The Force-Velocity Curve and Training: A Complete Map from Maximal Strength to Explosive Power

Starting with a Student Who Couldn’t Keep Up with the Pack

One day on the open ground beside the riverside bike path, I had A-Kai doing standing long jumps. He was an amateur cyclist with five years of riding under his belt—his VO2 max wasn’t bad, and his long-distance endurance was sufficient. But every race, the moment he needed to accelerate at the bottom of a climb or sprint in the final 200 meters, he just couldn’t “push through,” watching helplessly as the pack pulled away.

He asked me: “Coach, I’ve trained my FTP to 4.2 watts per kilogram. Why can I still not sprint?”

I had him do three tests: a set of very heavy squats, a set of jump squats at moderate load but with maximal effort acceleration, and a set of unloaded standing long jumps. The results were clear—he could lift a very heavy barbell, but the heavier the bar, the slower his movement; when it came to light loads requiring speed, his body felt like it was wrapped in cotton, unable to produce force. This wasn’t an endurance problem, nor was it a maximal strength problem. It was that his entire Force-Velocity Curve had collapsed on the “fast” end.

In this article, I want to lay out this curve in full. It’s the diagram I’ve drawn on whiteboards most often over my fifteen years of coaching athletes at all levels and general fitness populations. Understand it, and you’ll be able to answer a key question: Should I train heavy, or should I train fast? The answer is often “both, but you need to train in the right zone.”

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Conceptual Foundation: Why Force and Velocity Are a Pair of Adversaries

What the Curve Looks Like

The force-velocity curve describes a fundamental fact of muscle physiology: the force a muscle can produce is inversely proportional to the speed at which it shortens. In plain terms, “the heavier the object, the slower you move it; the lighter the object, the faster you can move.”

When drawn as a graph, with velocity on the horizontal axis and force on the vertical axis, you get a curve that slopes downward from the upper left to the lower right:

• Upper left corner: Force is maximal, velocity approaches zero. This is you pushing with all your might against a wall that won’t move—great force, but the wall doesn’t budge, so velocity is zero.
• Lower right corner: Velocity is maximal, force approaches zero. This is you throwing a punch with full speed with empty hands, or an unloaded jump—the movement is lightning fast, but there’s almost no external resistance being overcome.
• Middle: Both force and velocity carry meaningful weight, and here lies a key metric—Power.

Power: The Point on the Curve That Truly Determines Performance

Power = Force × Velocity. This is the core formula of this entire article.

Because it’s a product, maximal power is found neither in the upper left corner where “force is maximal but velocity is zero” (the product is zero), nor in the lower right corner where “velocity is maximal but force is zero” (the product is still zero). Instead, it sits at a sweet spot in the middle of the curve where both force and velocity have sufficient magnitude. In research, this maximal power point for most movements falls approximately between 30% and 60% of maximal strength (1RM), varying by movement.

For a cyclist like A-Kai, sprint acceleration is essentially producing high force while pedaling at high cadence—a classic high-power demand. His maximal strength was fine (the left end of the curve was high enough); the problem was that the middle and right sections of the curve had dropped, so power couldn’t go up.

I often use this analogy with my students: Maximal strength is like the maximum horsepower of the engine in your garage, while power is the acceleration you can actually produce when launching from a red light. A big engine doesn’t mean fast starts—the transmission, throttle response, and tire grip all have to work together. The human body is the same: being able to lift heavy doesn’t mean you can produce force quickly. The two are different points on the curve.

Why Is This So? Three Mechanisms of Muscle and Nerve

The existence of this curve is underpinned by several physiological mechanisms. Understanding them helps you know “what training is actually changing”:

1. Cross-bridge cycling rate limitation: Muscle contraction relies on the repeated attachment, pulling, and detachment of cross-bridges between actin and myosin. The faster a muscle shortens, the fewer cross-bridges can remain attached at any given moment, so the force it can produce naturally drops. This is the most fundamental physical constraint of the curve.
2. Neural recruitment and firing frequency: To produce large force quickly, your nervous system must recruit a large number of high-threshold motor units in an extremely short time and fire them at high frequency. Many people “can’t produce explosive power” not because they lack muscle mass, but because their nervous system hasn’t learned to synchronously and rapidly “wake up” the muscle.
3. Tendon elasticity and stiffness: Muscles don’t attach directly to bones; tendons sit in between. Tendons act like springs, storing and releasing elastic potential energy. A tendon with appropriate stiffness can “slingshot” force out like a catapult, which has a huge impact on the efficiency of jumping, sprinting, and running push-off.

