Dynamic Effort Training
Why sub-maximal loads, moved with maximal intent, build the athletic qualities that heavy singles alone cannot.
Every program has a max effort day.
Heavy singles. Triples. Work up to a max. Test the ceiling.
Most programs stop there.
That is a problem.
Not because max effort training is wrong. But if all you are doing is testing strength, you are not building all of it. You are expressing one quality while leaving others completely untrained.
The athletes who get faster, more explosive, and more powerful over a career are not always the ones who lift the most. Often they are not. They are usually the ones who learned to move weight fast with great execution and then made that a habit.
That is what dynamic effort training is built upon.
Sub-maximal loads. Maximal velocity. Full intent on every rep.
It is not a “light day”. It provides a different adaptation at a lower cost. And the distinction matters enormously.
The Man Who Built the System
Louie Simmons did not invent the concept of moving sub-maximal weight fast.
He adapted, refined, and popularized it.
As the founder of Westside Barbell, Simmons spent decades synthesizing the work of Soviet researcher Yuri Verkhoshansky and applying it to the strongest gym on earth. The conjugate method he developed runs max effort and dynamic effort work concurrently, attacking multiple physical qualities within the same training block rather than sequencing them linearly.
The dynamic effort method was a cornerstone of that system.
Westside athletes squatted and benched at 50–60% of their max, for sets of two and three, with the explicit goal of moving the bar as violently as possible. Not as a warm-up. Not as a deload. As a primary training stimulus with its own adaptation targets.
What Simmons understood, and what most programs still miss, is that strength and speed are not opposites to be traded off against each other. They are qualities to be developed simultaneously, through deliberate, structured variation in training stress.
Dynamic effort training is not a Westside-only idea. But Louie Simmons made it impossible to ignore.
The Problem With Only Going Heavy
Max effort training is simple.
Add weight. If you can lift it, you are stronger. If you cannot, you are not. Simple feedback. Clear progress marker.
But there is a critical variable that a heavy barbell cannot measure or develop on its own.
How fast can you produce force?
“I don’t want you to squat 450 in 3 seconds. I want you to squat 350 in half a second.” -Jay Schroeder, via Adam Archuleta
That is not a knock on being strong. It is an understanding that in sport, rate of force production typically trumps peak force production.
Think about what actually happens in competition.
A defensive back breaks on a route. A lineman fires out of his stance. A sprinter drives out of the blocks. A basketball player rotates to contest a shot.
None of those movements allows time to build to peak force expression. The window is measured in milliseconds. The athlete who can access a high percentage of their force capacity in that window wins the rep. The one who needs more time loses it.
That quality, rate of force development, is trainable. And dynamic effort training is one of the most direct methods we have to develop it.
Exclusive max effort training builds the ceiling. Dynamic effort training teaches you to reach it faster.
Athletic Performance = Peak Force × Rate of Force Development
Both variables matter. Most programs only train one.
The Long-Term Impact of Sub-Maximal Training
The biggest misconception about dynamic effort training is that it is easy.
The loads are sub-maximal, typically 50–70% of a 1RM. The reps are low, usually two to three per set. The bar should look like it is moving fast enough to leave the platform.
If it does not, the session is wasted.
Here is what makes this hard. Not the weight. The intent required to execute it correctly.
Looking at our example from last week’s article.
A 300-pound squat at 1.2 meters per second produces roughly 1,600 watts. The same squat drifted through at 0.7 meters per second produces around 930 watts. The load is identical. The adaptation is not.
Applied consistently over months and years, that gap compounds into something significant.
The long-term benefits go beyond power output numbers. They restructure how the nervous system patterns movement.
RFD improves because the nervous system learns to recruit motor units more rapidly. Kinesthetic awareness deepens as you develop a feel for positions and bar paths that slow, grinding reps cannot teach. Movement efficiency increases. Fast reps are unforgiving. Technique flaws that survive a heavy grind get exposed immediately at speed. Structural adaptation shifts. Tendons, connective tissue, and fast-twitch fiber density all respond to velocity-based stress in ways they do not respond to maximal load alone.
How the Nervous System Actually Governs Output
To understand why dynamic effort training works, you need to understand what the nervous system is doing.
Force production is not just a muscle story. It is a neural story. The muscles have capacity. The nervous system determines how much of that capacity gets expressed and how quickly.
There are three primary mechanisms at play, taken from the great Yuri Verkhoshansky.
Rate Coding- Controls the firing frequency of motor neurons. Higher firing rates mean more force produced per unit time. Slow, heavy training can improve number coding. It does not optimally develop rate coding. Dynamic Effort training at high intent is what forces the nervous system to increase discharge frequency.
Pattern Coding- The synchronization of multiple muscle groups firing in the correct sequence. Training at speed builds the inter-muscular coordination pattern in a way that training slowly does not. You can be strong in all the right muscles and still produce a poor jump or even squat pattern if the timing is disorganized.
Number Coding- The recruitment of additional motor units. Max effort training drives this hard. You need heavy loads to recruit the highest-threshold motor units. This is the argument for keeping max effort work in the program. Dynamic effort alone is not enough because it does not fully challenge number coding.
This is the fundamental reason why you need both.
Force Expression = Rate Coding × Pattern Coding × Number Coding
Remove one variable from your training, and you cap the equation.
