The Dynamic Effort Method for Strength?: Part IV
In this final installment we’ll go over various ways that this method can be manipulated to suit the needs of the population that you’re training. The focus here is mostly going to focus on speed endurance, however we will also touch on how this method can be used in conjunction with jumps via complex sets. If you haven’t read the other three installments of this series go ahead and check them out here:
Part I - in this article I go over why your dynamic effort method work may not be working in your efforts to acquire more strength. There’s a reason Westside uses it with their athletes, and you more than likely do not have athletes with the appropriate base levels of strength to get the same adaptations that they get. There’s a lot of info in this one that lays down the foundation for the rest of these articles so start here.
Part II - In this installment we talk about speed endurance and the methods many coaches use to acquire it. We’ll go over the pros and cons for three different modalities commonly used by coaches and hopefully you’ll walk away with an understanding of why these training stimuli aren’t the best way to acquire this speed endurance.
Part III - In this article we go over the various benefits of the dynamic effort method, and lay out programming parameters for this method when it is used the way it was originally intended to be used. If you’re new to this method, these parameters are actually a really good place to start because it will give you an understanding of how to manipulate it. Plus if you don’t understand the method at its core, you won’t understand why different aspects of it need to be manipulated!
The Dynamic Effort Method
I feel like written this statement a thousand times over the course of the last week in writing these articles: dynamic effort method. Louie Simmons accidentally stumbled on the greatest physical preparation for sport training template ever created when he developed the Conjugate Method for his powerlifters. I don’t want anything I’m writing in these four articles to take away from that fact. I just don’t believe that it works for strength within the confines for athletic development and we would be better suited changing certain aspects of this method to acquire the adaptations our athletes need. I’m going to break down the various ways that we use this method at The Lyons Den for acquiring speed and speed endurance. Buckle up because there’e a bunch.
The Method the Way It Was Intended to Be Used
After reading the past three articles of this series you may be surprised to hear that here at the Lyons Den we actually use this method the way Louie intended it to be used at times. There’s a few reasons for this:
It introduces the athlete to the effort levels needed with this method
It lays a really good foundation for the rest of their training via work capacity and speed
It still works for speed and even strength early on in an athletes training
We usually use this method when athletes first come back into the gym in their offseason. We’ll do a three week wave beginning at 50% week 1, 55% week 2, and 60% week 3. This is typically a very high training volume block that I have my athletes in so we’re really not getting super specialized in their speed just yet. They need to create a higher level of work capacity so that we can push their strength ceiling higher and the dynamic effort method assists in doing so. I also use it because I don’t like including AMRAPs or true repeated effort work (done to failure) on max effort days with my athletes. Doing them both in the same session is just too large of an ask from the tissue, especially early on in their training. We can do the dynamic effort work and then hit an AMRAP at a percentage anywhere between 50-75% without completely destroying the athlete (although many will feel like they’ve been hit by a bus at times during that first week). These work capacity focused blocks early on in their training lay the foundation for the rest of their offseason. In this scenario (early off season), this method actually helps us reacquire strength lost during the season as well.
Using this method also gives us more work with their main movements to help them recapture these movement skills that may have been lost during the season. The loads are “light” enough that they’re able to reclaim their positioning within the movements. Heavier loads don’t tend to allow for this. I won’t lay out the parameters here because there is a very detailed layout in Part III towards the middle/end of the article. Just know that there’s merit to using it with your athletes either in an early work capacity block or as an introduction to the method and the ways that you’ll be manipulating the variables to suit your needs.
Preseason Speed Blocks
A couple of caveats here before we get going. First off this block is used after athletes have created solid strength levels AND have acquired adequate work capacity to not only get through this work, but recover from it. This is NOT a training block for beginners or those with a really low training age. Secondly, for the vast majority of my athletes we’ve all but eliminated the dynamic effort bench press. I just don’t find a ton of value in it with most of them, so we tend to throw in another modified max effort bench press variation in the place of the dynamic effort work. Some athletes will see this aspect of this block, but the vast majority of them don’t benefit from it for they won’t see it. With that out of the way we’ll get into it.
When we get about three weeks out from when my athletes report we’ll typically hit a “speed” block. I still use the Max Effort Method, the Dynamic Effort method and the Repeated Effort Method but they all get a little bit of a tweak. I also have strength focused blocks as well as work capacity focused blocks within my conjugate template training. Remember it’s the thinking man’s (or woman’s) template! Back to speed though, within these speed blocks we scale back the intensity and crank up the volume when it comes to their dynamic effort work. Where we would normally ascend and then descend in our waves with the dynamic effort method, we only descend (intensity) in this three week block. Within this block we also utilize accommodating resistance for our max effort work pushing the overall intensity around 105-110%. That part is outside the scope of this article but I feel like it was worth mentioning since we scale back the dynamic effort work intensity so much, we more than make up for it with their max effort (modified max effort) work.