These three mechanisms correspond precisely to three different training stimuli—heavy loads train the ceiling of neural recruitment, explosive movements train firing rate, and plyometrics train tendon elasticity. This is why “training only one type” will never develop well-rounded explosive power.

The Ultimate Goal of Training: Pushing the Entire Curve Up and to the Right

All strength and power training, at the end of the day, is doing the same thing: pushing the entire force-velocity curve up and to the right. This means at the same velocity you can produce more force, and at the same force you can move faster. When the curve shifts right, a person becomes more “explosive.”

But here’s a point that’s often misunderstood: you cannot push the entire curve up at once with a single type of training. Training very heavy squats primarily raises the left end of the curve (maximal strength); training light-load high-speed jumps primarily raises the right end (velocity); the power zone in the middle requires moderate loads with maximal-effort acceleration. Whichever zone you train is whichever zone improves—this is the most naked demonstration of “training specificity” in the realm of explosive power.

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Breaking Down the Four Training Zones

I habitually divide this curve into four practical zones when coaching students. In recent years, with the rise of Velocity-Based Training (VBT), these four zones roughly correspond to different barbell velocity ranges, making the abstract concept of “fast vs. slow” quantifiable.

The following values are reference ranges commonly found in the literature and in coaching practice. Individual variation is large, so treat this as a map rather than a rigid rule:

Zone	Primary Goal	Relative Load (%1RM)	Approximate Bar Velocity (m/s)	Representative Exercises
Max Strength	Raise force at the left end of the curve	85–100%	0.15–0.50	Heavy squats, deadlifts, bench press
Strength-Speed	Require acceleration even under heavy load	70–85%	0.45–0.75	Explosive squats, cleans, low-cadence high-torque sprints
Speed-Strength	Rapid force production under light-to-moderate load	30–60%	0.75–1.0	Jump squats, medicine ball throws, weighted jumps
Starting Strength	Explode from a standstill, overcome inertia	0–30% / bodyweight	>1.0	Standing long jump, depth jump, sprint start

Zone One: Maximal Strength—The Foundation of the Curve

This zone uses heavy loads, low repetitions (typically 1–5 reps), and full rest between sets (3–5 minutes). The goal isn’t to get you out of breath, but to recruit more high-threshold motor units and strengthen neural drive. What it raises is the “ceiling” of the entire curve—the higher your maximal strength, the higher the strength base available for subsequent explosive power training to convert from.

Without this foundation, jumping straight into jumps and sprints will hit the ceiling quickly. This is why I almost never let students without any strength base start doing heavy plyometric training right away—if the foundation isn’t laid, building the house just increases the risk of injury.

Zone Two: Strength-Speed—Acceleration Intent Under Load

The load in this zone is still relatively heavy (70–85%), but you’re required to accelerate that weight with maximal effort, even if the actual movement isn’t very fast. Olympic lifts like the clean and explosive squats belong here. For cyclists, this corresponds to the ability to “push hard at low cadence with a big gear” and still produce force under resistance.

The keyword for this zone is intent. The spirit of VBT has never been “you must move fast,” but rather “at this weight, push it at the fastest speed you can produce”—intent determines the quality of neural recruitment.

Zone Three: Speed-Strength—The Sweet Spot of Power

Light-to-moderate loads (30–60%) with maximal acceleration. Jump squats, medicine ball throws, and weighted jumps all live here. This zone typically encompasses the point of maximal power output and is where most “explosive” performance truly happens—sprinting, jumping, changing direction, and sprinting to the finish line on a bike.

This is exactly what A-Kai was missing.

