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Wearables for health abound. They can track lots of different metrics for health and can help gamify the pursuit of your goals. Matt & Niki explore why you might consider wearing wearables & how they use them.

Wearables for Health

What are wearables?

Wearables are devices that you wear (duh) that can track various data.

Some of the things they can track include: calories burned, steps walked, heart rate, body temperature, and sleep quality.

Wearables for health have grown more accurate in their measuring, but the primary reason for wearables is not accuracy but precision. You can compare different points in time and recognize trends (e.g. in general my sleep quality has improved over the last year as I reduced my alcohol consumption).

Some things they track directly, such as heart rate and movement. Others they track indirectly, by combining and analyzing various pieces of information they record directly.

For example, sleep quality can be assessed by recording heart rate and movement.

Why Wear Wearables for Health?

Wearables provide various metrics that you can track. So why wear them?

As Dr. Sullivan, Niki, and CJ discussed in this podcast, if you're gathering data, you need to know why you're gathering that data. This does cost some money, attention, and time to record and observe these metrics.

Wearables for health help gamify the pursuit of your goals. Anyone who has ever measured their daily steps has noticed that if they're close to a big number, such as 10,000 steps, they will typically do the extra work to hit the daily goal.

This incentivizes you to push a bit harder to hit certain markers. These markers do not necessarily equal better health, but they may correlate with improved health. Thus, this gamification can lead to improved results toward achieving or crushing your goals.

What wearables for health should not do is add stress. If you find missing a certain goal stressful, or you're worried about what your wearable will tell you about your sleep quality, then you're missing the point.

These should be tools for improving health and accomplishing your goals, not another stressor (as if we need more).

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Matt and Rachel Reynolds bring you this special edition of the Barbell Logic podcast, holiday edition. Matt & Rachel share their 2022 holiday message of gratitude, joy, anticipation, and reflection. Thank you for being fans & clients, coaches & clients!

This time of year is a time of reflection and joy, gratitude and anticipation. Families and friends gather, erect decorations and lights, and break bread together.

Matt, Rachel, and all of us at Barbell Logic thank you. We are grateful for all of you.

Barbell Logic turns 6 years this December and remains committed to its core values and doubling down on what we do best.

In 2023, you can look forward to some of the following and more:

• More Barbell Academy courses & content (included at no additional cost if you've already signed up)
• TurnKey Coach, with out web application and backend support to you coaches who provide (or want to provide) online coaching
• A 2023 fitness challenge

In this 2022 holiday message, we look back, look forward, and most especially thank you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Sully joins Niki & CJ to discuss health metrics that matter. Sully's biggest question is why do you think you need the test or data point? How will this information change your behavior?

Check out the Grey Steel YouTube channel here.

They refer to a red flag article a few times in the podcast. Read that article here.

Drowning in Data - Helpful Health Markers

It's easy to drown in data. One can wear wearables and get up-to-date health markers. We bombarded with inputs, news, sensory data, videos, podcasts, pings, updates, notifications.

Going with the current, sometimes bolstered by financial incentives, means gathering more data.

This data can give a blanket to client and practitioner of objectivity. It also allows delay.

What to do with the patient? Let's get more data. Administer these tests (oh, and I paid more when I prescribe more tests).

For coaches, it can be things like the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) and other tests.

Complication's siren call can obfuscate the reality that we haven't moved the patient or client any closer to their desired outcome.

What are helpful health metrics? Ones that drive decisions and behavior - pieces of data that will make you act differently.

Data Should Drive Decisions - Health Metrics that Matter

Gathering a host of tests & metrics provides the illusion of understanding and objectivity. It's mostly noise, and you might miss the signal.

Coaches should know red flags, when training is contraindicated. The lifter and client should understand baseline, and when something changes that indicates something is off and further digging into the problem may help.

What are some typical important health markers for coaches? Having an understanding of what the client does outside the gym (other physical activity, sleep, nutrition) & when that changes drastically (e.g. someone who is mostly sedentary goes for a long hike and then misses their squats).

Pain matters too. Some pain seems to come with being a human (low back pain). Still, the type of pain, what movements cause it, how severe it is, and if modifications in dosing (intensity, exercise selection, volume) decrease or eliminate the pain.

