I’ve decided I’m going to do a forth installment of this series which will lay out the variations and manipulations of this method that will be out later this week. There was just entirely too much info to cram into one article so this article will focus on the benefits of the dynamic effort method, and the parameters of the method itself without being manipulated to suit your needs.

Here in the third installment of The Dynamic Effort Method for Strength we’re going to talk about the benefits of using the dynamic effort method and how to incorporate this method into your training. We talked about why using it for strength is an exercise in futility here, and other ways to create higher levels of speed endurance here and now we’re going to lay out the way this method needs to be put together in its truest form. From using the method as it was intended, to using complex sets with the dynamic effort method to high volume speed work we’ll go over all of it.

Benefits of the Dynamic Effort Method

There’s a lot of benefits to this method, and it honestly works best with used within the confines of a conjugate template but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be part of a daily undulating template. Many coaches have had a lot of success with this, and we’re going to go over why it can be so beneficial below.

1 - The Difference Maker - Accommodating Resistance - Bands

I am a much bigger fan of band tension than I am chains. They’re easier to set up, and the resistance is more fluid, IMO. If given the chance to use either, I would honestly recommend bands over chains. They’re are a great tool. They can teach an athlete to continuously produce force through the entire range of motion and allow for “speed” training with barbell movements at lower intensities. The bands/chains take away the deceleration near the top end of the movement when working at lighter intensities. For example, if you were to squat 50% of your one rep max for maximal speed, you would have to decelerate/slow down near the top of the movement or you would jump right off the ground. This can be dangerous and we don’t want to train in this manner. You’d have virtually zero training effect at one of the most powerful points of the range of motion. This is a bad thing. Bands take this process away by not letting you ride out the speed you created in the bottom of the movement. Furthermore, the speed of the movement will change the load on the bar at higher points of the ROM. I know that sounds weird but hear me out:

Take a 10lb dumbbell. It’s heavy enough to make you feel something, but not so heavy that it should take a ton of effort to curl. Curl it at a rate of 5 seconds on the way up. Feels like 10lbs right? Now take that weight and curl it with as much speed as you can. How much does it feel like it weighs now? Probably a lot lighter than 10lbs. If you’re able to create a lot of speed early in the ROM, the training effect is diminished at other parts of the ROM. The faster you move this weight the less force you have to apply, it’s almost like it weighs less and that affects the training effect of the movement. Bands take this away from increasing the load as you push through the ROM.

Bands allow for a greater training effect when they’re utilized in the proper manner. They allow for more force to be applied for longer which in essence will lead to greater speeds on the field of play.

Bands also allow for a higher overall intensity. While you may only have between 50 and 65% of your 1RM on the bar, the bands can create a much higher intensity at the top of the movement. You can even overload the intensity by working above 100%. I have a block I take some of my athletes through during their off seasons that essentially allows them to handle upwards of 115% of their max using band tension along with 90% of their 1RM. This block, while REALLY intense, always produces faster 15yd sprint times and higher verticals. This block is only 2 weeks long, but the effects of it are HUGE. Being able to overload the athlete with something “above” their capabilities is a great benefit of bands.

This next point kind of goes along with the above point: bands allow for more force production as our leverages get better. Think about your squat, where are you failing? It’s never at the top, it’s in the bottom. Our leverages get better as we come out of the hole in the squat and start to stand up. This means the training effect after pushing through the bottom isn’t as great as it could be. Utilizing bands can make the movement more beneficial. It may not increase your squat total because our weakest point in the movement will ALWAYS be where our max lies, but we’re not training for totals we’re training for carryover to the field of play. It’s more than ok to increase our strength in our better leveraged positions, because we’ll use those positions WAY MORE OFTEN on the field of play. You’re almost never low on the field of play the same way you are when you squat, but we spend a ton of time in 1/4 to 2/3’s of a squat in our athletic base. Bands allow us to get stronger in the hole, while simultaneously strengthening the higher ends of our range of motion.

2 - Work Capacity

Dynamic effort work is high volume by nature. We’re not talking about Crossfit or bodybuilding kind of high volume but hitting between 20 and 30 reps of one off the big three or variations of them is a lot of volume especially when you include the fact that these reps are all done at an intensity of between 70 and 85% total. Couple that with the fact that rest periods are between 30 and 60 seconds and you’ll absolutely see an increase in your work capacity when using the dynamic effort method. This work capacity is also conducive with speed endurance, since you’ll be creating great force resulting in great speed when using this method and not quite recovering between sets. It’s a win for athletic development, but as you can see it probably won’t help out all that much when it comes to strength development outside of laying the ground work of work capacity which pushed the strength ceiling higher.

