Understanding velocity zones.

When González-Badillo's group plotted bar velocity against training outcome across thousands of sessions, a clean pattern appeared: reps clustered around specific velocities drove specific adaptations. Faster than a certain threshold, you built rate of force development. Slower than another, you built maximal strength. Nothing in between was noise - it was a spectrum.

The zones are our best map of that spectrum. They are approximate, they vary slightly by lift and by athlete, but they are stable enough to build a program around.

Reading from slowest to fastest, using mean concentric velocity on the back squat as the reference:

• Absolute strength - below 0.50 m/s
• Strength-speed - 0.50 to 0.75 m/s
• Speed-strength - 0.75 to 1.00 m/s
• Accelerative strength - 1.00 to 1.30 m/s
• Starting strength - above 1.30 m/s

Bench press thresholds sit a little lower, deadlift a little lower still. Your ORCA app stores the reference table for each lift and adapts as your own load-velocity profile refines.

Below 0.50 m/s the bar is heavy enough that maximal motor unit recruitment is the dominant demand. This is where 1RMs live, where meet openers get grooved, and where you build the neurological ceiling that everything else works underneath.

Reps are few, rest is long, technique matters more than tonnage.

The middle of the curve is where most productive training happens. Strength-speed emphasizes moving heavy loads fast; speed-strength emphasizes moving moderate loads very fast. Both develop the ability to express force quickly, which is what almost every sport actually needs.

If you had one zone to train in year-round, this is it.

Above 1.00 m/s you are training the first phase of the force-time curve. Loads are light - often 30 to 50 percent of 1RM - and the goal is maximal acceleration from the first millisecond. Jump squats, speed bench, dynamic-effort deadlifts all live here.

Starting strength (above 1.30 m/s) is the fastest zone, relevant to sprint acceleration, plyometrics and Olympic lift pulls.

A weekly template might look like:

1. Monday - squat, 4 × 3 in strength-speed (0.55 – 0.65 m/s)
2. Wednesday - squat, 6 × 2 in absolute strength (0.35 – 0.45 m/s)
3. Friday - squat, 8 × 2 in speed-strength (0.80 – 0.95 m/s)

Load auto-adjusts session to session. The zone is the constant. That is the point of programming by velocity.