RED PILL PROGRAMMING: Breaking Traditional Molds of Training, PART 1 – Categorizing Force

At the end of every internship semester, our staff always reflect on the curriculum and experience we’ve brought forth to instill in our students. It always fires us up to see a hungry intern cohort finally get clarity as the semester concludes; the light bulb moments and new perspectives have really opened their eyes to what training can look like in the realm of sport performance.

A Fresh Lens on Training Principles

What we teach and discuss isn’t about re-inventing the wheel. Instead, we simply wish to provide a different lens on how we interpret what we currently know; opening our minds to new ways of viewing and organizing training based on principles. We call it “Red Pill Programming” (today is part 1 😉).

Breaking Free from Traditional Training Models

Traditionally, you may have heard of bodybuilding, powerlifting, olympic lifting, kinesthetics, circuit training and all other methods of exercise. Perhaps you are even familiar with models of periodization; concepts like triphasic, high-low, quadrant, tier system, conjugate, block style, linear and undulating just to name a few. Methods of planning have included total body splits, dynamic vs. max effort days, movement pattern splits and low-medium-high days. The lists are endless.

For the sake of time (and my sanity), I won’t elaborate on them. Just know that there are endless models, systems and methods in the training world. I want to make it clear that none of them are wrong; each has potential pros, cons, successes and limitations. Yet, they all work in their own capacity. In fact, many of the questions and concepts we pose to our students revolve around each system and style; we simply look to add another layer of exploration as we learn to implement potentially better training programs. 

The issue we see our students have is that they seek simple answers to complex problems. We know there are no simple solutions to complex problems; only an elegant way to navigate the chaos as best possible. This is usually the case when looking to improve sport performance. Our students tend to get stuck in common buckets; putting certain labels on training forces them into feeling limited. They tend to struggle seeing past traditional molds. We simply look to take the blinders off.

For example, the definition of strength is “the ability to exert force (measured in Newtons) in order to overcome the resistance”. What does this mean? Is it our ability to resist weight on the bar or perhaps our ability to resist landing from a jump? Can both be right?

Based on traditional thinking, we tend to limit the meaning to whatever external loads we can move on a bar. Typical “high days” or “max effort” days are filled with heavy ass to grass squats, presses and pulls. In reality, strength is simply high force relative to whatever we are overcoming. Whether it’s a jump, a sprint or a barbell lift, it’s all just force.

Today, I’ll touch on how we categorize force. A big inspiration for shifting our categories came in part from Coach Hunter Eisenhower over at ASU (shoutout Hunter and the Sun Devils). In Part 2, we’ll dive a bit deeper into further combinations and how we use them interchangeably when implementing them into training.

Force: The Mother of All Athletic Qualities

As a starting point, we’d argue that force is the mother of all qualities. Whether it be speed, power or elasticity, being able to generate (and tolerate) higher ground reaction forces only improves our athletes’ performance. Knowing the umbrella that athletic traits fall under is force, we can categorize it into 4 pillars:

  • High Force
  • Low Force
  • Fast Force
  • Slow Force

Now, the tricky part is defining WHAT qualifies as each pillar. Unfortunately, that’s a deep rabbit hole and we currently don’t have specific answers. However, we have a broad understanding. Where it becomes messy (and we’ll try to simplify) is when you examine the extreme crossover. But we’ll get to that. Just remember that Force = Mass x Acceleration and things get easier.

HIGH FORCE

Our High Force pillar is strictly how much force is put into the ground greater than relative body weight. It’s not just traditional exercises either, we look to use acceleration to balance the equation. For example, a traditional back squat done with significantly heavy load (and max intent) may average around 2x body weight of force (slow acceleration). A depth drop (from a height greater than your best vertical) may produce 3-5x body weight of force (greater acceleration). So we’d argue that both would be a “high force” pillar exercise. Other examples include supramaximal eccentrics, deceleration drills, intensive plyometrics and overcoming isometrics.

FAST FORCE

For our Fast Force pillar, we look at ground contact time IN ADDITION to force production relative to mass. Yes, this pillar is also relative and yes, we have more questions than answers currently. That said, some staples include acceleration drills, top-speed drills, olympic lifts, ballistics and rhythm based exercises. We would consider the Fast Force category more neurally taxing. 

LOW FORCE

For Low Force, we’re looking at what may typically be considered higher volume training. Simply because load at higher volumes tends to be less, thus, force production relative to body mass is less as well (when compared to High Force). We’ll put our exploratory movements in this pillar; things like crawls, bridges, rolls, and other less intensive drills here. Yielding isometrics, a variety of ballistics and extensive plyometrics would all fit under this umbrella. Low force prescriptions are great for building tissue tolerance while taking stress off the central nervous system; a great way to manage fatigue for athletes in season.

SLOW FORCE

Finally, the Slow Force pillar. Here we have relatively longer ground contact times. Things that take a bit more time to “get off the ground” when compared to top threshold measurements. Exercises like loaded jumps, intensive plyometrics, heavier RM traditional barbell movements, and (again) yielding isometrics.

Tying It All Together: Force Pillars in Action

Confused yet? I get it, there are very few normative principles to really latch on to. Besides understanding the greater/lesser values of GCT and percentage of body mass, everything is mostly relative to the individual. Nonetheless, these pillars were created from trends that became standards.

I’ll finish by stating that none of these pillars have to work independently of one another. In fact, they can intermingle with themselves AND other models that focus on intensity, stress (tissue, neural, etc.) and volume quite coherently. By considering the force demands of the sport while simultaneously managing the relative stressors (tissue, neural, etc.) throughout the week, a more efficient training program may be built. We’ll explore how we do that in part 2. 

Matrixx

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