Complex Plyo/Lifting Training: The Key to Maximum Strength

By Shawn Kocab

On the quest to gain strength, the general rule of thumb is to lift heavy with fewer reps and more sets. How strong an individual, is determined by how much weight one can move. There is an important factor that most don’t consider when trying to reach their peak of maximum strength. That factor is explosive Power. A strong man is not necessarily a powerful man. They are two separate things but each rely on each other. Strength is measured by force. Power is measured by force times speed. "A smaller man who can swing a baseball bat faster may hit as hard or as far as the heavier stronger man who swings slower." Bruce Lee

To develop power and strength you will incorporate heavy weight training with explosive plyometrics. This is called Complex Training.

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You will perform 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps, for every core movement. After every set of core lifts you will immediately perform a plyometric movement. You will perform 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps of the plyo movements. You will take a 3 to 5 minute break between sets. These workouts are really intense, you want to give your muscles a chance to recover since your goal is to able to lift heavy weight with maximum effort. and not to lift to muscle failure. Your going for muscle strength not muscle endurance or muscle tone. The plyometric exercise will correspond to what ever lifting exercise you are doing. Example would be, if your doing bench press, after each set you would do plyometric pushups. If you are doing squats, after each set you would do jump squats.

This workout is designed to help you achieve speed, maximum strength and explosive power. This should help lift beyond any weight limit that you may be stuck on. Plyometrics and lifting heavy are strenuous on your joints. Since you will be combining the two, you should not perform these workouts more then once or twice a week. You should at least have five days rest in between for what ever muscle group your working.

Many Boxers who hit hard is not just because they are big and strong. A prime example is Mike Tyson. Tyson was actually considered a small heavy weight. Most guys he would face were up to 40 to 50 pounds heavier and around 3 to 4 inches taller. You would think this meant they should be stronger then Tyson as well. It’s not like we are talking about extremely obese men here. These men are professional athletes in prime condition. Statistically speaking these men should be able to hit harder then Iron Mike. Of coarse this was not the case. Tyson generated so much power behind his punches that it struck fear into the hearts of men who were way bigger then him. His power made him pound for pound stronger then probably any heavy weight he faced. The explosiveness of his punching made him able to generate more force which in turn generated more power then guys who should be a lot stronger and more powerful then him. He is considered one of the hardest punchers in boxing history.

Power is measured by speed and force(strength). Many think lifting makes one slower since it tenses and tightens the muscles and makes them to bulky to move fast. This is true if all one does if lifts heavy. But weight lifting alone will increase your power and strength, but by integrating plyometrics and stretching properly with heavy weight training, you add the benefit of improving the rate of force. Rate of force is the speed with which force is achieved in a movement. This increases your power output. By improving your power you can increase how much you lift. But one does not increase power by just by lifting heavy weights. Power is exerted through fast twitch muscle fibers, which are developed through anaerobic training(exercise requires muscles to contract at high intensities for short periods.)Heavy weight lifting is considered to be anaerobic. When performing any kind of weight lifting movement, it involves pulling or pushing against resistance. The more speed and force that is generated against resistance, the more weight that one will be able to move. For example, when performing bench press, you begin by lowering the weight slowly and then at the very moment the bar slightly touches the surface of your chest,(not bounce off your chest) you explode the weight upward with maximum effort. The amount of power applied to that initial explosion can make the difference on whether you finish the rep or you yelling for someone to help lift the weight off you.

To develop power and strength you will incorporate heavy weight training with explosive plyometrics. This is called Complex Training. You perform 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps for every core movement. After every set of core lifts you will immediately perform a plyometric movement. You will perform 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps of the plyo movements. You will take a 3 to 5 minute break between sets. These workouts are really intense, you want to give your muscles a chance to recover since your goal is to able to lift heavy weight with maximum effort. You do not want to lift until muscle failure. Your going for muscle strength not muscle endurance or muscle tone. The plyometric exercise will correspond to what ever lifting exercise you are doing. Example would be, if your doing bench press, after each set you would do plyometric pushups. If you are doing squats, after each set you would do jump squats. This workout is designed to help you achieve speed, maximum strength and explosive power. This should help lift beyond any weight limit that you may be stuck on. Plyometrics are strenuous on your joints. Since you will be combining Plyos with heavy lifting, you should not perform these workouts more then once or twice a week. You should at least have five days rest in between, for whatever muscle group you are working.

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