3 - Bar Speed = Field Speed!

Perhaps the greatest adaptation you can gain from the dynamic effort method is the acquisition of speed. If you’re put in the right environment and give the right effort you’ll gain the adaptations you’re after. Think about the name of this method: The Dynamic Effort Method. The word effort is right in it. Your effort levels are directly related to the adaptations you’ll gain which means the intent of speed needs to be part of the equation with this method. You may be asking “what’s the intent of speed?” The easiest way to explain this is to say what I’ve heard Louie say a billion times:

“You’ve gotta push the light weights like they’re heavy and the heavy weights like they’re light”

What this means is to try to move heavy weights with speed, and try to move light weights with everything you have. If your bench max is 300lbs, you’ve got to put 300lbs into that 150lb dynamic effort training. If you’re lifting near max or even a new max, you’ve got to try to move that 305lbs like it weighs 150lbs. While both of these are the exact same level of effort, saying it in this manner helps you to focus your efforts a little bit better. The effort level is always 100%.

With that out of the way we’re looking for a bar speed of right around 0.8m/s2, or 0.8 meters per second squared. That’s a fancy way of saying it needs to travel at a rate of about 31 inches in length per second. Training at these speeds with added accommodating resistance forcing you to continuously apply force to the load will absolutely lead to faster speeds on the field of play. The movement itself doesn’t matter all that much since we’re talking about ground reaction force more so than specific speed gained in the squat or deadlift so we can use either. To be completely honest you could also use single limb movements or dumbbell movements, the load just wouldn’t be able to be as high and we don’t really have any parameters for these types of movements.

4 - Explosiveness

This next adaptation isn’t really a physiological one, but an important one nevertheless. A lot of athletes can even learn to be powerful from using the dynamic effort method. I can’t tell you how many athletes I’ve worked with who just didn’t know how to be explosive. You see it in their jumping or accelerating, there’s just something missing. They can sometimes be quick, but they fail to have that powerful look to their movement. If you’ve been coaching for any amount of time I’m sure you’ve seen this in real time in your athletes. Sometimes med ball work can help with this as well, but nothing works better than placing a heavyish sub max intensity of their back and having them move it for speed. It will teach them to lift this weight like its a max, which in turn will carryover to their movement and help make it explosive. A lot of times this is just an athlete who’s never been taught how to be powerful, or hasn’t been put into a position where they had to be. The dynamic effort method can absolutely help clean this up.

5 - Practice with the Movements

Above I talked about work capacity and how the work in the dynamic effort method is high volume. More practice (higher volume) via this method and the fact that it’s an entire extra day of the movement itself at submit weights can really help your athletes to nail down these movement patterns you’re wanting them to become proficient in. This isn’t just great for the weight room, because remember most of the work we do in the gym is just movement cues for the field of play. If they can become proficient at the squat and hex bar deadlift by maintaining rigidity in their torso, externally rotating the hips to include the glutes and hamstrings to a higher degree and become more powerful, and learn how to push through the ground it will absolutely carryover to the field. More volume in these movements under a load can make these kinds of cues automatic on the field both increasing performance and reducing the likelihood of injuries. More reps = a better healthier athlete.

There are many other benefits to the dynamic effort method, but these are by far the biggest ones in my opinion. Utilizing this method can have a TON of benefits, even though as I’ve laid out increases in absolute strength isn’t necessarily one of them. Next we’re going to talk about the parameters of using this method.

Parameters: The Dynamic Effort Method As it Was Intended

We’re going to start off with the parameters of the dynamic effort method as it was intended to be run. This method ABSOLUTELY will work with your athletes from a speed perspective and even from a strength perspective early on in their training, because everything works early on. There’s debate as to whether or not young training age athletes need the dynamic effort method but I think there’s a ton of benefits to it provided the athletes have at least a moderate base level of strength. Below is a graphic of the parameters for the Dynamic Effort Method consisting of loads, intensities, band tensions, rest periods and volumes.

