The Dynamic Effort Method for Strength?: Part I
I’ve written pretty extensively about the dynamic and max effort methods in the past but I’ve never really written about the dynamic effort method in the context of training athletes SPECIFICALLY and why there are modifications to this method that will increase the likelihood of carryover to the field of play. There’s a good amount of information on my podcast Strength Coach Rants, which can be found here and over on our YouTube channel here. This article is going to lay out my case for why the dynamic effort method shouldn’t be used to increase totals when it comes to athletic performance development, but instead as a modality for gains in speed and speed endurance.
The Dynamic Effort Method
At its most basic level, the dynamic effort method is using sub max weights with maximal speeds. It’s categorized by sub maximal intensities between 50-60%, plus another 20-25% in accommodating resistance in the form of bands or chains (70-85% total), low volume sets (1-3 reps) and short rest periods of 45-60 seconds. The goal is to be as powerful/fast as possible, creating a bar speed of roughly 0.8m/s2. That’s a little over 2.6 feet, or 31 inches of ground covered per second. For reference, my bar path in the bench press is about 18 inches long so this would have me completing a rep in slightly over half a second. That’s moving! The thought process behind this stimulus is that the lifter will recruit maximal muscle fibers to create this bar speed, thus giving them another “max effort” lift. In Westside Barbell Book of Methods Louie writes about the volume per set mirroring the time that it takes for a 1RM. For example a 1RM in the squat takes about 2 reps worth of time in the dynamic effort method and a 1RM bench press takes about 3 reps worth of time in the dynamic effort method. The entire method is based on increasing strength. In reality, it doesn’t always work this way and we’re going to talk about WHY.
Speed-Strength vs Strength-Speed
Nothing in the world of strength and conditioning inspires goofy looks of puzzled coaches quite like these two phrases. Ask 10 coaches what they mean and you’ll get 15 different answers. There doesn’t seem to be any real consensus as to what they mean. Some coaches get it backwards, some coaches legitimately understand it, and some just stay away from it. I’m going to do my best to break these down for you because they’re actually important to the task at hand.
Strength-Speed is displaying strength in the presence of speed. It’s being able to recruit maximal muscle fibers in the shortest amount of time to create speed. It’s being able to create the greatest possible impulse in the shortest amount of time. Think of strength-speed as strength creating speed, or even speed as a byproduct of strength. When you hear that squatting more can make you jump higher and run faster this is why. Being able to deliver more force in a short period of time will absolutely create more speed.
Speed-Strength on the other hand is speed in the presence of strength. This is the ability to create/accpet forces at a rapid rate (high speeds). Think of this as speed creating “strength”, or having strength (more force production) as a byproduct of speed. When people say sprinting can drive up your squat total, this is why.
Now why are these two phrases important? Well, at Westside Barbell the dynamic effort method is a strength-speed stimulus. The powerlifters are displaying strength in the presence of speed. They’re recruiting maximal muscle fibers in a short amount of time which helps to create great speeds. These powerlifters have the prerequisite of having large amounts of absolute strength already which allows the prescribed intensities of the dynamic effort method to help with gains in strength. These athletes are able to create speed as a byproduct of their already high levels of strength.
With athletes it’s a little bit different. Most athletes do not have the prerequisite of having large amounts of absolute strength. Sure you’ve got athletes who have high levels of relative strength, and there are SOME athletes that are absolute monsters in the gym. BUT the vast majority of them aren’t what would be considered really strong, they’re just strong enough to excel in their given sport which is all they need. When it comes to athletes we’re more often than not using the dynamic effort method as a speed-strength stimulus without even realizing it. For most of these athletes, they are displaying speed in the presence of strength or creating force as a byproduct of the speed they’re producing. When using the dynamic effort method with athletes, we need to understand this because it’s going to have a big impact on how and why it’s programmed. When it comes to athletes, this is the reason why you’re not going to see bigger totals while using this method. It’s not a strength stimulus for them, it’s a stimulus for SPEED.
Why is the DE Method a Speed Stimulus and Not a Strength One?