Accommodating Resistance
There is a problem with a standard barbell.
The load is constant. But the mechanical advantage is not.
In most compound movements, the difficult portion is at the bottom, where the mechanical disadvantage is greatest, and it becomes mechanically easier at the top. The result is deceleration. As the bar enters the easier portion of the lift, the body instinctively slows down to avoid losing control at lockout.
That deceleration phase can become a large portion of the movement at lower intensities.
Accommodating resistance solves this directly.
Bands and chains add load as the movement progresses through the range of motion. As the bar rises and the mechanical advantage increases, the resistance increases to match it. The strength curve and the resistance curve converge.
The practical result is that the athlete must produce force through the entire range of motion. There is no coasting to the lockout. The bar demands acceleration at the top just as much as it does at the bottom.
From a neural standpoint, this is significant. The body learns to produce force through a complete range of motion, not just initiate it. Rate coding stays high through completion of the movement rather than tapering off as the mechanical demand decreases. Pattern coding is improved by finding the correct positions and firing patterns to maximize speed. Number coding is improved to a greater extent via the initial unrack. Our nervous system expects a greater load as the weight feels heavy at the top, and mechanical tension remains higher throughout the lift.
Bands and chains have different load profiles and practical applications. Bands store and release elastic energy, adding a reactive quality to the movement. Chains simply add load progressively by lifting more links off the floor. Both are valid tools. Neither replaces the other.
Compensatory Acceleration Training- AKA Just Trying
Evan Mills on our staff has a unique way of challenging the status quo and taking the things in this field, we have tried to make complex into simplistic, and often hilarious anecdotes.
Among the list, one of my favorites is: Compensatory acceleration training? You mean just trying? -Evan Mills
I like to call it intent.
The term was coined by Dr. Fred Hatfield. The concept is straightforward: regardless of the load on the bar, the athlete attempts to accelerate that load maximally through the entire range of motion. Compensation for any sub-maximal load is applied through intentional force production.
Accommodating resistance is a tool.
Intent, just trying, Compensatory Acceleration Training, whichever you prefer, is a principle.
This sounds simple. It is not easy.
With a heavy bar, maximal acceleration is forced. The bar is slow regardless of intent. The loads require everything the athlete has just to move them.
With a sub-maximal bar, the athlete must bring the intensity that the weight does not demand. Nobody is making them move fast. The external stimulus does not require it. The internal decision does.
With 95% on the bar, maximal intent is automatic. With 60%, maximal intent is a choice.
This is why Compensatory acceleration training pairs directly with the intent conversation. A light bar moved slowly is a waste of time. A light bar moved with violent acceleration is a completely different training stimulus, one that targets neural and muscular adaptations heavy lifting simply cannot reach. The other is just building some low-intensity volume.
In practice, compensatory acceleration training means the athlete treats every set, regardless of percentage, as a speed set.
As simple as it sounds, the beauty is in the execution. Trying hard sounds simple, but across a full off-season, a large roster takes relentless coaching and nudging (future article) the environment in a direction that promotes it.
It is also a skill. Athletes who have been trained in compensatory acceleration training for multiple years produce noticeably different bar speeds than those new to the concept at identical percentages. The nervous system learns to execute it. The pattern becomes embedded.
What This Means for Athletic Development
Put it all together.
An athlete who has trained dynamic effort consistently, sub-maximal loads, moved with maximal velocity, using accommodating resistance, with deliberate execution, over the course of multiple years develops a fundamentally different neuromuscular profile than one who has only maxed out.
The differences are not subtle.
Rate coding is elevated. Motor neurons fire faster. Force production onset is earlier. Pattern coding is sharp. Multi-joint movements are coordinated. The sequence is efficient at high velocities. Number coding is maintained through integrated max effort work. Peak force capacity is not sacrificed. The acceleration curve is complete. Force is produced through the entire range of motion, not just initiated and decelerated. · The skill of moving fast is trained. It compounds over years the same way technical skill in any sport does.
The most direct translation to athletic performance is in the ability to produce force in short time windows. These are the qualities sport actually demands.
An offensive or defensive lineman who can produce force faster than their opponent is often able to overtake their opponent when they have the requisite levels of max strength.
Athletic Transfer = Max Strength + RFD + Neural Coordination
Max effort trains peak force. Dynamic effort trains how fast that force gets expressed. Accommodating resistance extends the acceleration window. Intent makes it a habit. All four are required. None are optional.
The Bottom Line
Most programs produce stronger athletes.
Few produce faster, more explosive athletes who improve at their sport.
The gap is not a mystery.
If all your training effort goes toward moving heavy loads slowly, you are developing one quality at the expense of others.
Dynamic effort training closes that gap.
Sub-maximal loads. Maximal bar speed. Accommodating resistance to eliminate the deceleration window. Intent is the daily operating principle.
It is not a light day. It is not a recovery session. It is a deliberate attack on the neural qualities that determine how much of your strength actually shows up on the field.
Build the ceiling with max effort work.
Build the ability to reach it with dynamic effort.
Do both consistently, over years, with real intent on every rep.
Great work! Can’t wait for the relentless coaching article.
What do you think of sprints, jumps, & throws as “dynamic effort”?