I’m not the most scientific guy. I try to stay in touch with the latest scientific methods and strength and muscle technology or whatever you want to call it, but I look for answers in correlation to the weight room and real life. So the other day, before I went out to teach one of my classes, I went to grab my water bottle. It was sitting on my desk, and for some reason, I thought it was a full water bottle. I went to pick it up and the thing flew back at me. I’m sure that’s happened to some of you guys before. The reason it flew back was because it was empty. Neurologically, my nervous system sent the message to my muscles to prepare for a certain amount of force, and I didn’t need to apply that much. So I applied a maximum force to a lighter weight and it flew. This is kind of like power development.
Whenever we go to recruit a maximum number of motor units, they must be recruited with speed. We can also note this as the rate of force development. In training, you’re trying to produce a high rate of force development, and this is all going to lead to power. So how can we use this idea of the empty water bottle for our training? Well, one method that comes to mind is the contrast method.
Let’s say we’re grooving a certain pattern, and we’re trying to work a general area. Let’s say we’re doing heavy box squats, OK? Three reps. Bang out the heavy box squats for three reps and recruit in the posterior chain. Now we’re going out for a 10-yard explosion off the line. You’re recruiting the hip extension in that powerful first step. By the way, a great resource for this is the Power DVD or seminar of Joe DeFranco and Smitty. If you get a chance to watch it, it's good stuff. I attended the seminar and I own the DVD as well.
Getting back to my point, you're trying to recruit and activate more motor units. You need to train power, so you have to trick the body like I was tricked when I picked up the empty water bottle. You can also think of things like using weight releasers on the bench. You have a higher kinetic energy built up when you use the weight releasers on the way down. The same thing happens when using chains. You store that energy, and when they release, you apply more force than is actually on the bar, so you’re always trying to exert maximum force on the bar. Unfortunately, that isn't how most people train. However, if you train like that and always remember back to the empty water bottle, you’re going to have a higher carry over to the athletic field (if that’s your goal). If you're trying to move a maximum weight, you only have a certain amount of time to move that weight. If you’re trying to teach this to your athletes, have them pick up a water bottle. You can even blindfold them. Have them pick up a full water bottle and then have them pick up an empty water bottle. That’s what they’re trying to achieve—that boom, that explosion right there! Always look for simple ways to teach more complex issues when it comes to strength training.