, right now I would advise to do full deadlifts for 1 set of 5 reps
- do an explosive lift as well (for a couple of triples or doubles)
- rotate exercises: always squat, alternate deadlift with explosive lift, do only one plyo exercise before weights
3. Get PRs every time
- self-explanatory. If you do not PR nearly every time for months, you are doing something wrong.
4. Pause times
- if you do what I advised your work-out will get substantially shorter. Some of that time you will need to invest in longer breaks between sets. The rule of thumb is this: if you need more time to get the scheduled PR, you take that time. Quality over quantity.

Btw., if you are a one-legged jumper you might want to alternate squats with lunges. But I do not know if that actually works better, ask someone that does.

97
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Average workout duration
« on: April 09, 2012, 08:22:24 pm »
Workout duration is something that is very much so determined by training advancement, number of exercises and volume.

In your case I would assume that your exercise selection is not adequate. From what I read into your post you are trying to do too much in one session. For a beginner that is a very bad approach since you will end up doing lots of things worse.

Doing plyos before weights is fine, but you should at most do 1-2 plyometric exercises and 1-2 lower body exercises. I would even say that you should not necessarily do more than 3 lower body exercises per session and I would probably opt for 1 plyometric exercise, squats and then either deadlift/powerclean or some snatch variation.

It is also not necessary to do 30 minutes of warming up, activation and sprints. Depending on temperature 5-15 minutes general warm-up (which is supposed to have an activating effect in the first place) is fine. You would then warm-up each exercise/lift seperately anyways. If you only need stretching to maintain your flexibility, you do not need to invest more than 10 minutes into it. Doing exercises over full ROM is going to preserve the flexibility that you need for your sport (unless you are a dancer or something). So you can even consider skipping it entirely.

10 (warmup) + 30 (1 plyo exercise) + 60 (squats and 1 pulling exercise) + 10 (stretching, optional) = 1 h 50 min (or 1 h 40 min without stretching).

I had lots of really, really long gym sessions. They become necessary early enough, but right now 2 h is, IMO, the top limit you should need to finish your workout. If you still need longer, something is wrong with your training plan.

98
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Kadour Ziani's Legs
« on: April 09, 2012, 05:32:56 pm »
Quote from: TheSituation on April 09, 2012, 03:44:04 pm
If everyone just negged every Avishek and Harvey post we could pretend they don't exist.

That would be a pretty healthy approach, I think.

99
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Kadour Ziani's Legs
« on: April 09, 2012, 10:53:07 am »
Threads like this are disturbing as hell. There is one guy that jumps really high and is really flexible and for people like Harvey the connection is immediately formed that more flexibility leads to a higher vertical. While strength increases have been shown over and over again to lead to higher vertical jumps (something that Harvey does not seem to believe), I do not know of similar cases where people just increased their flexibility and then jumped higher.

When Ziani would only eat grass, would you then conclude that his high VJ has something to do with his eating habits?




100
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Importance of Low Body Fat Percentage When Jumping
« on: April 05, 2012, 01:28:47 pm »
@Harvey: You can do whatever you want. The fact that you are willing to do what others have tried with little success instead of what others have tried with lots of success tells a lot about either the quality of your thinking or your priorities. I wish you good luck either way.

101
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Importance of Low Body Fat Percentage When Jumping
« on: April 04, 2012, 06:16:05 am »
Quote from: Harvey M. on April 03, 2012, 11:47:13 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on April 03, 2012, 05:23:55 pm
irrational fear of putting on useful body mass.

That's just it. Fat isn't useful body mass. Is there any way we can increase strength/power/elasticity and remove body fat efficiently?

Why do you think fat is not useful? A certain amount of body-fat IS useful and necessary. The question is rather where the optimum range for a given individual and goal is.
The problem you have, and that is where "irrational" comes into play, is that you want to LOOK lean as well as perform, train and recover well. Recognize the capital wording of "look" - that is to emphasize that this is a rather different goal from improving sports performance. If you weren't heavily concerned about your abs you would aim to optimize the ES/BW ratio slowly and steadily over time, regardless of which body composition comes along in the process. Instead you for some reason think that you can avoid optimization problems between opposing goals, which you cannot.

