The BEST Way To Use Velocity Based Training

In this video, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of velocity based training.
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00:00 Intro
01:45 Potential Weaknesses of VBT
04:40 Inherent Benefits of VBT
08:00 Summary

[@anthonydude]

This is exactly how I use VBT too... To motivate me to use maximal effort on every rep, and to get a sense of incremental improvements that I otherwise wouldn't be able to detect

[@oscarrepiso5683]

Hello, Very interesting video, but I disagree with some points you’ve mentioned, and I would like to provide my reasons. Having studied and used VBT for 6 years, I believe I can contribute positively to the points you’ve raised: 1. Logistical Challenges: This is subjective, but I could agree when working with large groups of athletes. For individual or one-on-one use, if you choose good technology (like Vitruve), I don’t see any complications. 2. Variability in Individual Profiles: I don’t quite understand your point here because you say that a specific velocity was associated with a %RM, and another day it wasn’t. I don’t know if you mean for the same exercise or for different ones. In any case, I think there are points you haven’t considered (or so it seems): 1. Between exercises, velocities are different for each %RM, meaning 0.70m/s in bench press could be 70%RM, but in squats, it could be 80%RM. This is normal and depends on each exercise. 2. Velocities associated with each %RM depend on the velocity at which the 1RM is lifted, for each individual and for each exercise. While most people lift their 1RM for an exercise at the same velocity, we could find outliers who can lift it slower. 3. If you lift your 1RM at 0.15m/s for bench press, and another day you do a max test and lift it at 0.20m/s, that doesn’t mean your profile has changed, it just means that this isn’t your 1RM today; you’re simply not able to lift it that slowly today. This doesn’t require retesting or redoing your profile often as you mentioned, since nothing has changed. 4. That said, profiles rarely need repeating. It’s scientifically proven that throughout an athlete’s career, the velocity of their 1RM hardly changes, and when it does, it’s due to super-specialization in that exercise (e.g., a powerlifter in bench press will lift their 1RM slower than a basketball player). In such a case, you could have an individual profile for each athlete if you wanted. 5. Doing tests with 3 to 5 loads and measuring their velocity over time is possibly the most effective and efficient way to measure an athlete’s performance in that exercise because you can see how over time, the same loads are lifted faster or slower across the entire force-velocity curve. Often, only the 1RM is measured to evaluate performance, but this is just one point on the entire curve. Additionally, if you graph this, you can see if there have been greater improvements in one area than another, and you can draw conclusions about the effectiveness of your training. 3. I agree that if you don’t lift at the maximum intentional velocity possible, VBT makes no sense, but then very likely strength training will be much less effective. Sometimes, due to technical issues with the exercise, you may go slower in a repetition, but it falls on the coach or athlete to know this and do one more repetition, even if it appears we have reached the prescribed fatigue. 4. Regarding the comparison of RIR or RPE, I simply think it’s not a fair comparison since the training is essentially the same, and what we’re debating is the measurement method. VBT is not a training methodology; it’s a measurement tool. Evidently, you can prescribe using VBT just as you can prescribe using RIR or RPE. RIR, in particular, seems very unhelpful because doing 2 reps out of 4 possible is RIR 2, but it’s also RIR 2 to do 8 out of 10 possible. However, the effort, the fatigue generated, and therefore the stimulus, are entirely different. This doesn’t happen with intra-set fatigue, since a 20% Velocity Loss, for any intensity (with nuances), means doing half of the possible repetitions, so the generated fatigue will be the same. RPE can be a useful tool, at least to compare what VBT objectively tells us with what the athlete subjectively tells us. Not to mention that except for powerlifters, most athletes often work far from failure, making RIR and RPE tremendously imprecise. 5. That said, studies comparing VBT with PBT, RIR, or RPE, I think, are poorly designed from the start. You can do very poor training with VBT, you can make terrible decisions, and what will result is a completely disastrous training. As I said, VBT is a tool, not a methodology. 6. Regarding programming or not with VBT, I believe there are correct and incorrect ways to do it, and unfortunately, many people do it incorrectly. 1. An easy way is to prescribe absolute loads and analyze the velocity. Increase this absolute load when we are 10-15% away from the initial velocity. Something as simple as that ensures we comply with progressive overload, see daily or weekly progress, and save a huge amount of time programming. 2. Another example is having a target velocity range, where we aim for the fastest velocity of the series (which indicates the performance of the day), and when we go out of that range, we increase or decrease the weight. And I’m not talking about velocity zones, a completely wrong concept that many coaches use and which makes no sense. I hope this helps clarify the points I disagree with. Please don’t take this as criticism, but rather as constructive feedback to consider.

[@10xmz6]

Thank you very much. But could you also do a video series on time crunched training?

[@NinpoUK]

I use my velocity tracker as a monitoring tool rather than the core of my training. It let me know I had a deadlift setup problem as my 2nd rep was always always faster than my first rep.

[@passthebutter3]

Does rep speed always slow down as you approach failure? I’ve measured it on some movements and the reps absolutely did slow, but other times when I wasn’t measuring I’ve felt like I simply hit a sticking point and couldn’t complete the concentric. Then again, I’m guessing it didn’t feel like the rep slowed because I wasn’t paying attention to the rep velocity. I know Mike Israetel has argued about this metric before (kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2a0qop4hK1jaM0si=4cYCds6C3ZneQlXY at ~9:40), but that certainly seems contrary to how other exercise scientists have defined training to failure.

[@ChristopherAshton-fl5gc]

Great video, thanks. I’m a Compensatory athletic training guy, training for power, not hypertrophy. I have a VBT Tracker and use .6 m/s for my box squat, but what should be my rate of speed on RDL’s? What about Bench press? How about weighted jump squats? I’d LOVE to see a video about this. Thanks!

[@GRAYYZ]

Would you suggest that a lifter would have a daily velocity and base it off that? Some coaches do this intuitively. So then is it less about the bar speed and more about the intention to accelerate the bar, as shown by Digby Sale in 1991. If so, then why wouldn’t RPE be better than RIR, unless you are measuring against a target bar speed? Meaning one could still do several reps that don’t meet the expected bar speed. Thanks for the detail you put into your videos, Great content, I think this is an area completely forgotten by other channels. You guys have great integrity.

[@LeinonenHannu]

Did you mention using VBT to find most effective technique? Like micro adjustion some minor detail and monitoring its effect on velocity? If it works, trying to transport to change to 1RM?

[@Clownlife432]

🔥

[@ChalkandIron]

Help me apply this to bench 550

[@xregularxjohnx]

algorino

[@fitoverforty]

algo