It’s often said that there is nothing new under the sun with strength training, and it’s mostly true. It’s not often that a new training concept or implement comes around. But the Tsunami Bar is an exciting piece of equipment that breaks that status quo. This revolutionary bar can add a new element to your quest to increase your athletes’ strength, speed, and power.
Using the Tsunami Bar allows you to improve rate of force development. To learn more about rate of force development read this article and this article
Having a higher rate of force development will increase your ability to quickly generate strength, making you run faster, hit harder, and jump farther. Traditionally the only way to work on rate of force development is Olympic lifts, plyometrics, and medicine balls, but you can turn any traditional lift into a “plyometric-like” lift with the Tsunami Bar.
With 3” dia composite and thermoplastic construction, the Tsunami Bar flexes and oscillates during the lift and recruits more muscles. The added flex allows lifters to safely develop more explosiveness without using as much weight.
Loading and Unloading the Tsunami Bar
The load is placed on the end of the Tsunami Bar to create more flex during lifts. As the bar is lowered rapidly, more flex is created. At the end of the downward phase, the bar will naturally oscillate in the opposite direction upwards. This oscillation of the bar upwards, combined with rapid contraction by the lifter, increases rate of force development. The lifters goal is to time the lift and catch the whipping action of the bar upward, thus generating more power. Research shows that this bar creates higher muscle activity than a traditional bar at the same percentage maximum. Research on the TB also shows that TB training may develop power more effectively than a traditional bar.
When using the bar, it is important to know how to load the bar correctly. If not done correctly, the bar will tip over. Ideally, the bar will be loaded and unloaded with two people.
To load the bar:
- Place the bar in a rack
- Slide the inner collar to the center of the bar and take off the outer collar.
- Slide the weight on and as far to the inside as possible. Load one plate at a time, alternating sides.
- Each bar will tell you the max load you can have on the bar. Do not load more than the bar can handle.
- Once you have all the weight on the bar loaded on the inside, put on the outside collar and tighten.
- Slide the weight to the outside, slide the inner collar flush with the plate, and tighten.
To unload the bar:
- Place the bar in the rack.
- Loosen and slide the inner Croc Lock collar flush towards the inside of the bar.
- Push the weight as far to the inside as possible.
- Take off the outside collar.
- Unload the bar one plate at a time on each side.
Here’s a quick video on how to unload the bar by yourself.
Upper Body Tsunami Bar Exercises
TOP 4 Upper body exercises with the Tsunami bar:
- Push press
- Overhead press
- Bench press- all variations (decline, flat, and incline)
- Bent over row
There are several ways you can incorporate this bar into your athletes’ workouts:
Standalone Work
You can simply replace a traditional bar with the Tsunami Bar in your athlete’s workout routine.
Warm-up
This bar works great as a warm-up for any lift. Using this bar before any lifts will excite the nervous system and can enhance rate of force development.
Complex Training
Complex training involves pairing two similar movement patterns. The first exercise is a heavy lift performed at a slower velocity. The second exercise is a much lighter lift or movement performed at a much higher velocity.
The first lift strongly activates the nervous system, potentiating a faster contraction on the second exercise. If your first exercise is squatting and your second is jumping, this potentiation will allow you to jump higher than you normally could. The Tsunami bar gives you an advantage over any other implement as it allows any lift with a barbell to now be able to be trained as a complex. When pairing these exercises, adequate rest is needed between pairs. Somewhere between 30 seconds to 4 minutes is recommended to maximize the potentiation.
Reverse Complex Training
With this method, the lighter, faster method is performed first, followed by the heavy, slower speed movement. The lighter, faster set activates the fast twitch fibers and potentiates their force production ability for the heavier, slower set. In this case, the Tsunami Bar is used first, followed by the traditional bar. The key is not to lift into fatigue with the TB, rest no more than 60 seconds, and then do the traditional lift.
The Tsunami Bar has other benefits. The bar enhances stabilizer activity due to the oscillation and this oscillation is also beneficial for rehab. Have your athletes train with the Tsunami Bar and they will catch the wave to better results.