Thoughts on equipment for "rate of force" development

[Lost_BMW]

I was wondering if anyone had direct experience of (or thoughts about, if not) a couple of pieces of equipment to help speed-strength and 'rate of force development' as an extra to plyometric work with medicine balls, resistance bands and bodyweight . . .

I'm especially interested in the American "Vertimax" (available in the UK from EXF Fitness Equipment)

https://www2.exf-fitness.com/_079DDE0C1E084E46A3E6...

which I have also seen in books including 'Functional Fitness for Athletes and two training for MMA books and that looks to be very well designed and versatile.

Also, the Freedom trainer and/or Jungle Gym from the same source.

https://www2.exf-fitness.com/_079DDE0C1E084E46A3E6...

So, any info. and thoughts would be welcome.

[Animal]

Not sure about those, but you could always email Ross Enamait at www.rosstraining.com and ask him?

[ShadownINja]

Lost_BMW said:

"Vertimax"

Freedom trainer

1) For the jumping stuff, why not just hold a heavy weight/kettle bell and do it?

2) If you have a Powerbar, you can buy climbing slings for about £5 each to do vertical rows etc. That's what I did.

[996 sps]

Just make your lungs bleed

[ShadownINja]

996 sps said:

Just make your lungs bleed

Smoke 80 Silk Cuts a day, then?

[996 sps]

ShadownINja said:

996 sps said:

Just make your lungs bleed

Smoke 80 Silk Cuts a day, then?

Went for a binge drink last night hence the comment at the early hours, apologies just a term we use at work when training............

[Lost_BMW]

ShadownINja said:

Lost_BMW said:

"Vertimax"

Freedom trainer

1) For the jumping stuff, why not just hold a heavy weight/kettle bell and do it?

2) If you have a Powerbar, you can buy climbing slings for about £5 each to do vertical rows etc. That's what I did.

We already do various things including jumps with bars (behind neck or held at waist level), a kettlebell, Powerbag or medicine balls but this looks so versatile and ought to offer more permutations for lower body and, especially upper body work than the equipment I've already got. Not sure how much the resistance goes up to (compared to the Lifeline cables I have) but the angles it can work at look interesting given the role is to help develop/ keep punch speed and power.

To be honest looking at how specialised it is and the cost (plus being US based) I didn't expect many people here to have used one but would love to hear from anyone who has! Maybe someone in either a very well set up gym or an MMA/ athletic training facility?

[ShadownINja]

Lost_BMW said:

ShadownINja said:

Lost_BMW said:

"Vertimax"

Freedom trainer

1) For the jumping stuff, why not just hold a heavy weight/kettle bell and do it?

2) If you have a Powerbar, you can buy climbing slings for about £5 each to do vertical rows etc. That's what I did.

We already do various things including jumps with bars (behind neck or held at waist level), a kettlebell, Powerbag or medicine balls but this looks so versatile and ought to offer more permutations for lower body and, especially upper body work than the equipment I've already got. Not sure how much the resistance goes up to (compared to the Lifeline cables I have) but the angles it can work at look interesting given the role is to help develop/ keep punch speed and power.

To be honest looking at how specialised it is and the cost (plus being US based) I didn't expect many people here to have used one but would love to hear from anyone who has! Maybe someone in either a very well set up gym or an MMA/ athletic training facility?

Fair enough. Not something I trust myself to keep bolted to the ground.

[Halb]

I saw someone using those band things in my gym yesterday. Hooked them onto the cable bar, then slotted his feet in them, in the push up position and was bring his legs up around to the side and up to his chin like a double bird dog. Looked tough (and great). Saw him explaining to a fella he was training how it works your TA and whole core.

Like that inspirational vid on rossboxing.

