Free VBT program for university athletes
This FREE VBT program for University Athletes is different from the free high school VBT program in several minor ways, but there is one stark difference in the way we peak the athletes. This program is 16 week versus 12 weeks to allow for two individual peaks. In week 8, the program is designed to peak the athletes’ absolute strength in this case the front squat and the bench press. However, you can feel free to change those out with whatever movements you prefer.
During the last two blocks, the entire purpose of the plan is to enhance power and speed. We focus on enhanced elasticity and the body’s ability to produce force at higher velocities; make the switch to lower intensities, higher velocities, and bands to enhance power production. We measure the enhanced power production by peaking the Olympic lifts. We’re prescribing the same as in the high school program in the way we use rep maxes, percentages, RPE, and velocity. The velocity suggestions for the Olympic lifts are based off of Bryan Mann’s work where he took height into consideration. Of course, the best way is to perform velocity profiles on each of your athletes, but most of us simply don’t have the time and/or resources. The recommended minimum velocity thresholds are fairly conservative, so they should keep your athletes far from a potential miss. This is perfect for Olympic lifts, since their main stimulus is power expression.
Most of you already know all of the intricacies that I have used to prescribe this program, but I explained it more in detail with the high school program. The entire goal is to prescribe with rep maxes, velocities, and percentages to teach athletes a better sense of intent, and it’s also designed to give you multiple ways to prescribe in case you don’t have a LPT for all athletes. However, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to monitor the properties that the GymAware Cloud monitors automatically. If all you do is monitor absolute strength, you are missing the biggest component for athletic development – rate of force development. I recommend looking at the eccentric and concentric force production and rate of that force.
Feel free to email me at Travis@GymAware.com for any questions, results experienced, and suggestions for future articles or programs. Thank you for taking the time to read our articles and watch our videos. It’s because of you that I have my dream job educating the future within the industry I love so much.
Being a World Champion in powerlifting, Travis competed at a world-class level in Olympic weightlifting and has coached professional Olympic weightlifters alongside Don McCauley and Glenn Pendlay at Team MDUSA. Now Travis coaches the most successful weightlifting team in the USA.
