Shape is king
Why assessing Force-Time curve signature can significantly help your programming
Shape is king—it always will be.
Diving deep into an athlete’s metrics will always be valuable for comparing them to peers, tracking progress, and evaluating their engine. But when it comes to programming, the shape of an athlete’s Force–Time curve is my gold standard.
It’s rare that I’ll look at someone’s average braking force, time-to-takeoff, or peak velocity and think, “I’d like this number to get worse.” Of course, we want them to improve. The real question is—how? That’s where force signature, or shape, comes in.
Evaluating how an athlete produces force—and how efficient or inefficient each phase of a jump is—offers powerful insight for targeted programming.
This is especially useful with higher level athletes, where adding pure vertical force production may not be the biggest priority. However, becoming more efficient in how they do it could make a huge difference in their career.
I’m not saying to ignore the metrics. They matter. Analyze them, track them, make sure they’re moving in the right direction. But don’t get lost in the numbers. Shape keeps you on the straight and narrow.
My first step in evaluating shape is creating archetypes. Here are mine:
Early Peak Unimodal
Late Peak Unimodal
Early Peak Bimodal
Late Peak Bimodal
Early Peak Plateau
Late Peak Plateau
Plateau
Over the next few Thursdays, I’ll break down each one—how I program for it, and what it tells me about an athlete’s efficiencies and deficiencies.
Up first this Thursday: Early Peak Unimodal.