Health metrics that matter drive decisions.

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Matt & Niki explore helpful strength equipment that helps you solve problems, make strength training more fun, and build your home gym. They share specific pieces of equipment and for whom this gear might help the most. This isn't equipment to get started or gear 101, but rather equipment and gear for those who are continuing on the path of strength and voluntary hardship. Helpful Strength Equipment You need a few items to begin strength training properly, though you can also start exercising today. As you progress and build the habit of strength training (and simultaneously get older) some equipment can help solve common problems you will likely encounter. Some of these items help add variety and make training more fun. Other gear helps deal with common injuries or pain points. Regardless, this list of items can help you build compliance and improve your training. If you use it, it is ultimately an investment in yourself and your health. Accessories for Accessory Work Accessory work can get repetitive if all you have is a barbell. A few pieces of equipment can multiply the potential hypertrophy and accessory work you can program. Adjustable dumbbells allow you to add dumbbell variations and accessory lifts without taking up a ton of space (and saving money compared to a full set of dumbbells). Not only can you perform dumbbell variations of the main lifts, you can also perform more accessory work that you simply cannot perform with barbells (e.g. dumbbell flies or lateral raises). A similar example of helpful strength equipment is a pulley system. This enables lat pull downs as well as using the pulley system for hypertrophy work (triceps, biceps, etc.). The last helpful items that focuses primarily on the upper body is getting a dip attachment to your power rack or an adjustable bench. They allow variation for pressing movements, and you can also perform accessory lifts on the bench. Enabling lower body accessory work comes in handy as you become more advanced, as deadlifts and squats don't only get repetitive but if you face a big injury, you might not be able to perform one or both of these lifts for awhile. Some helpful strength equipment for this area are a reverse hyper, glute ham raise, or leg extension/leg curl attachment. Some of these take up a lot of space, but getting just one of them can provide additional leg stress and make a big difference in your lower body training. Supplying Supplemental Lifts This might be the widest area, as we're talking about different types of barbells and other items that can modify the main lifts. A deadlift bar can really help your deadlift 1RM, as it has a smaller diameter and more whip (which reduces the range of motion). An axle bar for the press or bench press reduces your ability to grip the bar but enables good pressing variants. It is also necessary if you're considering Strong Man training. Getting a slingshot or board attachment can help overload the bench and work on the top portion of your bench. The slingshot can also help if you have shoulder pain. Bands and chains are helpful strength equipment that enables accommodating resistance. The safety squat bar and football bar (and variations of both) not only add supplemental variations to the lifts but can also prevent pain for the shoulders and wrists specifically. Convenience & Climate The last area of helpful strength equipment includes items that add convenience to your lifting or improve the atmosphere of the gym. The monolift attachment allows you to not have to take a step bar or move the bar from the pins to the shoulders on the bench. It provides the most benefit to the most people for the bench press, as many find it reduces or eliminates shoulder pain. Niki also uses it for the RDL. A deadlift jack makes loading and unloading plates easier for any lift that has the barbell on the ground, especially the deadlift. A 1-arm deadlift jack is smaller and more mobile - you can put it in your gym bag. A 2-arm deadlift jack makes more sense if you have a decent amount of space in your home gym or for public gyms. Wrist wraps & lifting straps help with wrist support or grip support for compression or tension grips. Ammonia or smelling salts help bring focus and intensity to big attempts. Clothes help you feel and perform better. Clothes really are helpful strength equipment. A timer or watch can ensure that you don't waste time in the gym between sets and make the rest time consistent. This is especially important at a public gym or if you're a coach, because the lifter isn't paying you to tell them stories. Last but probably not least for most people is something to help with climate control, specifically heating or cooling your gym.