I like the xf shop, I had had a go at the 'grappler' and core trainer in my own gym by sticking a barbell in the corner.
https://www2.exf-fitness.com/_71BB77C4D3D04299B17E...


have you sene the crossfit link that 996 posted?
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html
http://crossfitfx.com/what-is-crossfit/

I am gonna have a go at that heavy fran...whatver it is
"For time of:

100 Squats
1000m Run
80 Squats
800m Run
60 Squats
600m Run
40 Squats
400m Run
20 Squats
200m Run"
Sounds hard
http://crossfitfx.com/

Edited by Halb on Saturday 3rd April 13:17

[996 sps]

Got some good stuff on there Halb glad your using it. The Ozzys are mad for the X Training.

[Lost_BMW]

Halb said:

I saw someone using those band things in my gym yesterday. Hooked them onto the cable bar, then slotted his feet in them, in the push up position and was bring his legs up around to the side and up to his chin like a double bird dog. Looked tough (and great). Saw him explaining to a fella he was training how it works your TA and whole core.

Like that inspirational vid on rossboxing.

I like the xf shop, I had had a go at the 'grappler' and core trainer in my own gym by sticking a barbell in the corner.
https://www2.exf-fitness.com/_71BB77C4D3D04299B17E...


have you sene the crossfit link that 996 posted?
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html
http://crossfitfx.com/what-is-crossfit/

I am gonna have a go at that heavy fran...whatver it is
"For time of:

100 Squats
1000m Run
80 Squats
800m Run
60 Squats
600m Run
40 Squats
400m Run
20 Squats
200m Run"
Sounds hard
http://crossfitfx.com/

Edited by Halb on Saturday 3rd April 13:17

Have to admit that I absolutely love my Lifeline Portable gym. We bought two so my brother uses his mostly 'hand-held' at home, or attached to the solid beam on his ab board and mine is solidly mounted to the gym wall on a 6 feet long piece of 2"x4" and coach bolts.

It's great for lat work and has really thickened up my brother's lats, side delts (remarkably so after 20+ years of training) and arms. He's been so motivated by it that he got back into training every day bar about 2 for 3 months and has put on over half a stone and is even leaner and most of his work is now the cable stuff excepting for squats and light - wrist problems - bench presses and the medicine ball/ab type work.

use it for various rows and side twists and resistance punching + running across the gym with 140lb of resistance cables in each hand which pulls me back amazingly and kills my calves.

We'd discussed the Grappler before when I mentioned the American swivel device that was simpler and cheaper but which I lost the link to. After my lay off, about 3 weeks ago, I did a hard back workout on a Sunday and got fairly sore after it but on the Tuesday I put my Olympic bar in a plate and did the punching out action on it (as I saw Rashad Evans and others on various UFC Countdown/ All Access shows), high reps with no weight and then 10Kg. For the next few days I was amazingly sore in my lats, upper, mid back/scapula area and the whole of my shoulder complex. More DOM than from the back specific workout.

So next workout I did it again moving up to a 20Kg plate which is quite hard to pull back quickly - I try to punch as explosively as possible and then get it back snappily but the last thing is very hard to do - and again got incredible soreness. I vary between sets of 10 to 20 reps or 50 to 100 with less weight in different sessions.

Yesterday was my 4th workout using it and I'm beginning to get used to it and be less sore but I'm sure it's an incredible exercise. I also did trunk rotations with it and my lower abs/side trunk muscles are sore today.

It's going to be a staple for me now and I've sacrificed one of my heavy bags and hit into it with the edge of the (rubber) plate and treat it like a resistance form of bag work - worth a try but not on a gym's bag unless they're really generous!

[Lost_BMW]

Found a few more pages/sites with more detailed data now like:

http://www.bannertherapy.com/ProductInfo.aspx?vert...

I have to admit that it looks so good I'm tempted!

[bales]

I have read a bit about these and heard of runners using them, however all I would say is that 'rate of force development' is the be all and end all of sprinting, its what defines how fast you are.

I don't know of any top sprinters who use this type of equipment or any 'top' coaches who reccommend it, they all use more convnetional plyo's, squats, sled pulls etc...I'd personally take that as good enough reason not to bother with them.