Our intensities drop down to between 30-40%, our volume gets cranked way up and our rest period drop a little bit. Below is a breakdown of the parameters for each movement:
Speed Block Parameters
Movements- Main Three
Intensities - 30-40%
Accommodating Resistance - 20-25%
Volumes - Reps and Sets - vary
Rest Periods - 30-60 seconds
Total Intensities - 50-65%
If you look at the above breakdown you’ll see that it looks pretty different from your typical dynamic effort work. The overall intensity drops from 70-85% all the way down to 50-65% and our in set volumes get as high as 8 reps! The reason for this? Most sports are played in small areas, in relatively short time frames. Points in tennis are typically between 3-7 seconds and you’re confined to a court that is 78 ft long and 27 ft wide, plays in football average around 3-4 seconds and rarely cover more than 5-6 yards on average, bouts of high effort in hockey rarely exceed 5-8 seconds and typically take place in an area of a few meters in diameter, all out effort in baseball doesn’t happen all that often but when it does it’s really short lived and not often further than 90 feet which takes most players about 5 seconds to cover. These are all really short bouts of time where there is a need for an extremely high effort repeated over and over again for short periods. These parameters within this speed block are between 3 and 8 seconds. It also mimics the effort of acceleration in a way the regular dynamic effort method parameters don’t. We don’t accelerate two steps at a time, we accelerate 10-20 yards at a time and our training needs to reflect this effort.
In addition to the volume ramping up, our intensities drop. What’s the reason for this? Well, the heavier the load the slower the movement is and we’re trying to replicate both speed and effort for acceleration. In addition to that the increase in volume demands that we do so, there’s no chance your athletes are getting through higher in set volumes with upwards of 85% in total intensities between accommodating resistance and bar weight. Dropping the overall intensity allows for us to stretch out the in set volume, replicating efforts of acceleration.
Rest Periods also drop a bit and we’re able to get away with this because the intensity is so much lighter. There’s not nearly the same level of need for inter set recovery because the demand isn’t quite as high. The rest periods can still be as long as 60 seconds if need be and you’ll have to make that judgement call based on the bar speed they’re displaying.
This whole block is pretty intense especially when you add in the accommodating resistance added with our modified max effort work, so we make concessions in their overall volume during the rest of their session. We may only hit 2-3 movements in any given lift when we enter these blocks and drag the hell out of the sled for more volume and to help start recovery at the end of the session. I’ll write a breakdown of what we do during these blocks in the future, but just know that this entire block is geared towards SPEEEEEEED and their training stimuli reflect that.
Utilizing The Dynamic Effort Method within Complex/Contrast Sets
Before we dive into this let’s talk about what complex training is. It’s become more popular recently due to French contrast training taking off the way it has but it’s essentially lifting something heavy and then hitting a plyometric exercise. Contrast training on the other hand is hitting a heavy resistance movement followed by an unloaded version of the same exact movement pattern for speed. For all intents and purposes these ARE THE SAME THING but coaches will try to sound more educated than they need to by trying to explain the intricacies and differences between the two. What I do is technically complex training I guess due to the fact that I’ll pair a box squat with a box jump which are two incredibly different movement patterns. While people think of squatting as a push/knee heavy exercise the box squat is not that. It’s much more of a hinge pattern so by definition this cannot be contrast training, but coaches will still try to tell you that it is. It’s dumb but those are the rules I suppose.
This kind of training relies on something called Post Activation Potentiation, or PAP for short. This is a phenomena where you recruit more muscle fibers to accomplish a task (lift something heavy) in order to be able to use those same fibers in another task shortly after (for speed). You see, when you jump your effort level is high, BUT your body doesn’t have to recruit maximal muscle fibers to accomplish the task, so it just won’t. When you lift something heavy, your body realizes the stimulus and recruits as many fibers as possible to move the weight. We don’t really walk around using every muscle fiber we have access to because our bodies want to conserve energy. This means that when we jump, we’re using a small portion of what we have access to and when we lift something maximally our body does the work to get those fibers included. This means theoretically, if you were able to recruit these fibers before performing a jump you would be able to jump higher. And there’s data to back this up so I guess it’s not theoretical it’s more just fact. Charlie Francis, the late strength coach for Ben Johnson of 88 Seoul olympic fame, had Johnson squat something like 600lbs prior to running that 100 meter where he set a world record. It works. There are other ways to utilize PAP, but we’re going to focus on the heavy before fast method for the time being.
