High Frequency Strength Training

It is our job as a strength and conditioning professionals to design strength programs to effectively improve our athlete’s physical ability.  A common dilemma that occurs in the volleyball world is figuring out how much strength training needs to be done in order to be effective while managing the demands and expectations of volleyball performance.  As we know, volleyball requires athletes to exhibit high outputs of power on a repetitive basis.  When we engage in resistance training, we fatigue our muscles.  Fatigued muscles do not generate as much power as fresh muscles.  Playing volleyball with fatigued muscles isn’t the most ideal scenario (although there could be an argument made that skill acquisition is enhanced under fatigued conditions – but I digress).  So, again, the dilemma becomes: how do we train to be powerful but also be good at volleyball?

Insert “high frequency strength training”.  High frequency strength training, sometimes known as “micro-dosing” not a new or novel concept.  In fact, many strength and power sports utilize this type of training and have been for decades.  This type of training is a training strategy revolving around training in shorter, more frequent bouts.  The purpose is to promote performance, improve athlete durability and reduce the accumulation of fatigue.  My hope is that this post will bring in to focus the benefits (and drawbacks) of utilizing this method.

Benefits

Promote Performance – The research demonstrating the benefits of resistance training on performance is robust and those concepts remain true when implementing a high frequency strength training model.  The key with this model is the time it takes to recover between sessions.  There is a shorter recovery window follow a shorter training session.  Thus, the ability to train more frequently.  More frequent training with less needed recovery time can lead to performance improvements through adaptation.  In the volleyball world, this is incredibly beneficial.  In a sport where most teams limit or do not resistance train in season, high frequency strength training provides the resource to not only train a team through a season, but also experience adaptations.  This ties in nicely to my post on managing workload in-season.

Improve Durability – Volleyball is a sport that contains a wide array of movements that an athlete must create and must overcome.  There is a host of ways that a volleyball player can (and probably should) train in order to meet these demands of the sport.  If you are curious about my thoughts on plyometric training you can check it out here.  In addition to plyometric training, strength training can and will aid in helping to build a more robust athlete.  A drop off in training may lead to a drop off in strength and thus put our athlete more at risk of injury.  Training in smaller more frequent sessions gives us the flexibility to train an athlete to maintain their strength but not over train as to cause a fatiguing effect that may expose injury risk during a practice session – see ‘Reduce Accumulated Fatigue’ below.

Reduce Accumulated Fatigue – Over the course of a training block, week of practice, etc. our athletes will accrue fatigue.  Traditionally, a volleyball team may have 1 or 2 lifts in season that are an hour in length.  By incorporating shorter, more frequent training sessions, we can spread out this 1 or 2 hours of workload across the week.  Spreading out the workload can reduce muscle soreness and can also help improve strength.

**Improved Quality of Strength Sessions  - I put an asterisk on this one because it was a happy discovery that I had not anticipated.  I found that having shorter sessions that only have an emphasis on 1 or 2 main movements improved the quality of the strength session itself.  Anecdotally we have seen that when the only 2 movements are more physically and mentally taxing, but that’s only what they athlete has to focus on for that session, they tend to have a higher quality session.  While I have no actual scientific evidence to back this up, the perception has definitely been as such.

It’s Worth Noting…

Frequent resistance training but at a low intensity does nothing.  In fact, it can be more detrimental than helpful.  It is really important to match training stimuli with what kind of adaptation or desired effect we want. For example, early in a week (ie. the first training day of the week) we will want to focus more on strength, thus driving the need to program intensities that match that demand.  As we get closer to match day (or even on match day) we want to have intensities that act as a CNS activation and prime us for high performance.

Drawbacks

Training this way may not be the most ideal year-round.  I have found that during times when the sport volume is high (eg. inseason) this type of training methodology is very effective.  In an offseason time when sport volume is relatively low, this type of training may not be as effective.  When the main prioritization is the strength training there can be benefit to going towards a more “traditional” scheduling and strength training model.  I am not making a recommendation one way or the other for an offseason time but I do think as a practitioner it is good to think about as the year roll on.

Final Words

High frequency strength training is an extremely effective method of strength training.  It likely has its greatest effectiveness when implemented inseason or when sport volume is high but I do think that it can be effective year round when properly implemented. 

If you’d like to chat further on this or are curious as to how I structure my training programs please hop over to our consulting page and start with Tier 1 and we can dive right in.