How do you know if your athletes have recovered from a game or training session, on a per-session basis? How do you know if your program is working and they are increasing their performance? Using a daily max is a great method for assessing an athlete's recovery and readiness for performance.
Planning training loads for the gym can be done in a number of ways. Traditionally you would test athletes' 1RM (or estimated 1RM) at the end of a cycle, or in a preseason testing session, then prescribe certain percentages from this for the next cycle.
For example:
- Week 1: 4×4 @ 80%
- Week 2: 4×4 @ 82.5%
The problem here is being flexible with a team-sports athlete who has training demands outside the gym. A heavy contact session, a higher than normal game load, travel, all these can throw off recovery, and the prescribed progression may not be appropriate.
To get around this, you may not even prescribe percentages, and just let the athletes go by feel and increase weights from week to week. In a sense this is a form of autoregulation, or self-regulation.
The problem with letting an athlete go by feel is that it goes in two directions. You have the guy who loves lifting and will try to set a new PR every session, sometimes to his own detriment. Then there is the other guy who hates lifting and will simply do the minimum or whatever is left on the bar and doesn't really care.
The method
My suggestion to work around both scenarios is to use a daily maximal lift, and to use velocity-based training alongside it. It also works well for athletes who crave a bit of intensity and competition.
Monday morning the athletes present for a lower body session. After the normal warm-ups, the athlete works up to a heavy 1 rep maximum on back squats, aiming to keep the speed above 0.35 m/s using a velocity (bar speed) measuring device. That speed is around 90 to 95% of a genuine all-out 1RM for back squats. Once that threshold is reached, the athlete begins their working sets, using the daily max as a starting point. The initial 1-rep at 90 to 95% 1RM is the measuring stick: it tells you how the weekend's game was absorbed, and how the athlete is performing.
A typical Monday session
Warm-up: 5×60 kg, 5×80 kg, 3×100 kg, 2×120 kg, 1×140 kg, 1×160 kg, 1×170 kg.
Working sets:
- 1×180 @ 0.38 m/s
- 1×185 @ 0.34 m/s (daily maximum reached)
- 4×4 @ 80% of 185 = 145 kg
A key point. Once the speed threshold is reached you intentionally stop adding weights to the bar, even if the athlete feels they could lift more. Keeping some in the tank is vital for recovery. Keeping the speed consistent week to week is what lets you read the trend.
Squat
Week-to-week progression
The point is to see some form of progression as you move through a cycle. You can increase the working set percentage or fluctuate the volume.
A four-week example:
- Week 1: 1×185 @ 0.34 m/s, 4×4 @ 80%
- Week 2: 1×187.5 @ 0.36 m/s, 4×4 @ 82.5%
- Week 3: 1×182.5 @ 0.35 m/s, 4×4 @ 85%
- Week 4: 1×190 @ 0.34 m/s, 4×4 @ 87.5%
Different lifts have different speed thresholds. Bench press sits closer to 0.20 m/s. We use GymAware as the velocity measuring device.
The method can be done without a velocity measuring device. It would require athletes to gauge effort and bar speed at different loads, which is asking a lot of an inexperienced lifter.