Zone Four: Starting Strength—The Instant from Zero to Something

Very light or bodyweight, requiring extreme speed. Standing long jumps, depth jumps, and sprint starts. This zone trains the ability to overcome inertia from a standstill and produce force instantaneously—what’s known as the Rate of Force Development (RFD)—how quickly you can “pull out” force. In many sports, the outcome is decided in those first fractions of a second.

Here’s a practical example: two cyclists have identical maximal strength, but A can reach 90% of maximal force within 0.2 seconds, while B needs 0.5 seconds. In a situation requiring an instant reaction, a positioning battle, or a start, A will almost certainly have the upper hand—because real competition rarely gives you time to “produce force slowly.” RFD is that “speed of drawing your gun.”

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Diagnose First, Then Write the Program: Which End of Your Curve Is Weak?

Before writing any program, I always help students “locate” themselves first. Spending five minutes on a few simple self-tests is far more valuable than blindly following an online program. Here’s the rough diagnostic method I commonly use, which you can do at home or on the track:

Test Movement	Primary Zone Reflected	What to Observe	Signs of Weakness
Heavy squat (3–5RM)	Maximal strength (left end)	How much you can lift, whether form stays stable	Can’t lift much relative to bodyweight, core collapses under load
Weighted jump squat (~30% 1RM)	Speed-strength (middle)	Jump height, whether movement is fluid and powerful	Height drops significantly once load is added, movement becomes sticky
Standing long jump / vertical jump	Starting strength (right end)	Distance, explosiveness at takeoff	Soft takeoff, clearly “squatting for a long time before jumping”
Five consecutive countermovement jumps	Reactive strength / tendon elasticity	Ground contact time, elasticity, whether height drops progressively	Dragging ground contact, looks like forced hard jumping, getting progressively more tired

The interpretation principle is simple: If you can lift heavy but fall apart once speed is added, you’re weak on the right end and should supplement power and explosiveness. Conversely, if you jump fairly lightly but have no strength under resistance, you’re weak on the left end and should first build up the maximal strength foundation. Most endurance athletes (like A-Kai) are weak on the right end with relatively acceptable left-end strength, because their sport is inherently low-speed and high-repetition.

This diagnosis doesn’t require precision instruments. The key is to honestly observe which load zone you “drop off” the most in, then prioritize training resources there. The biggest taboo in training is “training the parts you’re already strong at while avoiding your true weaknesses.”

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Practical Methods: How to Fit the Four Zones into a Program

The Logic of Periodization—Building from Foundation to Roof

In practice, I don’t tell students to distribute all four zones equally and train a bit of everything every day. Explosive power development has an order, and I typically use a heavy-to-fast, foundation-to-specific periodization structure. This follows the common literature framework of “Base → Build → Peak”:

Phase	Weeks	Training Focus	Primary Zone	Typical Load
Base	4–6 weeks	Accumulate maximal strength, lay the foundation	Maximal strength	85–95% 1RM
Build	3–4 weeks	Convert strength into speed	Strength-speed + Speed-strength	60–80% 1RM
Peak	2–3 weeks	Sport-specific explosiveness, rate of force development	Speed-strength + Starting strength	30–60% 1RM + bodyweight

The reasoning behind this order is: first raise the ceiling (base phase), then learn to express strength in a fast way (build phase), and finally refine the most sport-specific, competition-ready explosiveness (peak phase). Reversing the order will significantly diminish results.

A One-Week Sample Program for an Amateur Cyclist

Using A-Kai as an example, he could train strength two days per week (without affecting his cycling volume), and here’s what I gave him. Note that each session retains a “maintenance dose” of heavy lifting—you don’t completely abandon maximal strength just because you’ve entered the explosive phase:

Training Day	Exercise	Sets × Reps	Load/Intensity	Key Reminders
Monday (strength-biased)	Back squat	4 × 4	85% 1RM	Solid form, 3 min rest between sets
Monday	Romanian deadlift	3 × 6	Moderate-heavy	Posterior chain, eccentric control
Monday	Explosive jump squat	4 × 4	30% 1RM	Jump with maximal effort, absorb landing
Thursday (speed-biased)	Half-squat explosive push	5 × 3	40–50% 1RM	Maximize acceleration intent
Thursday	Standing long jump + depth jump	4 × 5	Bodyweight	Shorter ground contact time is better
Thursday	Single-leg step-up drive	3 × 6/side	Moderate load	Simulates pedaling force production

Rest between sets for explosive movements must be sufficient (2–3 minutes)—this is something many self-trained people in Taiwan fail to do. Explosive training trains “quality,” not “fatigue.” Once the movement slows down or gets ugly, that set is no longer training the zone you intended—it might even be training something else entirely. Better to do fewer sets with every rep at maximal effort than to grind out more sets with deteriorating form.

