Typically, mean velocity is more suited to your
strength type exercises, your non -ballistic
type exercises, so bench, deadlifts, squat, etc.
And peak velocity is more suited to your explosive,
powerful exercises. Hi, Steve. It's my pleasure
to have you on Evidence Strong Show. If you could
briefly introduce yourself. Hi, Alex. Yeah, thank
you very much for inviting me on. I'm looking
forward to chatting with you today. So yeah,
my name is Dr. Steve Thompson. I'm a senior lecturer
at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. I've
been in sort of academia and research for 10,
12 years now. I passed my PhD in 2022, obviously
majoring in velocity -based training and load
velocity profiling and its ability to... predict
1RM. And I'm also a practicing S &C coach. So
I've been accredited for a similar amount of
time. And I'm currently working with British
Diving, where we had some successful medalists
at the Paris Olympics just gone. And I also work
as a physical performance coach for the English
Football Association as well. Awesome. Huge credentials.
I'm very excited to have you. And we'll be talking
about velocity training. So let's start with
the basics. Why velocity training? Why should
we care? Yeah, good question. Why should we care?
based training is a strategy is a tool that strength
and conditioning coaches and sports scientists
have available to them to help inform what they
do from a training and a testing perspective
so by utilizing velocity we get objective data
to help determine someone's physical status or
physiological status on any given day we can
also use it as a means to manipulate load to
also regulate to drive intent to help with programming
and prescription and optimize the the things
that our athletes do in the gym you know most
you'll be aware and i'm sure most of your listeners
will be aware of the different auto -regulatory
strategies that are out there repetitions and
reserve rpe different predictive equations and
for me velocity is the is the best of the of
that bunch really it's objective it gives us
data it's pretty reliable it's pretty valid and
it has a clear and direct link to our neuromuscular
function so from my perspective which obviously
is a bias one I stand by those biases and I truly
believe that velocity as a tool for improving
the way we prescribe, program, test and monitor.
I think it's the best out there. All right. So
you kind of mentioned what the goal would be.
So goals can be different. So this is a diverse
tool that can be used in different ways. So I
always break it down into sort of six different
categories. The main fixed roles and responsibilities
outside of coaching that an S &C coach. typically
has to undergo or think about so we've got our
testing whereby you could apply some form of
low velocity profile which is the most common
and most popular from a research perspective
we've got monitoring where you might do some
simple tracking of velocity to just identify
sort of that physiological status readiness to
train type approach we've got programming so
being able to set velocity zones and targets
to help athletes understand where and what they
should be lifting we've got kind of the prediction
that the auto regulation whereby we might might
either predict 1RM or we might do a bit more
of a bespoke, simple approach to load manipulation
and, you know, adjusting the load on the bar
based on the velocities that we're seeing. We've
then got kind of fatigue monitoring, volume control
through velocity loss. And then the final one,
which is arguably the most impactful, but unfortunately
the least researched, is that feedback that you
can get from velocity and the ability to drive
intent and competition and just create a really
healthy environment within that. the weight room.
And, you know, these are all at the disposal
of the S &C coach and what they feel is appropriate
for a given person, a given block of training,
or a given sort of environment that they're working
within. And I think you can kind of jump between
all of them. You know, you could argue that using
all six is best case scenario, is best practice.
I think best practice is whatever works for where
you coach and where you train. The way I normally
try to describe it is that you can kind of, those
six categories can kind of... to be split into
two. You've got those that are ready to go. So
kind of pick up the technology, stick it on the
bar and just start using it. So there's no prerequisite
profiling or testing required. And then there's
the bits you can do that are a bit more invasive
or require a little bit more detail and depth
that would follow on from doing that kind of
profiling. So if we start with the bang for your
buck, easy stuff to just pick up, you know, plug
and go stuff, the feedback is the first. So as
I mentioned, feedback is where you're in a gym
and you're... You're doing whatever exercise
and you're simply feeding back the velocities
to that individual in order to provide a bigger
output, a bigger mechanical output. And anybody
that's used VVT will have seen the positive impact
that that can have on an environment. So from
my perspective, it's something that can be done
really, really easily and can have a big impact
straight away because it can help athletes understand,
you know, intent. Certainly from a younger perspective,
you start to give them some targets or you start
to sort of... They say, okay, that last rep was
1 .02. Can you get 1 .05? And they do it and
they think, oh, okay, now I understand what driving
intent might feel like. I thought I was doing
it, but perhaps I wasn't. Well, then you can
also use it to create a really healthy environment.