As stated above, the strength-speed stimulus the DE method is touted for doesn’t work quite the same unless we already have higher levels of absolute strength. Throughout my career I’ve worked with thousands of athletes of all ages and abilities and utilized this method across the board. There were instances in my career where we’d have to scale back certain stimuli in the gym due to increased workloads on the field of play. Surprisingly enough I’ve had to do this with a lot of my clients’ off-season training due to the fact that sports are a year round thing now. There is no real off-season anymore, it’s stupid but it is what it is. Getting back on track here, when we ran into higher workloads on the field of play I would scale back the max effort work in the lower extremity and use the dynamic effort method coupled with a little bit higher intensity repeated effort work, while maintaining more of a max effort/modified max effort stimulus coupled with the dynamic effort method for the upper extremity. The results were relatively surprising to me at first but after diving into the reasons why it started to make sense.
What I found was that my athletes were still continuing to make progress from a strength perspective on the bench, but were struggling with the squat or deadlift (we only run one of the movements with DE and one with MME at any given time) and even backtracking some of the time on those lifts. This forced me to sit down and really try to understand why it was happening. Were they just tired from the increased workload on the field? Probably not, I’ve had athletes PR throughout their seasons pretty regularly in the past because we do a good of controlling the variables we can. Were they losing movement skill (this does actually happen sometimes)? No because they were still performing the movements fairly regularly (weekly). This wasn’t an isolated case either, this was almost across the board for all my athletes. Some with higher training ages, some with moderate training ages and some with very low training ages. One thing I will say though is that my higher training athletes never backtracked or lost strength, but we never really added any either. I think the reason for this is my higher training athletes had already spent a good amount of time developing this strength, so it didn’t take nearly as much stimulus to maintain it.
One other thing that I’ve seen within the training of my athletes over the years is that they tend to be a lot more explosive than your average individual. They’re a lot more powerful than most powerlifters to be completely honest which sounds weird but the name powerlifting is a misnomer, in practice this sport is completely void of anything resembling power. These athletes are more explosive because their sport demands it, which means that even when they’re practicing or playing, they’re getting this light load and/or explosive speed work. Many athletes are also trained off the field of play in the same manner because well, that’s what they need to excel in their sport. This explosiveness they’re able to create shows up in their training, they tend to have higher bar speeds at higher intensities but then get buried when the intensity gets higher (above 90%+). For example a lot of my athletes tend to be able to move 75-85% of their 1RM with a speed that closer resembles 55-65% intensities. This bar speed would make you think that we’re just not lifting at the right intensities but without fail, they’ll get buried when trying to set a PR. The bar speed doesn’t match the intensity at all. This is their “speed-strength” showing. Their speed capability allows them to move this heavier weight with greater speeds. Their speed creates greater force. They’re displaying speed in the presence of strength whereas powerlifters are able to apply so much force, that they’re able to create speed which would be strength in the presence of speed. I KNOW that sounds super jumbled and probably reads like Greek if you don’t have an exercise physiology and physics background but just try to understand the following:
Strength-speed
Most powerlifters —> people with higher levels of absolute strength
Applying so much force that you can create speed
Speed-strength
Most athletes —> people with lower levels of absolute strength
Displaying so much speed that you’re able to create more force
All this being said, I was able to conclude that for the vast majority of the athletes in my care (relatively small sample size I know) using the dynamic effort method in an effort to increase strength was an exercise in futility. It won’t work because for the most part, it can’t. Outside of incredibly low training aged athletes where anything and everything works to increase strength (even agility ladder drills can increase strength early on), there is no real strength value to using the method. However that doesn’t mean that the method is without merit for athletes, there is a TON of value when using this method for athletes and we’re going to talk about that later on.