Differentiated Adjustments for Road Runners

Runners often ask me: “I’m not competing in sprints, why should I train this?” In reality, running economy is highly correlated with muscle-tendon stiffness and rate of force development. A marathon runner who can move forward with shorter ground contact time and more elastic push-off will be more economical at the same pace.

So for runners, the emphasis shifts more toward the starting strength and speed-strength zones: standing long jumps, jump rope, short acceleration runs, and single-leg bounds. Loads don’t need to be heavy, but the requirement is short ground contact and good elasticity. Maximal strength still needs to be trained, but the volume can be somewhat less than for cyclists, to avoid adding unnecessary muscle mass.

Comparing Zone Emphasis Across Three Sports

Different sports have different demands on each zone of the curve. I’ve organized this into a table so you can see at a glance where your sport should place its focus:

Sport	Maximal Strength	Strength-Speed	Speed-Strength	Starting Strength/Reactive	Notes
Road cycling, sprinter type	Moderate-high	High	High	Moderate	Needs high-speed force production under resistance; middle-right zones are key
Mountain biking / off-road	High	High	Moderate	High	Repeated explosive efforts, varied terrain; all zones needed
Marathon / long-distance running	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate-high	High	Economy-oriented; emphasizes tendon elasticity and reactive strength
General health population	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Balanced development; focus on maintaining power without loss

This table isn’t meant to make you rigidly adhere to proportions, but to remind you: when we say “you should train explosive power,” what a road sprinter trains and what a marathon runner trains are actually quite different. Sport-specific demands are always the first question when writing a program.

A-Kai’s Actual 12-Week Arrangement

Applying the concepts above back to A-Kai, here’s how I distributed his two phases over twelve weeks:

• Weeks 1–5 (Base phase): Two strength sessions per week, with back squats and deadlifts as the main course, loads progressing from 80% up to 90% 1RM. During these five weeks he didn’t do much jumping—we first ensured the foundation and movement quality. He once complained, “Why am I only lifting heavy and not feeling faster?” I asked him to hold on, because the ceiling hadn’t been raised enough yet.
• Weeks 6–9 (Build phase): Heavy lifting was reduced to a maintenance dose (one to two sets per session), with the main course switching to explosive squats (60–75%) and jump squats, starting to “translate” strength into speed. This is when he began to feel a difference—his starts became crisper.
• Weeks 10–12 (Peak phase): Focused on standing long jumps, depth jumps, short sprints, and standing-start accelerations on the bike. Lighter loads, faster requirements, closer to competition scenarios. These three weeks were scheduled before his target race to keep his nervous system in an “explosive” state.

Throughout the entire process, I didn’t increase his cycling training volume—I only rearranged the two strength days according to the periodization. As a result, his power deficit was filled.

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Common Mistakes and Corrections

In all my years of coaching, I’ve seen the same pitfalls countless times. Here are the most common ones:

Mistake One: Training Only One End, Assuming You’ll Get Strong Everywhere

Some people do nothing but heavy back squats all year. Their maximal strength is off the charts, but they go soft on jumps and slow on sprints—the left end of the curve is high, but the right end collapses. Others only do jumps and hops, looking very “dynamic,” but because they lack a maximal strength foundation, their ceiling is low, and they plateau after a few weeks or get injured.

Correction: Use the periodization structure above, letting all four zones take turns as the protagonist in different phases, while retaining maintenance doses in non-protagonist phases. The curve is a line, not a point—you have to take care of the whole thing.

Mistake Two: Grinding Explosive Movements to Exhaustion

Treating jump squats and cleans like aerobic or metabolic training, doing sets of 15 reps until you’re gasping. At that point, every rep in the back half of the set is slow and ugly—what you’re actually training is “low-quality movement under fatigue,” not explosive power.