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Matt Reynolds, Niki Sims, and CJ Gotcher join up to answer your lifting and lifestyle questions. They cover wrist wraps and wrist straps for deadlifting, upper body pulling exercises for novices, BJJ, hiking & rucking, stuffing or dressing, and more in this fun but informative holiday Q&A. Wrist Wraps & Lifting Straps for Deadlifts If you're having wrist issues, don't hesitate to use wrist wraps for your lifts. Wrist wraps for deadlifts, however, should not really help. During the deadlift your wrists are in tension, not compression. Use the wrist wraps on all your lifts where your wrists are in compression, even the squat. Lifting straps, however, are fine if you're having grip issues. Upper Body Pulling Exercises for Novices Our Best Exercises for Strength video discusses the main 4 lifts to get stronger. We still stand by this. Lifters, however, add some type of upper body pulling exercise early on as a lifter, some adding them as they begin their novice program. It partly depends on their goals and current situation. Some people may really want to get their first bodyweight pull-up. There is no reason to weight, and this may be a good situation to have a lifter move to a 4-day split routine as a novice. Others may be in the military or a similar situation, and may need to maintain or improve their chin-up or pull-up performance. Others, however, may be true beginners with little to no experience in the gym. Focusing on the main four lifts for them is enough. As they get stronger and their technique improves, adding in something like a barbell row, lat pull down, or chin-ups makes sense. Hiking, Rucking, & BJJ Niki shares here favorite submission move in BJJ. CJ gives a brief description of his recent rucking event and if it was the hardest thing he's every done. Matt discusses how a supposedly friendly hike became a 7-hour ordeal of terror. Holiday Traditions How do you say the word "pecan?" Do you eat stuffing or dressing? What are their favorite dishes, drinks, and desserts for Thanksgiving. Learn this and more, and share your with us on Instagram.

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We share our coaching lessons learned - professionalism over mastery, personability and personalization over optimal programming, flexibility over rigidity, long-term good over short-term gains, and more.

Coaching Lessons Learned

If you're not growing, not learning, not improving, then you're getting worse - that's the nature of this existence. Entropy comes with the deal.

That's why, coming near the end of this year and during a time when we reflect on what we've learned, what we'd like to improve on going forward, and what we're thankful for, some BLOC coaches share their coaching lessons learned.

Whether you're a coach, lifter, or within earshot of this because your spouse or significant other plays their podcasts too loud, we hope you learn something from this.

Personalization over the "Perfect Program"

The perfect program, lost to moderns, either buried in the lost city of Atlantis or created by some super secret Soviet coach, still encoded and not translated into English, does not exist.

The principles of programming always matter, but they must be applied to the person who presents himself in real time in front of you - your client.

What are his circumstances, limitations, preferences, fears, goals? These matter more than perfect technique, 12 minute rest periods, or the DUP template you've improved for decades.

The programming has to work for your client, not, for the long-term.

Coaching Lessons Learned - Source of truth.

An easy example of this, especially early on, is the reality of biomechanically efficient form when it comes to the lifts. The truth of gravity tells you when you're doing it wrong.

Personal records can be a source of truth, but look for other metrics as well. What is the client's motivation? Is nagging pain not improving?

Seek ways to understand and track truth.

Outside the Gym & Technique

The biggest keys to success lie outside the gym. Niki and CJ share similar coaching lessons learned.

Sleep, getting to the gym early and staying late, preparation, food, socializing - these all affect your performance as a coach and lifter.

Relatedly, you have to be more than a form technician.

You have to have basic knowledge of nutrition and the basic situations that are likely to arise (back tweak, elbow tendinitis, get sick, etc.).

You will eventually encounter problems that lay outside the typical situations, and do your best to solve them, refer them out, or help find them a new coach.

Your Ideal Strength Client?

A decade ago, Niki & CJ would have likely said something like someone who is younger, eating tons of protein and calories, doesn't have other conflicting physical activities outside the gym, and can rest long between work sets. But, they've come upon more coaching lessons learned, and changed their minds.

Who is this unicorn client? Like the perfect program, the perfect client doesn't exist.

This ideal client makes things easier for you, the coach. Given them the program, if they don't want to follow your guidelines, they're not doing the program, and their failure is their fault.

This might be the case sometimes - people have to put in the work, and shouldn't do whatever they want.

But if strength is important, it benefits everyone, especially those who participate in other physical pursuits outside the gym. Strength would help their health and hobbies.

CJ says it's a red flag when people avoid social situations or physical activities because they're afraid it will negatively affect recovery.

