VBT Series Part 2: Unintended Consequences of Velocity Based Training

A few ways that VBT went wrong, and how we got back on track

Sorry to those of you who got last week’s post in triplicate. I promise I wasn’t trying to be ironic by sending an email about “three things” three times! Just a tech malfunction, and we should be good to go as of this week.

We’re back to the velocity based training (VBT) series. In Part 1, we covered some VBT rowing research and resources, how the technology works to guide strength training, and a few pros and cons of using VBT. I left off with the final downside of surveillance technology leading to some downsides and problematic unintended consequences. In this post, I’ve written some descriptive athlete examples to show what I mean and discuss how I tried (and try) to minimize and mitigate these problems.

Here are five examples from my experience so far to illustrate.

Athlete A physically recoiled and groaned aloud when I brought the VBT unit out of my bag on the first day with the team, before even knowing what it was or how we’d be using it. They didn’t know what it was, but they knew that it was technology that a coach would use to evaluate and potentially control their training and actions. Technology is not always used responsibly by coaches or perceived positively by athletes. I’m mindful in my context of coaching post-collegiate athletes that I’m inheriting experiences and attitudes from several prior coaches and training contexts.

Athlete B had prior experience with VBT and also groaned aloud. They explained to Athlete A, “We used this in college. It means there’s no wiggle room on ‘did you get the rep or not,’ it’s just whatever the number says if you got above the threshold to make the rep.” This shows how technology can restrict athlete power and decision-making ability.

They correctly understood the goal of VBT to reduce coach and athlete subjective evaluation of a completed set or rep, using velocity data to improve objective judgment and training outcomes. However, they interpreted this in a negative way, which might indicate resentment at a loss of individuality or personal control over their training. Social sport research indicates that controlling environments and training methods can result in worse personal and training outcomes, as resentment at loss of individuality and personal control manifests elsewhere in negative or unexpected ways. I’ll write more later about trying to manage this balance of enhancing training guidance without exerting too much decision-making via the technology alone.

Athlete C sustained a minor injury in one of the first sessions using VBT. They were front squatting and really trying to work the velocity number, and popped the hips up too quickly out of the bottom position. This resulted in “catching” the load with the mid-back muscles and a mild musculoskeletal tweak. It resolved fully in 2-3 days, but that cost us pain for the athlete, burden on our medical support staff, and the loss of a rowing and a strength training session while healing.

Just like when using bar weight or 1RM to track progress, athletes can become too motivated to achieve a velocity score at the expense of using good technique for the exercise. There are ways to alter movement to produce a higher velocity score without actually improve physiological outcomes. I think this is an extra risk for rowers due to the use of on-water and erging data. Athletes can get away with minor movement alterations to get a better erg or rowing “score” without sustaining injury, in a way that they might not when using higher external load with strength training.

Athlete D was frustrated by the velocity data feedback and experienced worse training sessions as a result. The high amount of cognitive attention they dedicated to trying to achieve the zones, and becoming frustrated when they did not, resulted in worse physical coordination that manifested in over-controlled, robotic movements. This created a vicious cycle of too much cognitive control → robotic movements → slower velocity times → more frustration → more cognitive control.

For this athlete, the technology totally backfired on the goals of VBT. This rower improved once we removed the technology and focused on simpler feedback, such as the bar “popping” off the torso at the top position of squats and rising slightly in the hands at the top position of deadlifts. We were then able to add velocity measurement back in and improve from there to enhance training guidance. This ultimately led to greater understanding and better training, but it was still a frustrating few weeks for the athlete that we had to really work through together. I’m more careful with my VBT introduction process and more on the lookout for signs of the feedback overwhelming the athlete.

Athlete E had the opposite reaction. They loved the idea and use of VBT technology, wanted data feedback while lifting during the set, and wanted to have no opinion or discussion of their set without seeing the velocity score. Indeed, this is a marketing point of VBT: improved outcomes from greater athlete motivation while training! Especially for rowers used to erging with the performance monitor displaying stroke-by-stroke power data, having the equivalent available for strength training can be very helpful to maximize effort on each set.

The downside of immediate data feedback is an athlete becoming dependent on external measures and losing the ability to process their own intrinsic feedback. In addition to the less tangible loss of athletic intuition, how will they train when the technology is not available?

This is not hypothetical in our training context. The GRP teams often leave the Center to train at other locations or do camps away before racing. I’m not aware of these other locations using VBT at this time, so we are assuming that the athletes will not have access to VBT during their weeks or potentially months away from home base. They still need to be able to strength train effectively, which means that they cannot become dependent on VBT. I knew from the start that we needed to implement this in a more educational environment that empowers the athlete to use the technology to make their own decisions, rather than data-driven training environment where the technology has a more prescriptive role over the training.

I’ve loaded up on downsides in the first two parts now, because I think it’s important to know, consider, and plan for, and because I have no interest in being a VBT proselytizer. VBT is just a training tool, not a life ethos or an athletic, personal, or professional identity. We’ll resume in Part 3 with how we started VBT training with more educational goals and our first few months of development and adjustments.