Correction: Explosive movements should be low-rep (mostly 3–6 reps), high-quality, with full rest. When you see velocity drop significantly, that’s the time to stop—that’s your training ceiling for that zone today. This is precisely the value of VBT using bar velocity as an “instant brake”—when speed drops below the set threshold, you’re done.

Mistake Three: Skipping the Foundation and Going Straight to High-Intensity Plyometrics

High-intensity plyometrics like depth jumps and high box jumps place significant stress on joints and tendons. Jumping straight into them without adequate strength base is one of the common sources of sports injury clinic visits in Taiwan.

Correction: First confirm basic strength (e.g., being able to stably squat close to your bodyweight and beyond) and landing control. Plyometric progression should be gradual: countermovement jump → repeated jumps → low box landing → reactive depth jump. Confirm stable, pain-free landings at each stage before advancing to the next.

Mistake Four: Ignoring “Acceleration Intent” and Doing Every Rep Half-Heartedly

Even if the load isn’t heavy, if you push slowly without the intent to accelerate maximally, your nervous system won’t recruit muscles through high-threshold pathways, and the training effect is greatly diminished.

Correction: Every concentric (pushing up) phase should be executed at the maximum speed you can produce, while the eccentric (lowering) phase remains controlled. Intent is the cheapest and most undervalued variable in explosive training.

Mistake Five: Putting Explosive Training at the End of a Fatigued Day

Many people schedule jumps and explosive movements after a long ride or run, or at the very end of a full lifting session. By then, the nervous system is already fatigued, and both rate of force development and movement quality drop. You’re essentially “training fast while fatigued”—you won’t develop true explosiveness, and you increase injury risk.

Correction: Explosive and speed-type movements should be placed at the beginning of the session, when the body is freshest. The ordering principle is: warm-up → (if any) technical/explosive movements → heavy strength → accessory and metabolic training. Put the things that need the most neural quality first.

Mistake Six: Neglecting Landing and Eccentric Control

Injuries from plyometric training are mostly not sustained during the jump itself, but at landing. Landing is a high-intensity eccentric load. If your knees and ankles don’t know how to absorb shock and your force lines are off, your knees and Achilles tendons take the brunt.

Correction: First spend time training “landing” itself—feet light, knees tracking over toes, hips/knees/ankles absorbing impact together, landing silently. Once your landing is solid, only then do you have the right to talk about repeated jumps and depth jumps.

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Frequency, Recovery, and the Line of Overtraining

What’s most easily overlooked about explosive training is that it places a considerable load on the nervous system, even though you might not be “gasping for air” like in endurance training.

• Frequency: For amateurs, 2 dedicated strength/explosive sessions per week, combined with sport-specific training, is usually sufficient. Pure explosive content in the peak phase can even be more frequent but shorter each time (e.g., 3 times per week, just a few sets of high-quality jumps each session).
• Recovery signals: If you notice jump height dropping significantly for several consecutive days, movements becoming sticky, or persistent joint soreness, these are signs that your nervous system or structures haven’t recovered. Reduce volume rather than pushing through.
• Interference with aerobic work: If you do a large volume of high-intensity endurance training first on the same day, then train explosive power, the effects will diminish each other (the so-called “interference effect”). If they must be on the same day, prioritize whichever you want to improve first; separating them across days is even better.

Remember this: Explosive power is a “quality” training. Accumulated fatigue is its enemy, not its goal.

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Actionable Advice for Readers at Different Levels

Complete Beginners / General Fitness Population

Don’t rush into explosive power yet. What you need most right now is to build up the maximal strength foundation and learn correct landing and squat-jump mechanics.

1. Use 8–12 weeks to build foundational strength: squat, deadlift, push, and pull as the four main categories, 2–3 times per week.
2. Add low-intensity jump proficiency: small in-place hops, agility ladder, easy jump rope—the focus is stable, pain-free landings.
3. Taiwan’s climate is hot and humid. For outdoor venues (riverside paths, school tracks, parks), be mindful of slippery surfaces during jump training. Always control your landings—better to keep intensity lower than to compromise safety.