So if you're working in a team setting or a squad
setting where there's lots of people training
all at the same time, you can create leaderboards
or you can split the leaderboards up so it's
fair. You could do it by relative strength or
whatever you decide. appropriate way of breaking
down the squad. And you can chase some velocities
and create this healthy environment either with
peers or even with oneself. And there's research
out there. There's a meta -analysis by Jonathan
Weakley and his research team that kind of looked
at all of those different feedback related studies
and found that velocity can help to improve performance
and performance is defined by output. So mechanical
output, typically through measurement of velocity,
but simply giving that feedback can improve performance
by eight. which is quite a lot I think certainly
if you're working with the upper echelons of
performance I think trying to find 8 % improvement
would make a big difference so from my perspective
the feedback aspect of VBT is the easiest to
implement and potentially has the biggest bang
for your buck. So I would definitely implore
everybody just give it a go that invest in VBT.
Okay, we went through feedback. What would be
the next one easy to use? So I think from a monitoring
perspective, there's some real simple testing
as well. Actually, there's some real simple things
we can do that often get overlooked. I think
the first is the idea of readiness to train.
So the reason I like velocity is, as I mentioned
earlier, it has kind of like direct link with
neuromuscular function. If you think about force
equals mass times acceleration and how we break
that down and how we split that down, any kind
of force or velocity measurement directly links
to what's happening physiologically. If you think
about force velocity relationships, how that
links to how a muscle shortens and lengthens,
there is clear relationships with that type of
information versus what's happening physiologically.
So I really like that. It gives me confidence
in what I'm seeing. So, you know, real simple.
in us to train instead of jumping and looking
at jump height or looking at a different metric
looking at takeoff velocity or peak velocity
or even mean velocity can give you a real simple
indication as to whether someone's coming in
fatigued or not and i never go as far as saying
if your velocity dropped by x amount we're going
to strip this amount of load out because i don't
think it works like that but i think what it
does do is it sparks a conversation between coach
and athlete to say right what's going on why
are your numbers down How did you sleep? How
are you eating? How's your stress level, et cetera?
Do you think we need to modify today? And if
the answer is yes, then you use your coaching
ability and coaching intuition just to figure
out what that modification should look like.
Just one thing on the testing element is more
around some simple testing. And it goes back
to Newtonian laws of F equals mass times acceleration.
And if you think about how we typically test
strengths, so 1RM testing, for example, you know,
I have no problem. I have 1RM test my athlete
and I think it's a very good. reliable, valid
method of understanding someone's maximal capacity.
And I think it should definitely be complemented
in any of the auto -regulation stuff that we
do. But I do think there are environments where
1RM testing is unfeasible, impractical. And therefore,
in order to track strength development, you could
quite easily pick an arbitrary load, let's call
it 100 kilograms. And you could, at the start
of the intervention or a training block, you
could measure their block, you do exactly the
same load and you measure their velocity. And
if we think about what force equals mass times
acceleration actually means, we know that mass
is fixed. So mass doesn't change. We know that
acceleration is a byproduct of velocity. And
therefore, if acceleration or velocity goes up,
we know that force goes up, force underpins strength.