Most people don't want to pay the price for continuous PRs - something matters to them more. That's okay.

Content & Personability

It's not 1983. We don't look numbers up in the white or yellow pages. We typically find a business or person online, and that person's content builds trust and credibility.

After some time, this may lead to purchasing that person's or business's products or services.

Create content, and keep it true to yourself. You're not just a strength coach. You probably don't only eat chicken breasts and broccoli. You probably don't only read scientific studies. And if you do only coach, read scientific studies, and eat chicken breasts and broccoli, that's probably what your social media should reflect.

After Niki & CJ share their top 3 lessons learned, other BLOC coaches share their coaching lessons learned. We hope you enjoy and learn from them!

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Jordan Stanton returns to answer your questions on velocity based autoregulation. Why is this not for novices? What guidance would you give to lifters when the device tells you you should have a big PR? Who is a good candidate for velocity based training?

Autoregulation for Novices?

Form is not stable, and this is a requirement, especially for velocity based autoregulation.

Novices, in addition to needing to improve technique and develop consistent form, beginners need to experience higher RPE sets.

More advanced lifters cannot recover from RPE 9+ sets like beginners, can, but novices and early intermediate can benefit from just how heavy "heavy but doable" can be.

RiR & RPE - Are They the Same?

It depends.

Some define Rate of Perceive Exertion (RPE) by Reps in Reserve (RiR). Others give RPE a more qualitative score.

RPE comes from the endurance world, and can also be used for conditioning. For example, you might tell someone to run for 3 miles at RPE 6, which is an easy, conversational pace.

Is Autoregulation Just Changing the Intensity?

Not necessarily, though sometimes.

The simple way to use velocity based autoregulation is to identify your estimated 1RM for that day, and then perform the work sets based off that information.

Similarly, a lifter may work up to a single at RPE 8, and then do back off sets from that single.

Some autoregulation techniques adjust volume.

A lifter could perform an AMRAP for one or multiple sets.

For velocity based training, a lifter could adjust the volume based on velocity decay. One week, a lifter may only do 2 sets of 2, whereas the next it could be 5 sets of 2.

1RM Every Workout?

Some programs do work up to a heavy single. They typically are performed at a prescribed RPE, such as RPE 8, and are not a true 1RM.

Other programs have a lifter work up to a 1RM, but often on a supplemental lift (e.g. Westside conjugate max effort day).

Back off sets are completed based off the heavy single.

The PR is There for the Taking

For you pessimists out there, the main benefit of velocity based autoregulation out there may be the avoidance of missed reps, and more appropriate intensities for blue collars days.

The flip side, however, is when the device tells you should have a substantial PR.

In these cases, what do you do?

Considering that this is an advanced training technique and that as lifters advanced, those PR days become rarer and rarer, Jordan tells lifters to go for the PR, with caution.

For example, maybe the Rep One device suggests a 50lb PR. He might tell his lifter to attempt a conservative single first, or go for a 25lb single first.

Part of this is because more factors determine the success of a PR attempt than your performance that day. Also, the lived experience of performing a heavy weight may change. Sounds, sights, sensations may occur that you've never experienced before in your life.

Getting Started with VBT

Who are good candidates for velocity based autoregulation, and how do you as a coach bring it up?

Generally, the lifters need to have trained consistently for a relatively long period of time, so at least have gone through early intermediate.

They need to be able to give full effort to warm up sets. Their technique needs to be consistent.

Beyond that, you can see two groups of athletes that seem opposed but would both be good candidates.

One is the powerlifter or strengthlifter or similar strength-based athlete who really prioritizes lifting and wants to chase PRs. The other is the lifter who trains to support another activity, such as martial arts or a sport. For this second athlete, their performance in the gym may vary widely based on their sport or activity stress, so the VBT can help provide more appropriate stress doses.

Autoregulation & Accessories?

Velocity based autoregulation really doesn't make sense for accessory work.

Now, it can be appropriate for Olympic lifts, though the more important data is peak velocity, not average velocity.

Regarding this, Matt and Jordan talked about some interesting and fun ways to potentially use the devices.

One could, for example, work to identify and train where maximum power or maximum force occur, which would be at relatively heavy weights but definitely below 90%.

