New Strength Gains From Bar Speed & Acceleration

I’ll warn you right off the bat, this article gets pretty conceptual, but sometimes it helps to look at things from a new perspective. When we test our strength gains by maxing out in the gym what we are essentially doing is using the mass of weight that we lift as a proxy for the force that we produce. Now let’s take a look at the formula for calculating the force it takes to lift a weight:

Force Required to Lift a Weight

What you should notice is that Mass is not the only thing that determines force, aka muscle strength–we must also consider acceleration. The easiest way to explain this is through an example. Let’s say you go from being able to accelerate 225lbs at 1.5 feet per second to accelerating that same 225lbs at 3 feet per second. Let’s work this out:

You can see that by increasing the acceleration of the bar by 1.5 feet per second, you add a significant amount of Force. However, what is really interesting is how much more weight you can now lift at your original acceleration of 1.5 feet per second. Let’s See:

What this essentially means is that lifting 225lbs at 3 ft/s requires just as much strength as lifting 235lbs at 1.5 ft/s.

The implication of this, when applied to strength training, is that focusing on the acceleration of your lifts can be just as effective, if not more effective at building max strength than the traditional approach of focusing only on the amount of weight lifted. Incorporating sub-maximal loads performed at maximum acceleration into your programming has several benefits:

Advantages of Acceleration for Strength Gains

1. A focus on acceleration allows for much more gradual strength progression than simply adding weight. This is due to the fact that acceleration is a continuous value, meaning there is no limit to the size and number of progressions possible. In theory, weight is a continuous value as well, but in the gym, it acts more like a discrete value. The smallest weights are usually 2.5lbs or maybe 1.25lbs if you are lucky, so progression smaller than 5lbs is usually not possible. You can increase the acceleration of a lift by as little as 0.001ft/s, but progression at this scale is impossible if your progression only involves increasing weight. Not only does a focus on acceleration allows for micro-progression, but this progression is self-regulated, meaning that you don’t have to decide how much you will progress before the set: you simply focus on moving the bar as fast as possible. This does not mean that you should only focus on acceleration; progressing weight has many benefits as well, including being easier to track. A good strategy is to track your progression in weight, then once you hit a plateau, drop the weight slightly and focus on the rate at which you move the bar. When you finally go back and attempt to break the plateau, you will find it is much easier.
2. Accelerating the bar allows you to generate the max force possible on each rep. If the force you are generating is due to maximal acceleration, then the set is not over once you can no longer maintain that original force. The acceleration tapers off as the set progresses, which is simply just an indicator of your ability to produce force dropping off towards the end of the set. However, If the force you are generating during a set is due to using maximal weight, you have no room to lower acceleration. Therefore, the moment that you cannot produce that force, the set is over. Here are these two scenarios:

3. Focusing on acceleration allows you to strength train using lighter weight, which makes injuries less likely to occur. Joint and connective tissue injuries are all too common in the powerlifting and bodybuilding communities. One of the main keys to progressing in the gym overtime is avoiding these injuries, which if occur, can keep you out of the gym for months, an instance in which you are certain to lose your gains. Before I introduce the fourth benefit, it’s important to mention that acceleration does not mean out of control. With any form of lifting it is important to maintain proper form, and this certainly remains true when focusing on acceleration.
4. Focusing on bar acceleration tends to be easier on your nervous system allowing you to recover and progress faster. This is mainly due to the fact that sets are less likely to end in failure when focusing on acceleration, as explained in benefit #2.

One Disadvantage of Acceleration?

There is one disadvantage of focusing on acceleration rather than lifting heavy: Because most people don’t understand this concept, when you tell people that you are “lifting lighter weight so you can focus on acceleration”, fellow lifters tend to look at you like “Suuure Bro”.

If you would like an explanation on how my programming looks in general check this article out.

–Christophe Garon