Back to the topic at hand which is utilizing the dynamic effort method within complex/contrast sets. If you look at both loading parameters that I’ve laid out so far for the dynamic effort method it doesn’t look like the loads are even really sniffing anything considered “heavy”. This is another place where we can deviate from the original parameters. While traditional dynamic effort work utilizes up to 85%, we really need 90+% to utilize PAP for our jumps so we need to make adjustments. Below is a breakdown of the parameters we use here at The Lyons Den when using the dynamic effort method with complex/contrast training
Contrast/Complex Set Parameters
Movements - Lower Extremity
Intensities - 55-60%
Accommodating Resistance - 35-45%
In Set Volumes - 1-2
Total Volume - 5-10
Closer to 5 @ 95% closer to 10 @90%
Rest Periods - As much as needed
Total Intensities - 90-95%
If you look at the above parameters you’ll see that it’s even much more different than the previous manipulations for our speed block. The intensity of bar weight is moderate, but there’s a TON of band tension. The reason for this is because at the bottom of the movement we’ll still be in the 65-75% range which will allow us to create incredible speed but as we get nearer the top we’ll be closer to 90+%. This gives us the benefit of great speed along with higher muscle fiber recruitment which we’ll be able to carry over to the jumps. It’s a total win. The overall volume including jumps will be between 15 and 40 total reps which is a BIG ask on the upper end, so this is a method to slowly increase overall volume with over time. What I mean by this is do not start your first block with this using 10 total reps at 90% 1 rep at a time and another 3 jumps each set. You’ll be asking your athlete to complete 40 reps with the highest level of effort the can produce, you’ll bury your athlete and get nothing out of them the next few days. In addition to that you’ll run the risk of injuring your athlete. This kind of training takes an incredibly HIGH level of work capacity so do not under any circumstance start this kind of work early in someone’s training.
There’s a ton of benefits to incorporating the dynamic effort method in your complex and contrast training and it doesn’t have to be laid out like the parameters above, in this next section we’re going to go over another version of how this can be utilized.
Using the Dynamic Effort Method in Complex Sets - Part II
There’s a second way that we can utilize this method within the confines of complex training and we’re going to go over that now. We don’t actually just have to lift something heavy prior to jumping, we can also move moderate loads with great speed and carry that EFFORT over to jumping. Louie talks about the dynamic effort method recruiting maximal muscle fibers making it another max effort lift, but as we went over in Part I that’s not really the case with most athletes. BUT we can still transfer EFFORT levels from movement to movement in the moment. While we’re not maximally recruiting muscle fibers at loads under 90% the way guys as Westside can, using the dynamic effort method’s original parameters and incorporating jumps within the sets can absolutely work. Creating maximal speed is still a skill and performing moderate load dynamic effort work with maximal effort/speed can be carried over to jumps in the same set. I have zero data to support this other than the fact that my athletes ALWAYS jump higher in the moment when we incorporate this kind of training. I use this version of complex training for athletes with a moderate training age whereas the previous parameters get used for athletes with a much higher training age.
The way I set these up is to keep the volumes and the intensities at the same levels we would for traditional dynamic effort work, we just also include jumps within the sets and increase the rest periods slightly to about 90 seconds. The reason for the increase in rest periods is just to ensure that we’re more recovered, we’re not after work capacity all that much here so there’s no real need to not be fully recovered before we get back under the bar. Everything else stays exactly the same.
When we do this we’ll perform two squats, and then perform 1-2 jumps and there is legitimately zero deviation from this. Adding in the two jumps increases your overall volume by as much as 24 reps in any given session so keep that in mind when programming these. Refer to the graphic below for parameters:
Speed Contrast Parameters
Movements - Lower Extremity
Intensities - 50-60%
Accommodating Resistance - 20-25
In Set Lift Volumes - 2
In Set Jump Volumes - 1-2
Total Lift Volume - 16-24
Total Jump Volume - 12-24
Rest Periods - 90 seconds to as much as needed
Total Intensities - 90-95%
As you can see above, this method is right in line with our original parameters but we’ve added jumps and increased the rest periods to allow for further recovery in-between our sets. This method relies not really as much on post activation potentiation, but on replicating effort levels. You have got to drill into your athletes heads that the whole point of the squat is to cue effort for the jump or this is a waste of your time.
As an added benefit using these parameters we can extend out the effort to 4 reps instead of just two. I know early on in these articles I mentioned speed endurance being an adaptation we should chase and we’ve deviated a bit from that stance in these writings a little bit but this is a way to essentially double your reps of effort. This will have a huge benefit on your speed endurance over time and you won’t be taking too much out of the athlete to double the reps in any given training session. That’s a big win.
Wrapping It All Up
The Dynamic Effort Method has a HUGE amount of application when it comes to physical preparation for sport. It’s just not going to get you stronger the way you’re hoping it will. Making minor (and some major) adjustments to the parameters will yield vastly different, and in my opinion better results. I’m not against the dynamic effort method and I’ve even written about it in the past. I’ve actually written about how it can help you acquire strength but I think that had more to do with my population than it did the method itself. I would even venture to guess that if I had run the exact same programs without the dynamic effort method earlier in my career I would have seen the same gains in strength I did with my athletes, possibly even higher gains in strength because I wouldn’t have been pulling the organism in so many different directions early on in their training.
With all the different adjustments I make for my athletes with this method, I still see incredible value in running the method the way it was intended to be run when we’re chasing speed. it’s a GREAT stimulus for speed! But when your athletes have adapted to these parameters, there’s gotta be somewhere to go so we can continue to adapt in positive ways and it can’t just be intensity variations.
Some time in the near future I’ll do a podcast episode on how we manipulate this method with our athletes and go into a bit more depth from a movement perspective and you’ll be able to check that out wherever you listen to your podcasts. It’s called Strength Coach Rants with Coach Connor Lyons and it’s on the YouTubes, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else you listen to your pods. If you have any questions as always feel free to reach out to me at Connor@theLDSP.com!
