Tip Rethink the Dynamic Effort Method Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness Training Tip Rethink the Dynamic Effort Method Sounds like powerlifting heresy but this popular method doesn' t work for most average people Here' s why by Christian Thibaudeau February 7, 2017August 18, 2019 Tags Tips, Training Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell is one of the smartest men in training, but the dynamic effort method is the most overrated. It's not that it doesn't work, but it's not nearly as effective as a lot of people think. And the way most people do it is completely ineffective. You re Probably Not Strong Enough For It First you have to understand the population dynamic effort was designed for: super strong people. It was made for those who are efficient at producing a high level of force with their muscles and have good motor control. It's much easier for someone like that to be able to accelerate an external resistance than someone who's not as skilled at producing force. Those who are genetically gifted to build a lot of strength are born either with a very high ratio of fast twitch fibers or an efficient nervous system. They also often have a good background in sports like football, requiring explosiveness. These people can accelerate the hell out of 50%, moving at 0.9 to 1.1 meters per second. In their case, typical speed work might actually move too fast for what they want to train. But put the same 50% on someone who's not as gifted and the lift won't look explosive. It'll look a bit faster than a heavier weight, but not explosive. I've seen people claiming to do speed work while the lift looks almost like a grind. Listen, a dynamic effort rep should look violent, not just less slow. Heck, I remember watching a video where the guy claimed "a 260kg speed deadlift" and it moved slower than my 90-95% max efforts (and I'm not a good deadlifter). Usually people who suck at exploding won't be able to produce enough speed with a barbell when doing dynamic effort work. They'd need to use about 30% to be able to be somewhat explosive, but then the force production will be too slow to be of any benefit to strength. Those people need to learn to be explosive first by doing jumps and throws. Once they're better at exploding and have gained strength, then they might think about doing dynamic effort work. First Build Your Foundation To clarify, the dynamic effort method works if you have a good foundation of strength and some experience with explosive movements. They're prerequisites. If you don't have those, you'd be better off building a foundation of strength through work in the 3-6 rep range and learning how to explode via jumps and throws (and Olympic lifts if you have a competent coach). The main benefit of dynamic effort work for strong lifters is that they get to practice their competition lift at a higher frequency without burning out the CNS. It's not so much the explosion work, but rather the technical practice with low neurological impact that's the main benefit. But the same can be accomplished by using a more traditional Russian approach of doing 5 sets of 3 reps with 75-80% using the normal lifting speed. Since the speed is more similar to a competition lift, it will transfer better. Louie is a genius and has done more than anybody for strength training knowledge, and I love training explosively. But I don't believe that the traditional dynamic effort method is the best way for most people to do that. Also note that many former Westside guys have dropped the dynamic effort method themselves. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Videos Tip Dumbbell Bench Press Drop Sets for Size Training to failure works. Period. Just incorporate it wisely. Here's one way to do it for chest training. Bench Press, Chest, Exercise Coaching, Tips John Meadows May 3 Training The Squat 4 Times Per Week Experiment A strength coach decides to throw the rules out the window and do high-frequency squatting. Here’s what happened. Legs, Powerlifting & Strength, Squat, Training Tony Gentilcore November 8 Training Tip Use This Trick to Hit Squat Depth Every Time If you can't hit proper depth, stop going up in weight. A squat is not a slight knee-bend or a curtsy. This clever trick will help you stop being lame. Tips, Training Tim Henriques July 14 Training Tip Get Ab Rollouts Right This exercise will never work well if you're doing it wrong. Here's how to fix your form. Training Dan North June 8