Andy Galpin Power Training Advice

[SandaKicker]

If you haven't heard of him Andy Galpin has a PHD in bioenergetics which he says is a fancy way of saying muscle physiology.

He does some consultancy with a few combat sport athlete's and he's been on a bunch of podcasts etc. but he says muscle physiology research is his main day job.

He also has a youtube channel which I will link to below.

One of his area's of research is the conversion of fast to slow twitch muscle twitch fibres or vice versa. He says it can be done much more than most people think. He did a study on identical twins, one was an endurance athlete with >90% fast twitch fibres, the other was a sedentary guy with 50:50 fast to slow twitch ratio.

Consistent with his views on muscle fibre conversion he advocates a resistance training programme that strikes me as unusual.

If you look Power = Strength X Speed

Then his advice to me seeks to maximise power by training the speed side of the equation whereas a lot of other programmes seek to maximise the strength aspect.

The rep range he advocates are 1-5 reps.

He says work at 30 - 75% of your 1RM, if you go higher you might not be able to do the movement's fast enough.

2 and a half to 5 minutes between sets.

Link;



So what are your views on this training method? If what he is saying is true and it can drive muscle fibre conversion then that strikes me as something very interesting to anyone interested in throwing punches, kicks or shooting a double.

 

[Sano]

This isnt news, but good video. As far as power is concerned, he has it covered.

Btw, it would be more accurate to say that Power is Force x Velocity. The 30-75% range is where power peaks in most exercises, as It's the optimal ratio of the two. There's benefit in training various aspects of the force-velocity curve, both max strength and max speed, for power though. Depending on your individual profile.

Anyway, it wont make or break you and you wont suddenly become this powerhouse, but it might give you an edge if if done right.

 

[SandaKicker]

It’s news to me to be honest.

Previous arguments that I encountered for powerlifting or the 1 - 5 rep range focused on myfibrillar versus sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

The problem that I had with that was that it seemed like the word on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy changed from “no one knows exactly what it does” to “it does nothing” depending on who you talked to.

Driving myofibrillar hypertrophy might be good for power/weightlifting sports but it wasn’t a compelling argument to me for MMA training. Although some hypertrophy in general I think is a good thing.

Then there are the people who advocate power lifting/Olympic because it drives neurological adaptions.

This strikes me as being much more sport specific. The nervous system adapts to weight lifting by lifting weights. It adapts to grappling by grappling etc.

Driving some hypertrophy depending on your training status and some slow twitch to fast twitch conversion strike me as the most compelling arguments for following this protocol but I’m not an expert and it’s outside my field.

 

[Sano]

It’s news to me to be honest.

Previous arguments that I encountered for powerlifting or the 1 - 5 rep range focused on myfibrillar versus sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

The problem that I had with that was that it seemed like the word on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy changed from “no one knows exactly what it does” to “it does nothing” depending on who you talked to.

Driving myofibrillar hypertrophy might be good for power/weightlifting sports but it wasn’t a compelling argument to me for MMA training. Although some hypertrophy in general I think is a good thing.

Then there are the people who advocate power lifting/Olympic because it drives neurological adaptions.

This strikes me as being much more sport specific. The nervous system adapts to weight lifting by lifting weights. It adapts to grappling by grappling etc.

Driving some hypertrophy depending on your training status and some slow twitch to fast twitch conversion strike me as the most compelling arguments for following this protocol but I’m not an expert and it’s outside my field.

It's been some time since I looked at it, but as far as I know 'sarcoplasmic hypertrophy' is largely unsubstantiated.

Powerlifting, and weightlifting, can be at a lower rep range as well. Derivatives of Olympic lifting especially can be quite useful in developing power, but you can substitute them for something less technical. In regards to neurological adaptions you're right that many are movement specific, but there's also a non-specific component which is generally increased neural activity, rate coding and motorplate activation of the muscle used. Hypertrophy isn't necessarily bad for MMA and it's largely a product of your diet, but with weightclasses it has to be planned. Strength, soft tissue durability and muscle size in the right places goes a long way in regards to injury prevention, but that's a side topic. It's probably equally important as training any other attribute though, if not more so.

Yeah, there will be some fiber conversion, but it's a bit debated exactly how much of it is the fibers literally changing and how much is them just changing their characteristics, but that's not really that important. Point is, the ability to produce force at higher velocity can be trained, and it's definitely useful for all fighting sports. A caveat is that while it's often most effective to train within your peak power range to improve peak power, in some cases training speed (velocity) or strength (force) can improve power more than doing either alone. Anyway, I'd use power training sporadically, not all year around. GPP phase to build resistance to injury, improve mobility and stability, improve movement patterns and create a foundation, then move into max strength, power or speed/agility phases if necessary. You can mix a few of them together if you want to play around with it. Keep in mind this is nerdy detail stuff. Outside of keeping healthy all these attributes are secondary concerns to your actual martial arts training. Which btw improves a lot of them on its own. It's easy to get lost in the woods here. Anyway.

Regarding the specific percentages for peak power, it likely depends on the exercise. There's a lot of literature on it, so instead of going through all the individual studies It's worth looking at two well done meta-analysis who examined peak power output in upper and lower body exercises. I've read most of the included studies and I'll say their conclusions are pretty solid. A few things to note, there's some evidence to suggest that stronger individuals can generate more relative power at higher percentages of their 1RM compared to weaker individuals, but not necessarily more relative power at lower percentages of their 1RM. Also, these values are mean values, meaning, different people produce peak power at different percentages. They are still decent guidelines, but not as good as measuring velocity and force individually.

• Benchpress

Somewhere between 30-70% of 1RM for the range of power development. Most studies put peak power at around 40-50% of 1RM.

• Bench Throw

Somewhere < 30% of 1RM.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27699699/

• Squat

Somewhere between 30-70% of 1RM for the range of power development. Most studies put it around 40-60% of 1RM.

• Jump Squat/Hexbar

Somewhere < 30% of 1 RM, although it varies. Most studies show both jump squats and jump with a hexbar at around 20-40% of 1RM. Although hexbar jumps seems a tad better for velocity because of bar placement and jump squats a tad better for force production.

• Snatch, C&J, and their power variations

Typically > 70% of 1RM, but the range varies from 50-90% of 1RM depending on the individual. It's worth nothing that the research here is mostly done on trained olympic lifters and they are much more proficient at generating power at heavy loads than a normal person would be. Also, even amongst them it seems that international level lifters have peak power outputs at higher percentages of 1RM compared to national level lifters.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26063470/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/24748668.2017.1366758?

A last note with all of this, intent matters. These are rough percentages of peak power production if you apply the maximum amount of velocity to the exercise. Meaning, if you move it slow, it isn't power training. That's why rest time is important.