Hey, presto, we have got stronger. Obviously,
we can't necessarily quantify that as much as
we would like to with a 1RM and start readjusting
loads, etc. But as a real simple testing strategy.
we can determine whether that intervention has
been successful or not. And at least we have
some data where in previous, we might not have
taken that because we haven't got access to this
technology. So for me, it's a real simple method
that again, gets overlooked and often isn't used
as a testing strategy. All right. So we covered
three, feedback, testing and monitoring. The
other one on the sort of the plug and play is
this idea of velocity loss. So velocity loss
is a way of individualizing volume. prescription.
So for those that are unaware of what velocity
loss is, it's basically a way of determining
when a set should finish. So instead of saying
you're going to do five sets of five repetitions,
you might say you're going to do five sets, but
you're going to stop the set when your velocity
is dropped by 10, 20, 30, 40 percent, whatever
it might be. And what this does is it individualizes
the volume prescription. So we know and research
has shown that at a given load, individuals lift
different repetitions. numbers so you and I at
85 % in a squat will lift different numbers to
failure different numbers of repetition and therefore
We individualize the load, the intensity, by
doing 1RM, calculating 1RM, at percentages of
1RM, making sure that's what's on the bar. But
then we say, now go and do 5x5 or 6x3 or whatever
it might be. And it's very blanket prescription
based on what we've learned through our careers
as coaches and within academia and research.
And the reason I like velocity loss is because
it takes away that generalized approach. And
actually now it says, yes, you're going to work
to the same percentage, but now you're going
to do the amount. of work that's right for you
in terms of your physiological state of your
strength levels your training history etc etc
so i really i think velocity loss and again is
something that you can just pick up you don't
need to do any profiling prior you can just pick
it up stick it on the bar and and as long as
you understand the relationship between the percentage
drop and the physiology then you're off to a
winner and and on that then i think everybody
listening would think it's common sense that
the higher the threshold the more repetitions
you're going to do the more muscular breakdown
more more of a metabolic response the more of
a hypertrophic response you're going to get the
smaller the threshold less reps less fatigue
potentially more strength development more targeting
of power tapering and priming close to competition
and then there's kind of that spectrum and that
continuum as to where you might sit based on
the adaptation that you're trying to achieve
so again a real simple method for for individualizing
the volume prescription which i think is an important
thing that again often gets overlooked Could
we go through the examples? So following on what
you suggested before, let's say I have some sets
to do at 85%. Now, how you would use the velocity
loss to guide the prescription? Yeah, so if you're
in a strength block, let's take block periodization
as a real simple way of breaking it down. So
that first block accumulation, hypertrophy kind
of goal response, you're looking at the higher
end. So you're looking at anywhere between 30
and 40, 45 % velocity loss. Research suggests
that... 40 to 45 % is pretty close to where failure
would be from a velocity perspective. And obviously
there are lots of research coming out more recently
that suggests actually training to failure isn't
as effective for strength and hypertrophy developments
than not training to failure. So having a little
bit in the tank is probably worthwhile, but you're
going to get a lot more mechanical and metabolic
responses from doing that larger amount of work.
So yeah, 30 to 40 % is that accumulation block,
that hypertrophy block. Strength then is going
to be around 20 to... 25 30 so that's your transmutation
and then for your realization block which is
is obviously a bit more of an explosive power
focus you're looking around 10 10 i think when
you're then going closer to competition if we're
in kind of an olympic sport for example and we
get into that peaking and that tapering strategy
i would probably be looking at five percent now
five percent might only be one rep or two reps
but that's probably what we want at that given
time because of our proximity to competition
so that's I would typically break it down. And
that's based off a lot of research. It's not
just me making it up. That's kind of all over
the place with velocity -based research. Thank
you. That's very helpful. All right, fatigue
covered. Now we have, do I remember correctly?
