By Charlie Fernow, M.S. Exercise Physiology, USA Powerlifting Coach
Rate Coding and Maximal Intent: What the heck is it and why should I care?
Key points:
- Lifting at maximal intended velocity (As hard as you can) will lead to greater gains in strength, speed, and saving time.
- A few terrible attempts at humor never hurt.
Many of us in the weight room have one of two goals: improve performance, or get YUGE. During this venture it’s all too common to hit a plateau, leading to frustration in the weight room causing a myriad of other problems such as (but not limited to): punching walls, kicking babies, burning your house down for the insurance money, going to jail, having to then use cigarettes as currency, and to make it worse the weights are in the yard at prison taunting you still about how you plateaued… and to be honest, who has time for all that? Your answer could rest in this little post.
In this post I’ll talk a bit about rate coding, but mainly about max exertion during your repetitions, and how it impacts performance.
So to start, what is rate coding? Nope, not how fast you can write code on the computer… In relation to your muscles, it’s defined as the rate at which nerve endings in your muscles discharge action potentials. To put it simply, how fast you can contract your muscles.
If there’s one thing that is true of us humans, it’s that we tend to only exert ourselves as much as we need to in order to get things done. This can be a double-edged sword, as in certain cases conservation of energy is completely necessary but other times it’ll bite you in the buns (especially if you’re holding back and running from a bear, then it literally bites you in the butt). When hitting the weights, many of us (myself included) will sometimes move the weight just hard enough to complete the rep. As far as strength and power is concerned, that’s a mistake.
One study from González-Badillo et al. examined the bench press and “maximal intended velocity”(MaxV) vs purposely pressing at 50% of maximal velocity (HalfV) over a six week period. Guess what? The group performing reps at maximal intended velocity had higher strength gains. But Charlie, HOW MUCH STRONGER!? Calm down, I’ll tell you. The MaxV group had significantly greater gains in all areas examined compared to HalfV: 1RM (18.2% vs 9.7%), velocity against light (11.5% vs 4.5%) and heavy (36.2% vs 17.3%) loads.
KEY POINT → what they found is essentially that pushing HALF as hard as you can in a lift results in HALF the strength gains! Whoa…
That’s just one study, but what if I were to up the ante for you to say… TWO STUDIES? That’s just what I’m going to do.
Pareja-Blanco F et al. examined the same topic (MaxV vs HalfV) also in a six week protocol but in back squat. This study yielded similar results to previously mentioned one, in which the MaxV group had significantly greater gains in all measurements compared to the HalfV group, though the method of interpretation was unclear to me, I’ll be honest (percentage, pounds, kilograms, something else) but the link is in the references at the end of the article.
If this were some controversial topic, more sources would be a must, but this is a pretty straight-forward topic with what seems to be a pretty concrete answer. So to conclude, if you’re trying to get stronger and want to get the most out of your time, focus on driving the bar/pushing the weight as hard as possible from the bottom of each rep. It’s a simple yet often overlooked concept. Thanks for tuning in, thank you to 3 Click for allowing me to spread the good word, and as always, Fitness isn’t just Fer-Now, Fitness is Fer-Ever!
Sources: