Mastering the Basics of Ballistic Training
It’s very important that when you are new to resistance training, you learn exercises in a slow and controlled way and get used to moving your body weight before adding speed or load. After that, as my fellow coach and life partner Dr. Beth Ansley pointed out in a recent article, intermediate and advanced athletes can benefit from adding slow tempo exercises to training. However, it’s also helpful to regularly take the speed needle to the other end of the dial. Which is why in this blog post, we will look at the benefits of ballistic training and how to implement ballistic movements into your training.
What is Ballistic Training?
Also known as compensatory acceleration training, ballistic training is a type of power training that uses exercises that accelerate a force throughout a range of motion to increase explosive power.
Just like the missiles I became familiar with during my military service, propelling your body or a training tool or object through space rapidly requires power – i.e., the rapid expression of strength. If isometric holds are at the low end of the speed-strength continuum, then ballistic training is at the other extreme. There are plenty of power-generating techniques, but most don’t involve developing maximum force or acceleration for their entire range of motion.
“The problem with conventional resistance training techniques is that even when using lighter loads, power decreases in the final half of a repetition in order for the athlete to decelerate,” Mike McGuigan and the NSCA wrote in Developing Power. This leads to up to 50 percent of the movement being spent slowing down.
Whereas with ballistics training, you can push the gas pedal to the floor without ever needing to pump the brakes as there isn’t any deceleration component. “During ballistic training, the barbell can be accelerated for up to 96% of the movement range, causing greater peak bar velocities and allowing the muscles to produce tension over a significantly greater period of the total concentric phase,” McGuigan stated.
This doesn’t just apply to using a barbell but to any number of other training tools as well, like medicine balls, kettlebells, or other weighted objects. When you’re not having to absorb force, you can fully focus on generating it.
While you might get sore after a ballistic exercise session, this will be minimal compared to when there’s an eccentric phase used to receive the load under control.
“By focusing exclusively on accelerating the load—whether it’s a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, or your own bodyweight—you’ll trigger neural adaptations such as increased muscle fiber activation, enhanced force development, and greater muscular coordination, which all add up to the grand prize: greater explosive power,” Trevor Thieme wrote in a Men’s Health article.
Going Higher and Faster with Ballistic Movements
One of the easiest ways to begin ballistic training is to take an exercise that has an eccentric phase and remove it. For example, wall balls in CrossFit usually require you to catch the medicine ball, descend into a squat, and then explode back up. This is valuable when training a repeated effort, but you can’t put full effort into the upward toss and only generate enough power to hit the 10-foot target. For a ballistic variation of a medicine ball toss, you would aim for maximum height, let the ball fall to the floor, and then repeat the all-out effort. This provides a much different stimulus than doing continuous reps during a workout. Performing several single reps where you get the ball up 12, 15, or 17 feet would generate far more speed and power than if you were trying to gut out a long set at a moderate height.
This is an example of what McGuigan wrote about defining ballistic training in Developing Power when he stated that it involves trying “to accelerate a weight throughout the full range of motion of an exercise, which often results in the weight being released or moving freely into space with momentum.”
Another way I do this is by training outside and tossing a kettlebell on the grass. The kettlebell swing is already ballistic, but launching the bell away from you allows a fuller and faster expression of power. This can also be applied to Olympic lifting variations like clean and snatch pulls where you’re not catching the weight, just focusing on the explosive power of the pull.
Ballistics Training for Beginner, Intermediate, & Advanced Athletes
Many experts state that ballistic training provides greater benefits for more developed athletes. While this is true, it can benefit everyone. I prefer to start less experienced clients with ballistic movements that have lighter loads and slightly higher rep ranges once they’ve shown competence at lower velocities. This will enable them to still get neurological adaptations while they also add some strength, speed, and power by learning how to do a movement quickly.
Mid-level athletes have often developed strength through squats, deadlifts, and other compound exercises. But outside of some basic plyometrics like box or depth jumps, they haven’t had the chance to express this strength as power, which ballistic training will enable. They might go through a similar progression to newbies but progress more quickly. For example, rather than starting med ball tosses from kneeling or a split squat, they could go right into standing, which is a more advanced option.
