Velocity-based training, usually shortened to VBT, means measuring how fast you move a weight and using that information to guide training. The reading might help you judge a working weight, see how much a set slowed down, or compare the same lift across sessions.
You can use it alongside the things you already log. Weight and reps tell you what you did. Speed adds a record of how it moved.
Why speed is useful
A heavy bench press usually moves more slowly than a light one, even when you’re trying just as hard. That relationship is the starting point for VBT.
In a study of 120 strength-trained men, González-Badillo and Sánchez-Medina found a close relationship between bench press mean propulsive velocity and relative load. In the participants retested after training, the relationship stayed stable even as strength improved. That supports using speed to help interpret a load; it doesn’t give every lifter a universal speed chart. Read the 2010 study.
The effort matters. A rep you deliberately lift slowly can’t be compared with one you tried to move as fast as possible. A pause, a different range of motion, or a change in technique can also change the reading.
Three comparisons worth understanding
A load against your usual performance. If you have several sessions recorded with the same technique, today’s speed gives you another point of comparison. A slow warm-up is information to consider alongside how you feel, not an instruction from the device to change your whole session.
One rep against another in the same set. Reps often slow as a set gets harder. The percentage drop from the fastest rep is called velocity loss. It describes the slowdown, rather than asking you to remember how the last rep looked.
The same lift over time. Repeatedly moving the same weight faster may be a useful sign of progress. Check that the setup, depth, effort, and measurement method stayed comparable before treating it as a strength gain.
These are ways to read a measurement. Choosing what to do with it still depends on your program and the purpose of the session.
Does it mean better results?
Measuring more doesn’t automatically make a program better. What matters is the decision you make from the measurement.
One eight-week squat study compared stopping sets at 20% and 40% velocity loss. The 22 men in the study achieved similar strength gains between groups, while the 20% group completed fewer reps. The higher-loss group saw more growth in some thigh muscles. Those are different tradeoffs, not evidence that one cutoff wins for every goal. Read Pareja-Blanco and colleagues’ study.
It’s also a small study of a specific group doing a specific lift. Applying the same percentages to every exercise or lifter would go beyond what it tested.
Start by keeping the measurement consistent
If you’re trying velocity tracking, begin with a lift you already know well. Keep your normal training log and note the device, speed metric, and technique you used. Watch the readings across several sessions before making big changes because of them.
Don’t mix peak velocity with mean velocity. Don’t assume readings from two devices are interchangeable. Our barbell velocity guide explains that distinction.
You don’t have to turn every workout into an experiment. A useful first step is simply learning what your ordinary sets look like in numbers, then comparing that record with how they felt.
Where Strive fits
All of that is easy to say and tedious to do by hand: measuring every rep, writing it down next to the weight, and keeping enough sessions to compare. That bookkeeping is the part the Strive puck takes over.
It goes on the bar, the machine, or your wrist, and records your reps, sets, and the speed of each rep while you lift. The Strive app keeps it next to the exercise and weight, so the consistent record this guide describes builds itself across sessions.
The app also puts the speed to work. It looks at how much your set slowed down and uses that to suggest the weight for your next set. You still decide what to do with it, and you can change the suggestion in a tap.