But My Athletes Got Stronger Using It
Well, duh. It was a new stimulus that you introduced into their training. And as much as we want to think that our higher level athletes have high training ages, most of them don’t. I can’t tell you how many athletes I’ve worked with that are beasts on the field of play, but they’re absolutely terrible in the gym. From movement discrepancies to low base levels of strength, a lot of athletes ride the struggle bus in the gym even if they’ve achieved the highest levels of their sport. What this means is that just about any stimulus is going work for them in their quest for greater strength. These are called newbie gains by the gym bros, but in our field they’re called neurological adaptations to movement stimuli. Also, any new stimulus in even higher training age athletes is going to have a positive impact on their strength, this is why the conjugate method rotates movements as often as it does. These variations in load and movement create what the gym bros call “muscle confusion” and forces the body to continuously adapt. I’ve been training for a long time using the power lifts, so if I went to a machine based program I would more than likely get stronger and bigger (more bigger than stronger though). My body would be forced to adapt to a new stimulus even though this new stimulus isn’t considered to be a “strength” stimulus.
The dynamic effort method also gives us more practice with the movements at sub max intensities. This helps ingrain proper movement patterns leading to more efficient movement and creating better leverages. This will have a profound impact on strength initially. The accommodating resistance also keeps us in the perfect bar path, further ingraining proper movement and increasing our leverages within the lift which will both lead to strength gains especially early on in training.
There’s also the argument that teaching the athletes to be faster in the lifts will help them to break through mini maxes, or sticking points. While this is potentially true, this only helps display strength as an increased load on the bar. This isn’t strength that carries over to any other athletic endeavor.
These adaptations should not be confused with actual gains in strength that will carry over to anything outside of the lifts you’ve gained that strength in. While you’re putting more weight on the bar, you really haven’t necessarily increased your usable strength. What I mean by this is this is that this particular strength is more of a byproduct of proper movement more-so than our bodies learning to recruit more muscle fibers (this is what strength really is at the end of the day). This isn’t strength that will help your athletes on the field unless they’re powerlifters. Try to understand this as an athlete or coach: specific lifts will not transfer to the field, only overall gains in strength can do that. If you can’t replicate the increased force you create in a given movement into another movement, then that strength is not going to help you on the field. It’s as simple as that.
Why Use the Dynamic Effort Method Then?
We’ll go back to the strength-speed vs speed-strength debate for the answer to this one. For the vast majority of athletes, the dynamic effort method is a speed-strength stimulus. They’re able to produce more force because they’re fast, they’re not fast because they’re producing more force (for the most part, there are some exceptions). But if we can train that speed-strength stimulus then that’s an absolute win for the athlete. Using this method we can increase speed output as well as speed endurance. I’ll break that down here.
Increasing Speed Endurance
It’s no secret that if you train in a fast environment, you’ll be forced to become faster. And if you train in an environment where you’re forced to produce speed over and over again with minimal rest, you’ll adapt and increase your speed endurance.
Increasing Power
We’re still operating mostly around 70-85% total intensities. This is the optimal space for power production. A more powerful athlete is both more resilient and faster. This is a win.
Increasing Speed
While it won’t necessarily help us get stronger, we’ll absolutely be able to hone and create more speed using this method.
Volume
However you decide to program your reps and sets, you’re going to be hitting between 20-30+ reps. This may not be bodybuilder or cross fitter volume, but it’s a lot of volume at a relatively high overall intensity. You’ll adapt from a speed, movement proficiency and size perspective with this higher volume. Side note here: contrary to popular belief you can still grow using the dynamic effort method.
Movement Proficiency
While we’ll never really box squat or deadlift on the field of play, we’ll absolutely be able to carryover the movement cues we ingrain from these movement patterns. Doing them over and over again with sub max intensities will allow us to stay in good positions and create good movement cues for the field of play. From externally rotating the hips on the way down to (decelerating) to maintaining a rigid torso we’ll be able to use it all.
Hopefully the above is enough to convince you that this method is still a win for your athletes. While the original intent isn’t necessarily what we’re after, there are a plethora of reasons as to why you should include this method either within your conjugate method template or your daily undulating programs.
Next week I’ll be dropping the next installment of this series. We’ll go over the many different ways that you can manipulate and change this method to suit the needs of your athletes.