More advanced athletes are used to moving quickly and have a greater strength base to build from. It’s a good idea to find out which ballistic exercises they’ve done, assess their movement competence in these areas, and then get them into performing full reps. They will benefit from moving themselves and objects quickly through all planes of motion, and ballistic exercises can provide the top-end speed and power that can be a difference maker in their sport.
In addition to the physical qualities it helps them develop, ballistic training also offers a welcomed variety to athletes of all training ages. It’s a lot of fun to throw an object onto the ground, against the wall, or across a field while providing a lot of bang for their buck in getting them faster and more powerful…letting out some aggression is also a fun bonus!
Varying Loads in Ballistic Training Exercises
While ballistic training is always in the upper range of the speed-strength continuum, In a Science For Sport article, Scott Pearson stated that there’s a notion of optimal load. Whereby using a moderate weight “is more effective at improving power production and athletic performance than either lighter or heavier loading conditions.” However, he noted that studies show this is anywhere between 40 and 70 percent of a one-rep max, and sports require power output with a range of loads. So, “Both heavy and light intensities have applications in the training of muscular power; therefore, a variety of loads should be used in an organized fashion to elicit superior power outputs across the force-velocity curve.”
A heavier load moves the slider more toward strength, whereas lighter loads shift it more toward speed. To create a progression in ballistics, I often start with the lightest load that can be used to prompt a training effect, such as a 20-pound kettlebell for a toss. The athlete would do a few reps to get an average. In the next workout, they’d perform a few sets with this light load, then do one or two with a heavier weight to see if they can match that range.
If they do, they’ve maintained a similar speed as with the lower weight while also increasing strength and power by performing it with a heavier weight. A second method would be for the athlete to concentrate more on the movement pattern with a heavier weight. This doesn’t emphasize the distance achieved, but rather expressing explosiveness.
Timing and Dosing Ballistic Exercises in Your Training
You should do ballistic exercises early in a workout. You won’t be tired and have plenty of energy, which you need to move explosively. If you wait until after completing strength exercises, you will have depleted your fuel stores and taxed your muscles, which slows your velocity. As a study published in Sports states, “Type IIa fibers, or fast oxidative glycolytic (FOG) fibers, present higher twitch speeds than type I fibers but are less fatigue resistant. Type IIx fibers, or fast glycolytic fibers, possess the fastest twitch speeds but are highly fatigable.”
While it might not feel like it, slower compound movements do use type II fibers, even when predominantly relying on type I. Some coaches might argue that you need to develop explosiveness in the presence of fatigue, but for optimal power and speed development, you need your freshest muscles to train the most explosive movements. This is why you should do your warmup, and then go right into ballistics, plyometrics, or Olympic lifts.
One of the keys to maximizing this training is not doing too much. Five sets of three to five reps for each exercise will usually be plenty. You might do four or five different movements and should begin with the one that’s most complex or sport-specific. Perhaps more sets can be added depending on the main focus of the workout and what you’re doing later in the day, but the rep range needs to be kept low to deliver peak velocity and power production.
This will also ensure your form stays solid, helping to groove safe, repeatable movement patterns and reducing the risk of injury. Doing too much will not yield greater gains, as there will be diminishing returns beyond five reps. Pairing poor-quality movement with power is dangerous, and technique and output will both diminish after a few reps. As General George S. Patton said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”
After finishing ballistic exercises, you can add accessory exercises or some strength work, although the volume of this should be lower than on days dedicated to developing this quality. Doing three to five sets of three to five reps of one exercise with a moderate load should be plenty. More advanced athletes could also utilize the French Contrast Method, in which a heavy strength exercise primes muscles for maximum contraction in a ballistic movement.
As it’s so demanding, you might not need to do ballistic training more than once a week, particularly if you’re not expressing power in a sport. Depending on what training phase you’re in, you might do it twice with 48 to 72 hours in between to allow the central nervous system to recover. When an athlete is trying to peak, I sometimes program at least one ballistic exercise in each training session, although this would only last for two week.
Ready to add more ballistic exercise into your training?
Check out my online ballistic training program:
This is a 12-week online program incorporating eccentric, isometric, and concentric phases into training blocks to improve muscular and tendon strength, power, and speed.
It comes with an added “twist” of rotational core exercises that will strengthen your core and back, increase your ability to produce force and power, and decrease your risk of injury.
If you are interested in learning more about ballistic exercise and how to incorporate it into your training, please contact me.
