Ahhh. Cool. Forgive me, but there are a lot of beginners online and I kind of assumed that here. Well, a staple of my weight training workouts are speed reps: 10 sets of 3 at 50-70% of 1 rep max w/ 30 sec rest interval. Explosive speed is the name of the game. That applies to bench, squat, deadlift. The role of the spotter is to time you with a stop watch and log performance. When you can get these done in under 3 seconds you increase the weight by 10 lbs. That trains your body to explode on the downstroke to get into the upstroke. If you do it right the weights will get get airborne off the bar at the top of your stroke. (The above is drawn from Westside curriculum for powerlifting.)
I tend to cut down the rest intervals pretty short for a couple of reasons: 1) competition martial artists must perform under conditions of ATP deficit; 2) competition martial artists must perform under conditions of aerobic or anaerobic stress; 3) I only allocate an hour for weights before moving onto other training, so a shorter rest interval gives me more room for additional exercises. I slow up when doing max'es, but normally I bring down the rest intervals to 30-45 seconds. (This, BTW, is not original thinking and is recommended for athletes such as boxers, judoka by several olympic coaches. See Poliuquin, Vershansky, Bompa, Roman.)
Of course, there are a bunch of other things to train: Heavy weights for tendon strength, circuit training for muscular endurance, lockouts for sticking spots, band work for explosiveness, etc. Actually, I really like bandwork, especially because I can fit it in my suitcase when I travel. Lately, I've been doing (flat and incline) dumbell bench presses at ~35% 1RM on a fit ball a couple of times per week on my off days to work stabilizer muscles. I went flying the first couple of times but now I have the hang of it. Another thing to try for stabilizer muscles is chain pushups (w/ cable pull handles). Then you can make it harder by putting a band around your shoulder and putting your feet up on a fitball. Real good for your stabilizers, which all too often get ignored.
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