Similarly, one could compare AMRAPs to see who did more work. For example, two lifters perform bench press AMRAPs at 225. One lifter performs 10 reps, one performs 6 reps. The lifter who performed 10 reps, however, has shorter arms. Who did more work? You could find out.

One instance where autoregulation does make sense for accessories is AMRAPs. Doing AMRAPs of curls or rolling dumbbell extensions, for instance, especially if only for the last rep, is not that stressful.

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Injury and recovery are no fun and not why we train. They're a part of life, and come with training, especially if you push yourself over a long period of time. How do you adjust programming and mindset to keep training and keep improving.

Niki Sims shares her story of an injury that altered her training, identity, and pursuits, which ultimately caused her to not only alter reps and sets and exercise selection, but her approach and mindset regarding training and physical activity.

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Tweaks and Tribulations

Niki was trucking along nicely, hitting squat and deadlift PRs, improving in BJJ. Enter pain and injury.

She heard a pop during some deficit deadlifts. Her approach in the past had always been to do what she could, as much as possible, so she continued to pursue PRs. She hit a nice squat PR soon after that.

Performance continued to improve in the gym, and pain increased in intensity and frequency. One morning, she woke up and was in so much pain she couldn't see straight. She deadlifted later that day in a friendly competition.

She started to realize that looking at her lifting shoes was inducing anxiety, and the time that had been fun and solace and a welcome break every day - her gym time - now came with pain and anxiety.

She wasn't ready to stop lifting. Reduced intensity and doing as much as she could only increased pain over time. It wasn't working.

Injury and Recovery: Mindset Matters

Niki had built an identity around performance, competition, and ability. The previous period of relatively stable progress in the gym and on the mat had to give way to an examination of why she was training in the first place, what she wanted to get out of training going forward, and what was best for her - physically and mentally.

She realized she couldn't go down that mental road of comparing what she used to be able to do to what she can do now. She also couldn't second-guess decisions she had made in the past about training or continuing to chase after PRs.

She had to embrace reality and possibility, while digging deeper to understand her deeper reasons for training and exercise in the first place. Deadlift 440 pounds was an important goal for her, but based on current limitations and important whys, keeping this as a goal was counterproductive for her mind and body.

You can't let yourself spiral into mental cycles of associating the gym with pain and failure.

Injury and Recovery: Programming Changes

Reintroducing play into the gym helped. Focusing on having training time be pleasant mattered. The cycle of pain and dread had to end.

Finding exercises that can be pushed a bit more without pain can help - and those might not look anything like the four main lifts. This might and probably will involve exercises that use less muscle mass over a shorter range of motion with less weight.

Niki found that not having programmed squat and deadlift workouts helped, because if these were programmed and she wasn't able to do them or they were performed at extremely low intensities, this created a feeling of failure.

Be able to experiment with what works - what's fun, what doesn't produce pain, what makes you want to go to the gym.

Find metrics that matter more (which also can quantify improvements outside of weight on the bar). Niki found that tracking pain in the morning not only helped inform programming decisions but also helped her see the big picture that pain had decreased and that she could have fewer days with pain, and the pain could be less intense.

The programming changes that you might think would get her back to PRs more quickly only made things worse. Slight reductions in intensity, volume, and exercise selection did not suffice.

If you're a coach or coaching yourself and something similar happens, you might try those smaller MED changes at first, but sometimes the MED change is actually quite big, and requires big adjustments to programming and mindset.

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Autoregulation adjusts to the lifter's actual, not expected, performance during a workout. Get an overview of this strength training method. Autoregulation - The Concept

The underlying concept is fairly simple: adjust the work sets to the lifter's performance during the workout.

During novice linear progression, a lifter adds typically 5 pounds each week. The lifter adapts quickly while also lacking the ability to stress himself with a heavy work set like an advanced lifter can.

If the lifter misses a rep or set, a programming change probably needs to occur. If the lifter has a bad workout but hits all the reps, then she learns about just how heavy "heavy" can be. It can be a qualitative experience in RPE 8.5+ sets.

As the lifter advances, weight is often added less frequently, though you often see a linear progression of supplemental and accessory lifts.