Advanced Athletes with a Foundation / Amateur Cyclists and Runners

You can formally introduce periodized force-velocity curve training.

1. Based on your sport’s demands, determine “which end is weak”: if you can’t sprint or jump high, it’s usually the right end (speed/power) that’s weak; if you fall apart under heavy loads, it’s usually the left end (maximal strength) that’s weak.
2. Use the periodized program above, scheduling 2–3 explosive power cycles per year, each placed before your competition season.
3. If your budget allows, an affordable linear encoder or a phone app that estimates bar velocity can turn “acceleration intent” into a visible number, making training feedback more precise.

Older Adults / Seniors Wanting to Maintain Function

I want to emphasize this especially: what older adults lose fastest isn’t actually strength—it’s “power,” the ability to produce force quickly. And rapid force production is precisely the key to whether you can stabilize yourself in time during a fall.

1. After confirming with a physician or physical therapist that your cardiovascular and joint status permits it, you can train “quick sit-to-stand,” “light pitter-patter steps,” and other low-impact, speed-emphasized movements under light loads.
2. If you have chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, or osteoporosis, be sure to get a medical evaluation before training, and take an individualized, progressive approach. Never apply a young athlete’s high-intensity program.
3. Taiwan’s National Health Insurance makes medical access easy. Before starting a new training program, making good use of a family medicine or rehabilitation medicine evaluation is well worth it.

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Practical Reminders for Taiwan

• Venues: Riverside parks in urban areas, school tracks, and community fitness centers are sufficient for most training. For jumping movements, choose PU tracks or grass whenever possible to reduce impact on knees and ankles; repeated jumps on concrete have higher impact, so control the volume.
• Climate: Summer heat and humidity are high. Although explosive training is high-intensity and short in duration, still pay attention to fluid and electrolyte replenishment, and avoid training in unshaded areas during midday.
• Nutrition for those who eat out: After explosive and strength training, the body needs protein and carbohydrates for repair and glycogen replenishment. Taiwan’s convenient food options—a braised chicken leg bento, soy milk with an onigiri, or convenience store tea eggs with sweet potato milk—can all make a decent post-training supplement. Portions should be adjusted based on individual body size and training volume; what’s given here is a principle, not a precise prescription.
• Medical environment: If you truly experience persistent pain, swelling, or functional limitation in a certain area, don’t push through it. Taiwan has ample rehabilitation and sports medicine clinics; early evaluation often prevents a minor injury from becoming a major one.
• Equipment cost: Getting started isn’t expensive. A set of resistance bands, free equipment at a community fitness center, and a pair of shoes with good landing properties are enough to begin. Only consider a linear encoder or velocity-sensing app when you’re ready to advance. Don’t let “not having top-tier equipment” become an excuse not to start.

A Sample Weekly Training and Recovery Framework

Many students ask, “How do I fit strength/explosive training into an already full cycling or running weekly schedule?” Here’s a common framework for amateurs that you can adjust:

Day	Main Session	Strength/Explosive Arrangement	Notes
Monday	Strength day	Maximal strength + a small amount of explosive work	Body is freshest; explosive work goes first
Tuesday	Aerobic ride/run	None or light core	Recovery-oriented
Wednesday	Intervals	None	High-intensity sport-specific day
Thursday	Strength day	Speed-strength + starting strength	Pure explosive, low volume high quality
Friday	Rest	Stretching/relaxation	Neural and structural recovery
Saturday	Long ride/run	None	Endurance-oriented
Sunday	Rest or light activity	None	Full recovery

This is just a skeleton. The actual arrangement should be flexibly adjusted based on your target race, available time, and recovery status. The principle doesn’t change: put explosive work when fresh, give the nervous system adequate recovery, and don’t cram it into the fatigued tail end of high-intensity endurance work.

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FAQ

Q: I just want to ride faster. Do I really need to go to the gym?
A: You don’t necessarily need a weight room, but you do need some form of resistance and explosive training. Bodyweight jumps, step-ups, sprints, plus high-intensity intervals on the bike itself (like hill sprints or standing-start accelerations) can also stimulate the right end of the force-velocity curve. However, if you want to effectively raise the maximal strength foundation, external loads (barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands) remain the most efficient.