Programming and prediction. Two more. Yeah, so
I suppose we probably need to just go back to
the testing element because this is where profiling
comes in. So obviously the paper that I recently
published with my colleagues, a big part of that
was around load velocity profiling. And load
velocity profiling is an area of research that
is... heavily researched these days. There is
lots out there, which is good and also not so
good sometimes. But load velocity profiling is
essentially an incremental protocol. It's no
different to a 1RM. However, you might start
a little bit lighter. You might go up in more
sensible increments. So let's say you start at
30 % 1RM and go up to 110 % increments. You wouldn't
do that if you were just doing a 1RM. You might
start at 50, go to 70, 80, et cetera. And so
there's maybe a few more increments involved
and every lift is done with maximal antenna.
and velocity. But apart from that, it's an incremental
protocol. It's exactly the same as a 1RM. So
I think firstly, it's important to note that
sometimes there is this conflict between velocity
-based training advocate, percentage 1RM advocates,
and it's almost like the two don't go together
when I think that's just madness. They absolutely
should go together and should always go together.
They are very complementary. So if we're going
to do our 1RM test, great, get that data, but
then why not track the velocity on the lower
loads as well and get that data? same time. If
we're going to prescribe percentage of 1RM, great.
That's how we learn. That's how we understand
where adaptations sit, but use the velocity to
help guide the prescriptions at the same time.
So I think that there's definitely a strong marriage
there that needs to be acknowledged. So from
a profiling perspective, you are picking a key
exercise. You are doing the incremental protocol.
You're measuring velocity alongside the load
that's being lifted. And then you're simply plotting
load on the X, velocity on the Y. Once you do
that, you plot a prediction. equation so a linear
regression or a second order polynomial line
through it gives you an equation you then use
that equation for whatever you need to use it
for that's load velocity profiling in a nutshell
and profiling is great for real in -depth understanding
of force velocity characteristics we can look
at how someone changes off the back of interventions
in more depth than just have they got stronger
we can look at have they got faster have they
got stronger at lighter loads at How does the
whole profile shift? Does it shift? all looking
to the right. Does one bit move? Does another
bit move? We get a little bit more information,
which I think is really important. But the main
thing we can use the profiling for then is programming.
So we can then start to use and set really bespoke
individualized targets for our athletes to say,
right, if you're going to lift 85 % 1RM, that
equates to 100 kilograms for you and also equates
to 0 .5 meters per second. Great. So then when
the athlete goes into the gym, they know firstly,
okay, I know I need 100 KD on the bar, but it's
should be lifted at 0 .5 meters per second done
maximally if for whatever reason that 100k is
faster or slower well we can then decide whether
we need to adjust that load that manipulate the
load so auto regulate and what that allows the
athlete to do is to become a little bit more
intuitive and a little bit more self -aware of
their own training so they become a little bit
more have a bit a better ownership of their own
training because instead of now saying go into
the coach i don't feel So if I drop it a bit,
they can use the data themselves. They know this
should be at 0 .5. It's now coming out at 0 .4.
Well, then they know they need to take a little
bit off to hit that zone that's been set by the
coach. So I think that can be a really powerful
tool, not only in optimizing prescriptions, but
in educating athletes at the same time in terms
of taking ownership of their own training. The
only downfall is you have to have the time and
the resource to be able to go through the profile.
Every exercise has its own profile. So there's
no, it's not one profile. fits all and every
individual has their own profile so if you are
working with a big squad it becomes a little
bit more difficult to manage that there are options
out there you know the quite heavily researched
is is what's called a two -point method whereby
you take two proximal points so two distal points
within a profile so you might do 40 percent and
85 percent and you get those two loads and those
two velocities and you draw the line through
and you can then calculate the rest of the of
the spectrum great in upper body exercises great
in smith machine exercises from what i've seen
and what i've experienced not the best lower
body freeway exercises i think you need a few
more loads so one of my pieces of research from
my phd looked at a four point method within a
back squat and a combined back squat jump squat
which had some real good success so i think it's
definitely doable um from a prescription perspective,
but the accuracy of the prediction on a two -point
method is not always 100 % now. Could you speak
a little bit more on the testing of back squat
and jump squat, did you say? Yeah. So I kind
of acknowledge that when we profile, let's say
we profile a back squat, we often try and get
the lighter load. So anything as low as 20, 30
% perhaps, but we're asking individuals, athletes
to back squat 20 % at maximal intent and velocity.
