Workouts & Exercises
Giant Strength Power Sets Pair A Heavy Lift With An Explosive One, In The Same Block
From the FASTER syllabus: this article is taught in full in Movement Trainer (AFT), £375 — the Skeletons and Blocks system in full →
In short: A Giant Strength Power Set is one of the named blocks inside Movement Trainer's Skeletons and Blocks system: a heavy strength movement paired straight into an explosive one, back to back with no rest between the two, for example squats into split squat jumps and lunges into squat jumps. It gives a session a second lever besides load: a trainer can programme strength and power in the same block instead of treating them as two separate days, and PT Manager's programme builder saves the pairing against a named client so it doesn't get rebuilt from memory.
A block for two goals that usually get two separate days
Strength work and power work often end up on different days of a programme, as if a client can only chase one at a time. Movement Trainer's Skeletons and Blocks system has a specific block for the days that don't need to be separate: the Giant Strength Power Set.
What the block is
The course names it: a heavy strength movement, supersetted straight into an explosive one, back to back, with the rest sitting after the pair rather than inside it. Its own worked example runs squats into split squat jumps, and lunges into squat jumps, twenty reps a side. Same muscles, same general pattern, one half slow and loaded, the other half fast and light.
Why the pairing is the point
A skeleton, in the course's own words, is a combination of exercises and systems that define the order, intensity, volume and rest for a section of programming, and a block is what fills it. A Giant Strength Power Set fills a section with both halves of the same movement quality in one go: the heavy set builds the strength a client needs to produce force, and the explosive set right after it asks the nervous system to produce that force fast, while it's still primed from the set before.
What a trainer programmes
The pairing runs strength first, power second, every time, because a fatigued client asked to move fast after moving heavy is exactly the point of the block, not an accident of ordering it the other way round. The loads, the reps and which two exercises get paired stay a trainer's call, built for the client and the goal in front of them, the same way every block in the system is a shape to fill rather than a script to copy.
What to do next
Movement Trainer (AFT) is £375, and the Skeletons and Blocks system this block belongs to covers the rest of the shapes a trainer needs, alongside building the skeleton around them. The price is on the page, there are no sales calls, and PT Manager opens the moment you sign up.
The FASTER Journal shares the next teaching point first. Sign up at /newsletter and it arrives the moment it's ready.
You just read one answer. The course is all of them.
Movement Trainer (AFT), £375 — the Skeletons and Blocks system in full — taught by the people who wrote it, with free return access for life. The price is on the page, payment plans at checkout, no sales calls.
Also worth a look: PT Manager's programme builder, free the day you pass a course.
See what the course covers →Frequently asked
Do the reps in the course example have to stay at 20?
No. The block is the pairing and the order, strength straight into power, with the rest sitting after the pair rather than inside it. The number of reps is set for the client in front of you, the same as any other block.
Doesn't lifting heavy right before a jump just make the jump worse?
It can feel that way on the very first go, which is exactly why it's programmed on purpose rather than stumbled into by accident, so a trainer can watch what actually happens to a specific client's power output and adjust the pairing rather than guessing.
Does Movement Trainer connect to PT Manager?
Yes. Passing Movement Trainer (AFT) opens the full programme builder inside PT Manager, so a block built once can be saved and reused across every client whose goals call for it.
Reading this for your own training? Every trainer on the FASTER register has been assessed by us — search by town or speciality, free.
Find a FASTER trainer →