Movements

This method is going to revolve around the box squat, the deadlift and the bench press. It can and often does also incorporate variations of these movements. There are a million and one variations of these movements from safety squat box squats, to board presses and hex bar deadlifts to name a few. My advice to you is to work through using many different variations over time and find out which ones work for you/your athletes and your situation the best.

Volumes

The volumes are pretty high for the movements being performed. While not as high as a bodybuilding or CrossFit training session, this is a lot of volume for these movements for the majority of athletes. While the overall volume is high, the reps per set volume is LOW. This is so we can perform these movements with the speed we need to in an effort to attain higher speeds on the field of play. As you can see above we’re performing anywhere between 1 and 3 reps for 7 to 12 sets. Below is Prilipen’s Chart which is where we pull our volumes from.

Rest Periods

When programming with this method, make sure your rest periods aren’t too short or too long. I mostly stay between the 45-60 second mark, but every now and then I’m able to get away with 30 second rest periods. If you see a substantial drop off in bar speed lengthen the rest periods a bit until the bar speed returns.

Intensities

We’re going to go with a straight iron weight of 50-60% here, and we’re going to add in about 20-30% band tension. For most people you’re going to be playing a guessing game with your band tension over time and see what works and what doesn’t. Use your best judgement and common sense when choosing band tensions as well. For example I have a kid who is 6’7 and squats 400lbs. His bands are going to be substantially lighter then my 5’10 400lb squatter because he is so much taller. That band is going to get a much bigger stretch as he rolls through that range of motion. On the flip side I may need to use more band tension for the 5’6 manlets who train here because the bands won’t stretch as much at the top. The parameters above state 20-25% band tension, but for the most part this will be a guessing game for you until you’ve been doing it for a good while and that’s ok. Elitefts has a good band tension chart that you can reference but it should just be a guide. Don’t go calculating tonnages based on the chart unless you’re getting out there and pulling out a measuring tape to ensure it’s perfect. Use it as a guide. Like I said above just use your best judgement, air on the side of caution and don’t cripple your athletes with too much combined intensity.

Biggest piece of advice I can give you is that if you’re not a 350lb+ bench presser, do NOT use monster mini bands. They’ll be WAY too much. You’re better off living in the micro and mini band space.

When and How to Use the Method

The Book of Methods states that you want to have about 72 hours between dynamic effort and max effort lifts. I don’t know a lot of facilities that can have rotating schedules that would accommodate this so what I try to do is program the following:

Monday - Modified Max Effort Bench

Tuesday - Dynamic Effort Squat/Deadlift

Thursday - Dynamic Effort Bench

Saturday - Modified Max Effort Squat/Deadlift

While the above isn’t perfect it’s about as good as it’s going to get. This will ensure your athletes are recovered enough to train in the next session from a CNS and a soft tissue perspective. You can always do the inverse of the above as well and open your week with squatting/deadlifting which I know a lot of coaches do. I work with mostly high school kids who really look forward to the bench on Mondays so this is how I program. It keeps them engaged early in the week and I find I have better success and buy in this way but every situation is going to be different.

The next part of this is how to program it. I’ve given you a range of intensities and volumes and you shouldn’t just say “I’m working at 50% this week”, there’s a rhyme and reason to it. These are meant to be performed in waves or pendulums. They will look like the following:

• Week 1 - 50% (70-75%)

• Week 2 - 55% (75-80%)

• Week 3 - 60% (80-85%)

• Week 4 - 55% (75-80%)

• Week 5 - 50% (70-75%)

The above wave would coincide with waves in volume since the intensity would be changing. I would ask you to refer to the Prilipen’s Chart graphic above for your volumes during these weeks simply because there’s already too much clutter in this article. Just now that as your intensity increases, volume must decrease and as the intensity drops the volume must ramp up. This will ensure we’re training optimally every step of the way.

If programmed properly I can assure you that your athletes will increase their speed on the field of play. The SAID Principle (specific adaptations to imposed demands) damands that it happens.

That about wraps it up, hopefully this installment gave you decent insight into the method and how it should be programmed. The next and final installment is going to be the various ways that this method can be manipulated in an effort to suit the needs of your athletes, namely speed endurance. We’ll also go over how we can use them with complex sets and why it works better (in my opinion) than traditional complex sets when it comets an athletic population. Check back later this week for the next installment of The Dynamic Effort Method for Strength?