[Lost_BMW]

bales said:

I have read a bit about these and heard of runners using them, however all I would say is that 'rate of force development' is the be all and end all of sprinting, its what defines how fast you are.

I don't know of any top sprinters who use this type of equipment or any 'top' coaches who reccommend it, they all use more convnetional plyo's, squats, sled pulls etc...I'd personally take that as good enough reason not to bother with them.

I imagine it would only be any use as an extra - an adjunct to conventional event-specific training and weights/plyo work. I wonder if it isn't used (yet?) by many athletes here because it's based mainly in/known more about in the US?

From what I've spotted it seems that some UK football teams + UK sports performance and rehab centres have used them and in America many NFL and NBBA teams + jumpers and runners. There's also some clips (endorsed?) of the likes of Roy Jones Junior using them, which ties in with the recommendations I'd seen in books/articles about training for MMA.

Edited by Lost_BMW on Wednesday 7th April 00:37

[bales]

I think that in America there is a lot larger market for 'gimmicks' but I don't mean that in a bad way neccessarily. There are a huge amount of 'gurus' over there i.e coaches who release a book/dvd telling everyone to drop every exercise they have ever heard of and just do a 'backwards rotating squat whilst holding a apple in each hand' type exercise!

There are loads of them and they all seem to revolve around everything you have ever been taught being wrong and its 'the secret the professionals don't even know about' yet you have to pay $100 to buy the book/dvd!

We in this country don't seem to have caught that bug yet and are I think a bit more savvy to that sort of nonsense. I think thats why those type of things catch on more over there than here.

In terms of whether it works I'm sure it does improve your ability to do resisted squats but its not specific to running and what lots of the top coaches always bang on about is that sprinting is specific to itself. So given that you may aswell use more conventional methods.

[996 sps]

Gimmick/s sums up a lot of fitness equipment/market and we ve mentioned this before.

[Jeux]

used one of htose a few years ago, interesting, but dont think yoiu get anythnig more than you would just using a eighted vestand a good set of stadium steps... combined with some weighted depth jumps... depends on your sport and targets....

we used to jump over the old stackable vaulting boxes wearing weighted vests - four in a row , about 40 inches high each.. found that very good for explosive developemnt -- oh , and lots of SLJs/

[Halb]

Which weight vest do you use?

Also, have you any tips for when one starts to plateau on powercleans?

[Lost_BMW]

Jeux said:

used one of htose a few years ago, interesting, but dont think yoiu get anythnig more than you would just using a eighted vestand a good set of stadium steps... combined with some weighted depth jumps... depends on your sport and targets....

we used to jump over the old stackable vaulting boxes wearing weighted vests - four in a row , about 40 inches high each.. found that very good for explosive developemnt -- oh , and lots of SLJs/

Interesting to hear from someone who has used one. Take your comments on board and doubt I'll have the space or funds to buy one but for me it would be about the rotational development/ body patterns for boxing rather than sprinting, though lower body/ core work would be good too for the boxing and for it's own sake.

I've read lots about it this week and really do not think it falls into the 'gimmick' category at all - it seems far too well designed, made and versatile to be dismissed as a gimmick. Just looking at some of the video clips I've found make it look like it would be a useful part of a training routine, albeit expensive. Plus I'm not saying that some or all of its patterns/ effects couldn't be replicated by other means.

The reason for the interest is that I have a fantastic home gym that gives me more than enough training opportunities but found out in February that my 'esteemed' wife wants and has been preparing for a divorce (bolt from blue) and so I'm going to have to move back to my father's and so a very much more limited set up unless I pay to join a commercial gym. I've done a bit of digging but haven't found one yet that looks as if it would suit me as well (+ will lose the convenience/time benefits, especially that I'll have to travel back 20 miles most evenings after 'bed time' if I'm to see enough of my boys) so am wondering about a gym for the base weight lifting stuff and trying to get one or two key extras in his garage. This looked like a possibility. Still, not likely to happen I concede . . .

[996 sps]

Changing the subject I know but sorry to hear about your divorce.