And if you've ever tried doing that it feels
very weird it's very difficult to control the
reliability of the data at that in such a light
load because of that deceleration phase you get
because you're not leaving the ground and that
sort of braking phase on in a non -ballistic
exercise i think it had a big impact on the what
the data actually looked like so we tested and
and researched a combination of doing a jump
squat but a full jump squat so full descent as
you would the back squat and then just accelerate
through and off the ground from zero percent
to 60 % 1RM and then we continued with the back
squat. Took a combination of those in order to
predict 1RM and found that was far more successful
than just doing back squat alone. Sorry, do you
plot it on one load velocity curve? Yes. So you
work off percentages of back squat 1RM, but you
would simply jump at the lighter loads and you
would still do full descent, just accelerate
all the way through and leave the ground at those
lighter loads and plot it. And actually what
you find is it now becomes more of a curved line.
So you apply a second order polynomial instead
of a linear regression and the predictions were
much, much better. So it's something that I always
try and use and try and advocate when I'm talking
to people about profiling. Do you use mean or
peak velocity? Mean, yeah. I always try to use
mean from a profiling perspective because, again,
it's just a slightly more stable metric. Peak
velocity, depending on the technology and depending
on the way it's been done, can sometimes throw
out some erroneous data. could you speak a little
bit more about peak and mean velocity and when
you would use which one and why yeah so typically
mean velocity is is more suited to your strength
type exercises so your non -ballistic type exercises
so bench deadlifts squat etc and peak velocity
is more suited to your explosive powerful exercises
so maybe weightlifting derivatives loaded jumps
if you use any kind of unloaded jumps as well.
I think that's fine. I think that works. And
I agree that that's how it's typically used.
I would always look at mean velocity, whatever
the exercise, because from my perspective, mean
velocity is a more stable metric. And I think
it's important that you look at the more stable
metric as well, just in case peak velocity starts
to throw out some of that erroneous data that
I mentioned. But they are both perfectly viable,
have their place. And as I mentioned, kind of
suited to the different types of exercises that
we would typically do within a gym. But I think
it's important just to keep your eye on the mean
velocity, whatever the exercise, just so you
know that the data looks right. Should we go
into prediction first? So the idea of 1RM prediction
is based off a profile whereby you do a submaximal
profile. So you don't need to take someone up
to 1RM and you utilize the equation I mentioned
in order to extrapolate to where that 1RM would
be. So essentially you could do a... full profile
1RM test and figure out someone's velocity at
1RM. Then the next session, you do a submaximal
profile of maybe two or three loads, plug in
where the velocity should be for their 1RM and
extrapolate down and predict what your 1RM would
be for that given day. Now, I've seen it be done
very well and I've done it myself very well in
terms of the approach, but I've also seen it
be done very poorly and found some remarkable
predictions of 1RM. And I think coaches... need
to be wary of using it religiously because it
can often if one thing isn't quite right one
lift is is done not with maximal intent or there's
some issue with the technology it can throw the
predictions completely off and it's it's something
that then has a much bigger impact further down
the line so i often advocate the more acute load
manipulation based on the profile how I described
it earlier in terms of get your full profile,
learn, you know, figure out what loads you want
to lift at and then essentially figure out what
that velocity should be and then put a little
zone around it. So let's say your target is 0
.5 meters per second. You might go 0 .03 the
side. So you've got from 0 .47 to 0 .53. There's
your zone. Stay in that zone for all of your
sets. If you come out of it, take a little bit
off or put a little bit on. And I think that's
a much simpler way of... auto -regulating than
trying to use fancy equations and potentially
troublesome equations to predict what your actual
1RM could be on that given day. I think the other
thing is those predictions need to be done at
the start of every session. That's time consuming.
It could take 15, 20 minutes to do it. And if
you've only got 45 to 60 minutes with a full
squad, it's just not feasible. So I think there
are, and this is coming from someone, by the
way, who studied this as a part of their PhD.