Without autoregulation, a lifter performs work sets based on a past one-rep max or similar maximal effort (e.g. 5RM) or her expected performance. Past performance does best predict future performance, but occasionally a lifter experiences workouts on the tails of the bell curve.

A lifter may suddenly fail to hit prescribed reps or have to perform the reps at RPE 9+ effort, whereas the intended difficulty was closer to RPE 7.

The other extreme is the unexpected easy day, when a PR might be available. Especially as a lifter progresses, these days come less and less frequently, so taking the PR may be warranted.

Subjective Autoregulation

The lifter can attempt to make a more-or-less educated guess on his 1RM from his subjective assessment using rate of perceived exertion (RPE) or reps in reserve (RIR).

Work up to a single at RPE 8. This means you assess that you can complete 2 more reps. Then, perform 1x3 @ 93% and 3x5 @ 80%.

If your RPE assessment is fairly accurate, the training stress and intensity that day will be appropriate - sufficient but not too much.

The other primary subjective autoregulation method is the coach's eye. The coach can watch your warm up sets and help pick your work set intensity based on his assessment of your performance that day.

This is an informed input, if you have an experienced coach, but it is still subjective.

Lastly, the two methods can be combined. Whether in-person or online, this method works better. You have two independently-gathered albeit subjective data points that help determine the work sets for the workout.

Online, the coach obviously cannot pick the intensity that day, but the coach can help provide feedback on the lifter's RPE assessments and notice patterns.

For example, a lifter may tend to assess RPEs fairly accurate most of the time, and especially for upper body lifts. On bad days and for squats - this hypothetical lifter's least favorite lift - he tends to rate them higher than they were. This growing awareness can inform the lifter's decisions.

Objective Autoregulation

AMRAPs or working up to a 1RM are objective, as long as the lifter gives her full effort for the set.

The problem, is maximal effort sets, whether for one rep or as many reps as possible, are physically and mentally exhausting, will negatively affect the remaining work sets, and provide an extremely high-intensity training stress that must be accounted for in the training.

Velocity-based training, therefore, offers an objective autoregulation method that doesn't require a maximal set. The lifter has to give her full effort during warm ups, but this does not come with the same difficulty or downsides as a truly maximal work set.

The downside is mainly the cost, though they've become more readily available and more accurate.

If you're an advanced lifter that is serious about chasing PRs for the long haul, you might consider investing in this for your training.

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Velocity based training & autoregulation for strength sounds complex, but it's really simple - learn the secrets of this training method.

Why Try Velocity Based Training?

We like simplicity - our tagline is simple, hard, effective - so why add a seemingly complicated piece of equipment and method of autoregulation to your coaching or training?

First, this is not for novices. Novices need to add weight simply and linearly, improve technique, and experience the range of difficulties (the many flavors of heavy but doable).

Often, a lifter will finally achieve something that equates to something close to an RPE 7.5 or 8. This means, the lifter can accomplish two, maybe three more reps, and either give up on a rep or express fear that he won't be able to do another rep.

The reality is, this lifter has likely never experienced this level of intensity. If they have, it's been during a one-rep max attempt.

The middle and end of linear progression confront the lifter with hardship, and the lifter must willfully overcome the challenge. Voluntary hardship is not simply a catch phrase.

Second, velocity based autoregulation is not as complicated as it sounds. Intermediate and advanced lifters regularly use, and coaches often prescribe, programs based on percentages of their one-rep max.

The average velocity correlates linearly with percentage of one rep max, so what the lifter is doing is still using a program based on his one-rep maximum.

Third, velocity based training (VBT) is objective without requiring the lifter to complete a maximum effort set (either an AMRAP or 1RM).

Autoregulation - Subjective or Objective

Autoregulation adjust the prescribed workout based on the athlete's daily fluctuation and performance. This idea and approach comes from the reality that your athlete is not the same athlete every day, that his theoretical one-rep max changes, and that this varies and matters more and he advances as an athlete.

Subjective autoregulation methodologies exist and include rate of perceived exertion (RPE), reps in reserve (RIR), and percentage based training (where the one rep maximum is guessed, albeit in an educated way).