Q: Will explosive training make me too bulky and hurt my climbing weight?
A: This is a common concern among endurance athletes. In fact, force-velocity curve training (especially the neural, low-rep parts) primarily improves “neural recruitment and force production efficiency,” not a large increase in muscle cross-sectional area. Done properly, you’ll become better at producing force with limited weight gain. What truly causes noticeable weight gain is usually high-volume bodybuilding-style training.

Q: How long until I see results?
A: Neural adaptations come quickly—usually within 3–6 weeks you’ll feel that “force production feels smoother and acceleration feels sharper.” But structural adaptations (tendon stiffness, muscle quality) take longer. Give yourself at least one full cycle (8–12 weeks) before evaluating.

Q: Do I have to buy equipment for VBT?
A: Not necessarily. The core spirit of VBT is “push the current weight with maximal acceleration intent, and use velocity drop as your stopping signal.” Even without speed-measuring devices, you can self-regulate using the principle of “stop the set when you feel velocity clearly dropping,” and you’ll still capture about 80% of the benefit.

Q: I’m not young anymore. Is explosive training too dangerous for me?
A: The key lies in “progression” and “individualization,” not age itself. In fact, as mentioned earlier, what older adults most need to preserve is precisely power (the ability to produce force quickly), which relates to daily stability and fall prevention. The approach is to start with light loads, low impact, and controlled ranges, such as fast but safe sit-to-stand or light pitter-patter steps. If you have chronic conditions or joint issues, be sure to have a physician or physical therapist evaluate you before starting.

Q: Do I need supplements for force-velocity training?
A: For the vast majority of people, solid daily nutrition (adequate protein, moderate carbs, sufficient sleep) matters far more than any supplement. In Taiwan, it’s not hard to put together adequate protein from eating out. Supplements aren’t a necessity. If you’re considering them, consult a nutritionist first, and prioritize training, sleep, and foundational diet.

Q: Can I develop explosive power with bodyweight jumps only?
A: You can make progress, especially on the right end of the curve (speed, reactive strength). But without a maximal strength foundation, your ceiling will be lower and progress will plateau sooner. The ideal is bodyweight explosive work + a certain amount of loaded strength training—the combination works best and is most durable.

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Conclusion: Keep the Map in Mind

Back to A-Kai. We spent two cycles first filling in his middle and right-end speed-strength and starting strength, while maintaining his already decent maximal strength. In the second season, he could finally keep up with the acceleration at the bottom of climbs, and in the final sprint, he was no longer the one “watching the pack pull away.”

His transformation wasn’t because he trained harder, but because he trained the section of the curve that had originally collapsed.

The force-velocity curve is my favorite diagram to draw because it turns the eternal debate of “train heavy or train fast” into a map that can be located and planned. You just need to ask yourself first: Which end of my curve is weak? The answer will tell you where to train next.

The foundation must be solid, the middle must have power, and the right end must have elasticity—take care of the whole line, and a person truly becomes both strong and fast.

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This article is educational content and cannot replace individual diagnosis and treatment advice from a physician, physical therapist, or nutritionist. If you have cardiovascular disease, joint injuries, or other health concerns, please consult a qualified medical professional and undergo individualized assessment before starting any high-intensity strength or explosive training.

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References

• Force-Velocity Curve — Science for Sport: https://www.scienceforsport.com/force-velocity-curve/
• Velocity Based Training Zones Explained — GymAware: https://gymaware.com/velocity_zones/
• Velocity-Based Training Chart & Zones — SimpliFaster: https://simplifaster.com/articles/velocity-based-training-chart-zones/

Related Reading

• Maximal Strength vs. Explosive Power Training Trade-offs for Endurance Athletes: Using the Force-Velocity Curve to Decide Current Priorities
• Training Manipulation of the Force-Velocity Relationship Curve: Research on Optimizing Cycling Sprint Ability
• A Complete Guide to Explosive Power and Neuromuscular Training: How to Train Sprinting, Standing Starts, and Running Ground Contact Efficiency
• Interpreting the Power Curve: Identifying Your Weak Zones