And I now sort of suggest maybe not that worth
it. I did it for five and a half years. So, you
know, it's not coming from any negative bias.
It's from experience of thinking, well, is it
the best way of doing it? And I don't think it's
the simplest way, that's for sure. I think there's
other ways that we have the same kind of impact
without having to go through the same process
at every start of every session and then trust
some equations that perhaps are not always going
to be as valid as we hoped. What would be your
comment on trying to predict, for example, with
athletes who cannot do... one rm testing and
do a block with them and then try to predict
at the end of the block whether they got stronger
in let's say back squat yeah i think that's again
a viable option like i said at the very start
of this of this recording vbt is very flexible
and if you're working with athletes who for whatever
reason can't do one rm testing then you have
to think of a way around that and prediction
might be that i think one of the ways that it
can obviously work is if you are working with
individual athletes and you have a little bit
more time time. But I think that there are also,
there's a whole host of research out there that
we can try and utilize. So while we want to individualize
as much as we possibly can, if you're not able
to do that for whatever reason, there's going
to be some research out there that has breakdowns
of velocity zones and velocity targets based
on percentages of 1RM in a population that's
probably very similar to the one that you're
working in, that you could maybe think, well,
let's cut out the middleman and let's just take
that data. The whole point of the profile for
a programming perspective is to set targets and
zones. So if we have that data already and we're
kind of fairly confident that the population
is similar enough that we can be confident that
those velocity targets are going to be not too
far away, well, why don't we just use that and
let's save some time? So there are lots of ways.
to do it. There are lots of ways to use VBT successfully.
There are a few ways to use it unsuccessfully,
but I think trying to keep it as simple as possible
is definitely the place to start and then build
out on top of it. Don't go sort of bowling in
with the one -iron predictions and full profiles
if you've never picked up a VBT device before.
Just have a play around first. What have you
seen coaches doing wrong in terms of using VBT?
The thing that I'm mindful of the most, and this
came out of that call, qualitative research that
i did upon my phd is that coaches don't become
ipad coaches that was that was a big drawback
that came out of that research that you then
become so ingrained in the technology head in
an ipad looking at the data you forget to coach
and i think that's a big part of what we do snc
coaches are there to work with athletes in person,
make sure that they are moving right, lifting
right, doing the right things in the right way,
building those relationships. If you've got your
head in an iPad, that then suffers. So I think
that's one bit is either you use it at the right
times. So pick one or two exercises, use it for
those and then put it away or educate your athletes
to be able to use it themselves so that you can
be then. in that environment and be coaching,
et cetera, and not having to worry about what
the technology is telling us. I think that's
probably the main sort of cautionary piece of
advice I would give. Well done, thank you. There
are lots and lots of things that we can do. You
can be extremely invasive and fully immersive
with VVT and every little bit has some kind of
data attached to it. And if that works, that's
what your athletes like, then go for it. I think,
you know, brilliant. But be mindful that not
every athlete likes. data not every athlete likes
using technology and i think being mindful of
that as well is important to remember that there's
a person behind the device or the underneath
the barbell that that needs to be brought into
that conversation and that decision as to to
how and when it's used awesome you made me excited
about vbt so right all right two short questions
to finish the first one is what is your favorite
lift favorite lift back squat why is that it's
just something i've always loved doing do it
every session if I can it makes me from a from
a movement perspective I feel good after doing
it it's one that I always sort of able to get
stuck into and and yeah I'd say it's the pretty
pretty staple of of any kind of ethnicity program.
Sounds about right. If people want to follow
your work, see what you're up to, maybe ask a
question where they should go online to find
you. Yep. So you can contact me on X. So that's
my handle is at Steve381. I do have an Instagram
account, SteveThompson99T. Not necessarily, I
don't use it for work that much, but I'm happy
for people to reach out on there or email is
always fine as well, which we can put under the
show notes or whatever. All right. Sounds good.
Thank you so much, Steve. It was a pleasure.
Bro, thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.