Conducting a daily maximum, as many reps as possible, or velocity based training are objective autoregulation approaches.

The first two approaches, however, require physically and mentally exhausting sets to accurately identify the lifter's one rep maximum that day.

Either the lifter must attempt a 1RM or the lifter has to do as many reps as possible. Only after these grueling sets does the lifter execute his prescribed work sets.

Velocity based autoregulation avoids the need for these maximum effort sets.

How Velocity Based Autoregulation Works

Velocity based training allows a lifter to accurately identify his 1RM for that day at sub-maximal (i.e. warm up) sets. How? Let's explore a bit.

Some assumptions come here, that it's important we acknowledge. The lifter's anthropometry need to remain constant, so growing lifters (children or teenagers) lose objectivity if they complete this training.

Form and technique matter, so novices or lifters consistently struggling with technique should not take on this methodology.

One important note is that this data remains the same if the lifter gets stronger. If a lifter improves his 1RM squat from 200 to 400, 50% will move at the same speed.

The device sits on the floor and connects to the bar with a wire. The athlete needs to collect five to ten data points. These lifts need to be performed with 100% effort for this data to be accurate (another reason novices should not use velocity based autoregulation).

The coach or lifter simply conducts linear regression analysis. One this is known, the lifter can come in on another day, conduct warm up lifts with 100% intention, learn his 1RM for that day, and then perform his work sets based on that knowledge.

Improve Your Coaching with VBT

Using velocity based autoregulation for your training and some of your clients provides you good feedback and data that can help you learn more about your athletes as well as your programming and coaching eye.

You can test your coaching eye. For example, what attempts should a lifter take on a 1RM attempt day or during a strengthlifting meet?

As a coach, you can make an educated guess and then, from the velocity device, actually get objective data on that athlete's 1RM for that day. This means, your athlete can take attempts based on more objective information, and you can improve your coaching eye.

You can learn both for individual athletes and your lifters aggregately truly what percentages of their 1RM they can complete 3x5, 5x3, 3x8, etc. This can help refine your percentage based programs.

You can begin to compare different groups of clients and learn if certain types of clients bar speed decays more quickly or more slowly (velocity decay). For example, Jordan has learned that advanced athletes and female athletes bar speed decays more slowly, on average.

Using Velocity Based Training Effectively

These devices provide you a good deal of useful data. You can learn the average velocity of a client's lifts. Average velocity correlates linearly with percentage of one rep max.

You can learn the peak velocity of a lift, which matters more for Olympic lifts.

Learn the slowest velocity a rep can be completed, or the minimum velocity threshold.

If technique breaks down (e.g. a lifter's knees cave in) or that athlete experiences pain at certain intensities, you can learn the quality velocity threshold and pain velocity threshold and program accordingly.

Jordan recommends using the wired, not wireless, devices, as they provide more accurate data. Their durability, affordability, and accuracy have improved since Jordan first began using the Rep One prototype.

Jordan has noticed that this information is less accurate at lower loads, but we're training for strength. This does not matter too much.

This method of training is less helpful for power movements, even the press, especially if done in an Olympic manner or with a hip whip.

This method of training can provide much data, but sometimes more than you or your client want. Jordan recommends sometimes simply getting the 1RM, turning the device off, and completing your work sets.

Jordan has velocity based training for both in-person and online clients, and it has worked in both environments. Online, it obviously provides a much more accurate form of autoregulation than RPE. The lifter simply must perform the warm up sets with 100% effort.

If the client lifts consistently, he should not need to reset the linear progression more than once a year.

Using Velocity Based Training Creatively

Lastly, some creative methods can be used with this. A lifter could perform an AMRAP that stops at the quality velocity threshold or pain velocity threshold (where form deteriorates or pain arises).

Similarly, a lifter could conduct an AMRAP that stops when velocity decays to a certain degree. This would require a coach or training partner to monitor the device and tell the lifter when to stop.

If you prescribe programs using percentages of one rep max you can use this method. If as a lifter your technique is consistent, you can complete warm up sets with full intention, and have completed percentage-based programs, you can use this methodology.

Velocity based training is an objective autoregulation methodology that is simpler than it seems and can improve your training and coaching.

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