What is Velocity Based Training (VBT)?

Velocity Based Training, or VBT for short, is something you'll see a lot of on Auriga, and in powerlifting generally. But what is it, what does it offer you as a lifter, and how do you get started?

R.A. Roman and Yuri Verkhoshansky were the researchers and coaches who got the ball rolling on VBT. Roman's 1986 book, The Training of the Weightlifter, is largely why velocity as a training metric got taken seriously in the first place.

Verkhoshansky was hugely important to powerlifting for a reason besides VBT as well: he pushed the idea that getting stronger wasn't just about bigger muscles, it was about your central nervous system learning to activate them better. That's the same territory the force-velocity curve lives in: for a given lift, the faster you move, the less force you can produce, and the more force you want, the less speed you'll have. It's an older idea from muscle physiology, but Verkhoshansky's generation is who first put it to real use in a training program.

Researchers didn't leave these tools in the past millennium though. A particular focus of the research for us powerlifters is linking bar speeds to effort, normally RIR or RPE.

Helms, Storey, Cross, et al. (2017) looked at exactly this in powerlifters, and found a strong inverse relationship between bar speed and RPE across the squat, bench press, and deadlift (r ≈ -0.8 across all three lifts). Gantois, Fonseca, Nakamura, et al. (2023) measured how tightly bar speed tracks %1RM, finding a strong relationship in the squat and hex-bar deadlift (R² = 0.96 and 0.97 respectively). Both studies show the same underlying point: velocity moves in lockstep with how hard you're actually working.

For you as a coach or athlete, managing fatigue and selecting loads is a big aspect of your coaching or training. Many people start out with RPE, which is a self-reported, subjective measurement. This introduces biases and variability. Some lifters might overrate or underrate RPE, and this bias may change depending on externals or life events. The power of RPE is that it's simple and autoregulated, but by design it is subjective. Its strength (accessibility) is also its biggest flaw! Using velocity is less simple, but you no longer rely on this subjective measure, and can use an objective metric: velocity.

There are many ways to measure bar speed, but all essentially try to measure either your sticking point velocity or average concentric velocity. Computer vision is the cheapest, and free apps like WL Analysis on Google Play are a great place to start.

On Auriga, you can choose to log the sticking point and average velocities in Strength (the page where you find and fill out your program). This will build up a profile of your lifting on The Hierophant (training analysis) page. The more you log, the more The Hierophant learns about your lifting, and the better the insights it can offer! Given the tools are there and it's so accessible, VBT is definitely worth trying out for a block, if only to see what the fuss is all about!