Rate of Force Development

[Tosa]

I'm not saying that the sticking point near the beginning of the concentric portion of a lift is due to insufficient RFD, but rather that increasing RFD may help overcome it. Like how the stretch reflex makes a significant difference by assisting at the beginning of the lift, producing a peak amount of force, sooner, could also be beneficial, although not to the same degree.

 

[miaou]

I would also like to voluntarily state that I am a nerd when it comes to muscle mechanics. To the people being tempted to make witty remarks: fuck you!!




EDIT: Tosa, what you just stated (developing enough speed to overcome the bottom sticky point) is the main argument for why increasing RFD would assist in the bench press, along with the argument that says "there are a number of lifters who incorporate DE and have great success". The first argument sounds very logical, however my opinion is that it's more likely to be false than not, for reasons I already explained in detail. The second argument isn't so solid, since there are reasons beyond RFD that would explain the benefits of DE, and those reasons make much more sense (and are less controversial).

Thanks for disagreeing with me, it really made me think this through (it even made me review several SSC studies!). At this point I don't feel I have something more to add without repeating myself. I hope people find this discussion helpful, and I guess everyone can evaluate the info provided for themselves.

 

[Origins]

Ok, since my question hasn't been addressed yet, I will ask it again. I am not ready to let this thread die.

What exactly does the "explosive-ballistic" training in the study above include? Does that mean DE? Or olympic lifting? Or something else? It didn't say in the abstract exactly who was tested. Did they test olympic lifters? Or sprinters?

On a similar note, what method did they use for the "voluntary maximal muscle strength" test? How specific would the motor pathway for RFD be? For example, would faster RFD on a clean translate to a faster RFD on a squat? I feel that RFD is highly dependent on the nervous system, so would that have implications for sports training?

 

[Tosa]

I don't think I have anything significant left to add. But I think it was a good discussion.

 

[PowerHungry]

If I can just read Supertraining, I can answer all these questions.

 

[miaou]

Ok, since my question hasn't been addressed yet, I will ask it again. I am not ready to let this thread die.

What exactly does the "explosive-ballistic" training in the study above include? Does that mean DE? Or olympic lifting? Or something else? It didn't say in the abstract exactly who was tested. Did they test olympic lifters? Or sprinters?

On a similar note, what method did they use for the "voluntary maximal muscle strength" test? How specific would the motor pathway for RFD be? For example, would faster RFD on a clean translate to a faster RFD on a squat? I feel that RFD is highly dependent on the nervous system, so would that have implications for sports training?

I am sorry I missed your question before.

RFD plays a very important role in arguably most situations in sports and daily activity, where an efficient means of activating muscles quickly, or of producing high impulses within small time periods is more desirable than being able to apply maximal force regardless of the time frame.

"Explosive-ballistic training" can be done in a number of ways, it usually involves lifting submaximal weights (typically 50% of 1RM or less) with sincere effort to produce as fast a movement as possible. "Ballistic" training means doing an explosive movement and actually throwing the resistance implement.
There is an interesting study that indicates there might be some improvement to the neural aspects of RFD even with significantly heavier weights (thus slower movements), if the sincere intention of the lifter is to produce force as explosively as possible, but obviously this would not be the most productive way to train for it.
Reversible muscular action movements done explosively can also be used to increase RFD in relevant movements (e.g. plyometric jumps to increase jumping ability).

If you want to specifically increase your RFD for squats, then the obvious choice is to do explosive submaximal squats, jump squats or even explosive squats with accommodating resistance. Power cleans have the basic element of hip extension (as well as knee extension to a lesser degree) which means there will be some amount carryover, but the entire motor pattern is significantly different from squats (weight distribution is different, ROM is different, no SSC involved, etc.), which means the amount of carryover will not be anywhere near optimal.

 

[Origins]

I am sorry I missed your question before.

RFD plays a very important role in arguably most situations in sports and daily activity, where an efficient means of activating muscles quickly, or of producing high impulses within small time periods is more desirable than being able to apply maximal force regardless of the time frame.

"Explosive-ballistic training" can be done in a number of ways, it usually involves lifting submaximal weights (typically 50% of 1RM or less) with sincere effort to produce as fast a movement as possible. "Ballistic" training means doing an explosive movement and actually throwing the resistance implement.
There is an interesting study that indicates there might be some improvement to the neural aspects of RFD even with significantly heavier weights (thus slower movements), if the sincere intention of the lifter is to produce force as explosively as possible, but obviously this would not be the most productive way to train for it.
Reversible muscular action movements done explosively can also be used to increase RFD in relevant movements (i.e. plyometric jumps to increase jumping ability).

If you want to specifically increase your RFD for squats, then the obvious choice is to do explosive submaximal squats, jump squats or even explosive squats with accommodating resistance. Power cleans have the basic element of hip extension (as well as knee extension to a lesser degree) which means there will be some amount carryover, but the entire motor pattern is significantly different from squats (weight distribution is different, ROM is different, no SSC involved, etc.), which means the amount of carryover will not be anywhere near optimal.

I appreciate your knowledge and helpfulness.

In that study that you linked, I would like to know exactly who they tested. For example, did they test elite level olympic lifters and powerlifters or did they take untrained people and put them through some 6-week training program and then test them? But I see that in one of your previous posts you asked a similar question, so I am assuming you don't have access to the full study.

Thanks again.

 

[miaou]

I am happy to help if I can. This is what Tosa had to say about the study he referred to (and which I linked):

I only have access to the study through my universities website, so unfortunately I can't share it. The study was done with 25 healthy, sedentary males. Isometric Knee extenion was used for force measurements. The study produced some graphs, which roughly correspond to the graphs already posted.

 

[Origins]

Then it would stand to reason that athletes who are heavily trained in either direction (e.g. powerlifters and olympic lifters) would have much larger differences in their RFD/max strength than the ones in that study. Those differences would be pretty profound, then.

Great thread.

 

[Tosa]

Then it would stand to reason that athletes who are heavily trained in either direction (e.g. powerlifters and olympic lifters) would have much larger differences in their RFD/max strength than the ones in that study. Those differences would be pretty profound, then.

Great thread.

They could, although that's just speculation. It's part of the reason I'm fence sitting.

 

[miaou]

I believe that, given the nature of their sports, it is entirely safe to make the assumption that advanced olympic weightlifters will have a significantly higher RFD than powerlifters of the same experience level. This doesn't prove that RFD has zero contribution in PL lifts.

Let's not return to the "is RFD important in powerlifting" subject. I believe the arguments for both sides were exposed sufficiently extensively.

In any case, I believe that, generally speaking, anyone interested in sports outside of PL would be best served by first focusing on building a solid strength foundation up to an intermediate level (for a number of reasons, injury prevention included) and then move his focus to working on power production, RFD and sport-specific strength.

 

[PCP]

On a similar note, what method did they use for the "voluntary maximal muscle strength" test? How specific would the motor pathway for RFD be? For example, would faster RFD on a clean translate to a faster RFD on a squat? I feel that RFD is highly dependent on the nervous system, so would that have implications for sports training?

Most powerlifters who do this kind of work will tell you that cleans and jerks are pretty worthless for increasing bar speed in the powerlifts. Doing snatches won't improve your bench, but speed benching will. This suggests it is very specific.

 

[Origins]

I am kind of tempted to buy Zatsiorsky's book now, but it is like $50 on amazon. I also think that it might be over my head a little.

Well, this thread has pretty well covered the arguments relating to RFD and powerlifting. It would be interesting to shift the discussion to RFD in sports. Like general principles, training methods, etc. and how they would be applied.