Also realize the high probability that optimal BF-levels differ between individuals depending on many factors. For example gender - women will probably perform best with higher BF% compared to men. Hormonal differences between individuals are also very likely to be an influence, as are a plethora of other things.

Finding which level YOU perform best at is going to be an iterative process and right now you probably are not able to come to a valid judgment. Train heavy for a while, make steady progress in your lifts and other athletic tasks, and don't worry too much about your bodyweight. You don't need to eat "unhealthy" or stuff yourself if you do not want to, but eat enough to recover at a normal rate for your degree of training advancement (read: very fast recovery and a lot more food than you eat when not training). Doing that correctly you will quickly understand that gaining bodyweight in the process is not going to do hinder your progress - quite the contrary is often true, especially with guys like you.

102
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Would you guys recommend I deadlift instead of RDL?
« on: April 03, 2012, 09:37:46 pm »
Low-bar squats involve hamstrings more and I am all for them but I disagree about using them exclusively. You still need a pull in my opinion to really balance everything out as good as possible.

Other than that, deadlifts are great and I cannot think of a single reason why not to do them. RDLs have the advantage of a stretch-reflex in a potentially important ROM (of the hips) for the VJ, but I am not even sure if that has any positive effect on jumping. If you can deadlift and you want to do them, do them IMO.

103
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Importance of Low Body Fat Percentage When Jumping
« on: April 03, 2012, 09:19:06 pm »
Quote from: D4 on April 03, 2012, 08:18:25 pm
... but instead you're just simply saying don't be scared to gain some weight/muscle, as long as you don't go past your optimal range.

Exactly!

104
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Importance of Low Body Fat Percentage When Jumping
« on: April 03, 2012, 08:03:51 pm »
Quote from: D4 on April 03, 2012, 07:31:14 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on April 03, 2012, 07:26:54 pm

Quote from: D4 on April 03, 2012, 06:20:23 pm
Steven, I agree with everything you said but am interested in if you think the exact same thing for single leg jumpers?

In principal it does. It might be that single leg jumpers have different priorities, but they still would want to be really powerful in relation to their bodyweight, right?

Well, if added bodyweight does not bode well for single leg jumping, shouldn't adding more mass than necessary not be a focus for single leg jumpers?  Since power/strength doesn't correlate with jumping high as much as it does compared to double leg jumping?

I mean of course I agree a single leg jumper should try to improve there power/BW ratio as much as possible, but I would think they should try to do so without gaining too much weight, while a double leg jumper can ignore this and gain more weight without worrying about it as long as the weight is muscle.

There is going to be an optimal bodyweight for every individual and jump type. Higher will be worse, lower will be worse as well. The mean optimal bodyweight is going to be lower for single leg jumpers I believe. But you do not want to "minimize" bodyweight as Harvey indirectly suggested (see wording "anorexic"). You want to be around that "optimal" spot, where your body can function properly, where you can train and recover properly and where you are really powerful and strong.

I want to ask you a different but related question though. You said strength/power does not correlate high with single leg jump height. Regardless of whether this is true or not, what do you suggest single leg jumpers to train then? You don't suggest to add leg length, do you? ;-)


105
Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Re: Importance of Low Body Fat Percentage When Jumping
« on: April 03, 2012, 07:26:54 pm »
Quote from: TheSituation on April 03, 2012, 07:03:08 pm
Quote from: steven-miller on April 03, 2012, 05:23:55 pm
When I weigh 300 lbs with 25% bodyfat and powersnatch 900 lbs, where do you think that puts my SVJ? Right, probably a lot higher than Harvey's.



meh. There's a point of diminishing returns from what I understand. Obviously you're being sarcastic with the weight but that's not the point. Nobody on this site is anywhere near that point though, so don't think I'm saying stay weak and skinny Raptor.

I think we do not disagree.

Quote from: D4 on April 03, 2012, 06:20:23 pm
Steven, I agree with everything you said but am interested in if you think the exact same thing for single leg jumpers?

In principal it does. It might be that single leg jumpers have different priorities, but they still would want to be really powerful in relation to their bodyweight, right?

Pages: 1 ... 5 6 [7] 8 9 ... 33