THREE Things YOU Should Be Doing With Your At-Home Workouts to Maximise Your Strength and Power!

With gyms closed during these uncertain times, it can be hard to figure out how to modify your training so that you can still achieve your goals, with incredibly limited access to equipment! Every fitness guru on Instagram seem to have a HIIT workout to help ALL training goals, which is impossible. Just like training in the gym, your home workouts should be structured to achieve a specific goal. If your goal is strength and power, here are three things you should be including in your home workouts:

1) Overcoming Isometrics to Maintain or Improve Maximal Force Production

Overcoming Isometrics (OIs) are a great way to maintain maximal force production. They consist of holding a position and pushing/pulling against an immovable object. This can be a towel, belt or strapping.

OIs can help you increase maximal muscle force production in different positions, which is a great substitute for the lack of maximal strength training that athletes are unable to do with the current situation, unless they have a barbell. Some of the benefits of OI training include:

- Higher overall muscle activation during OI training than eccentric or concentric muscle actions (1).

- OIs have a high joint-angle specificity, meaning strength gains can be attained at the very specific angles you train (e.g. squat with a 135 degree knee angle). If you are an athlete trying to strengthen a certain position in your lifts or jumps, this is a great way to do that!

- Training multiple joint angles with OIs can produce similar effects as dynamic strength training (traditional movements) (2). This means that if you utilise multiple angles you may be able to get the same training effect as if you were to use a barbell.

How Do I Utilise OIs in My Training?

Let's use the example of the single leg squat for maximal force production and strength gains. Grab a towel, belt or strapping and place it under your foot, while grabbing the two ends with your hands. As in the photo above, push down hard on the towel/belt while pulling up as hard as possible. Ensure a braced core and neutral spine.

Ensure you are working through multiple angles: a slight knee bend, a 135 degree angle and a 90 degree angle. Aim for 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, holding a 2-5 second max contraction at each angle. You can do this with multiple positions: a "bench press" type position, where the towel/belt is placed around the back; a bilateral squat, or a bilateral deadlift position. It's up to you to get creative and utilise this tool to create a similar stimulus to traditional max strength training!

2) Training With Intent and Maximal Velocity

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. If you are an athlete, HOW you express force is more important than your maximal ability to produce force. In other words, athletes can not only move heavy things, they produce force FAST. Producing a lot of FAST force is key to being a game changing athlete. Additionally, training with maximal intent and expressing force with a high velocity, can increase overall power output, which is the currency for athletes.

FAST force is producing a high amount of force in a very short time. In other words, this is impulse. Training this way will help you change direction, evade and accelerate better.

Training with a high intent and velocity while moving can help increase your power output, as this is a high-speed expression of force. Force x Velocity = Power, so in the absence of being able to use a heavy weight to express maximal force as we train dynamically, velocity is king in your attempt to produce more power.

How Do I Train Like This?

Put simply, move as FAST as possible. If you have a light weight, train for speed strength! Take a light kettlebell or weight, hold it in a goblet squat position, and do some squat jumps. Alternatively, any kind of bodyweight plyometric training will also help train this aspect of your athleticism. Finally, sprint training is possibly the simplest and most effective way to add high velocity, high intent "force expression" work to your at home training programme.

Regardless of the type of training you do to move fast, ensure this is not part of a HIIT workout, and that you maximise your high intent activities by reducing the number of reps and increasing the rest. For example, try to keep the reps typically between 3-6 per set, and the rest about 2-3 mins between sets.

In practice, this looks like the following (with the addition of overcoming isometrics above):

- Overcoming Isometric Single Leg Squat: 3 positions, quarter squat, half squat and full squat, 3 seconds in each position (both legs).

- Max Effort Alternating Split Squat Jumps: 3 reps per side

4 sets, 3 min rest

OR

- Overcoming Isometric Dead Pull (Trap Bar Deadlift position): 3 positions, quarter, half and full, 3 seconds in each position.

- Broad Jump: 3 reps OR Wall Drill Piston Sprint/5 yd Sprint: 2 reps

4 sets, 3 min rest

OR

- Overcoming Isometric Push-up, 2 positions, bottom and near the top, 3 seconds in each position.

- Plyometric Push-up - 5 reps

4 sets, 3 min rest

The goal here is to not "break a sweat" in the typical fashion. Yes, within the set it should be tiring, but it should NOT feel like a deep, intense burn or difficult to finish. If it is, you are doing too many reps.

3) Equating Volume Load

We have spoken about how to maintain explosive strength in the previous two points, now we will talk about how to maintain or increase muscle mass. When volume load is equated, you can achieve the same muscular hypertrophy as training with a heavier weight in the gym (3). If done right, this can be a great way to either maintain or increase muscle mass. Combined with the first two points in this article, this can be the final piece in the puzzle to helping you maintain your athleticism during quarantine!

How Do I Equate Volume Load?

Let's go through an example:

If your normal weight training consists of a 250lb squat for 3 sets of 6 reps, and all you have is a 50 lb dumbbell for goblet squats, you would calculate how many reps you would need to do with the 50 lb dumbbell with the following:

250 lbs x 3 sets x 6 reps = 4500 lbs total lifted

4500 lb / 50 lb dumbbell = 90 reps

Now you have to split the 90 reps up into appropriate sets and reps. Let's go with 5 sets, which would be 18 reps per set (90 / 5 = 18).

To clarify, to get the same effect on muscular hypertrophy as squatting 250 for 3 sets of 6, you would need to squat a 50 lb dumbbell for 5 sets of 18 reps. As the weight is significantly lower, make sure to keep the rest lower, perhaps 1 min after each set. You can use this calculation for any type of lift you want to do. Bear in mind that when only training with bodyweight, this can get a little tricky. The best thing to do in that case is to train for 3-5 sets of near-failure with maybe a slower tempo to achieve similar results.

Please note: equating volume loads works for hypertrophy, but not for strength, hence why putting this at the END of a training session with points 1 and 2 above will help you cover ALL bases.

Final Points

Using the above tips will help you train effectively and efficiently to achieve your goals as an ATHLETE. Adding progressions to each workout will ensure you continuously adapt to the stimuli you are providing yourself with. With everyone in isolation, and limited gym equipment, it can be easy to fall off the horse with your training. But it's on YOU to stay ready, so you don't have to get ready when the season is about to start.

Train SMART, THEN TRAIN HARD. Be THE DIFFERENCE.

Usama Mujtaba | M.Eng, CSCS Strength & Conditioning Coach and Owner, FiveFour Performance

1) Babault, N., Pousson, M., Ballay, Y. & Hoecke, J. (2001). Activation Of Human Quadricep Femoris During Isometric, Concentric, and Eccentric Contractions. Journal Of Applied Physiology.

2) Folland, J. P., Hawker, K., Leach, B., Little, T. & Jones, D. A. (2005). Strength training: Isometric training at a Range of Joint Angles Versus Dynamic Training. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23(8): 817 – 824

3) Schoenfel, B. J., Ratamess, N. A., Peterson, M. D., Contreras, B., Sonmez, G. T., & Alvar, B. A. (2014). Effects of Different Volume-equated Resistance Training Loading Strategies on Muscular Adaptations in Well-trained Men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2909-18.

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