Rate of Force Development (RFD)
How quickly force can be produced - critical for explosive power.
Updated
Rate of force development (RFD) measures how fast you can generate force from rest. High RFD is essential for explosive sports where you have limited time to apply force (sprinting, jumping, striking). RFD is developed through explosive training, plyometrics, and Olympic lifts. Force rises fastest in the first few hundred milliseconds of a contraction, while reaching maximal force usually takes 300 ms or more, longer than most sprinting and jumping actions allow.
What RFD measures
Rate of force development is the slope of the force-time curve: how quickly force rises after a contraction starts, usually expressed in newtons per second and measured over set windows such as the first 50, 100 or 200 milliseconds. The early phase, roughly the first 50 to 75 milliseconds, depends mainly on how quickly and fully the nervous system can activate the muscle; later in the rise, maximal strength becomes a stronger influence. That matters because maximal force typically takes 300 milliseconds or more to reach, while a sprint ground contact or a jump take-off is over well before then.
How to train it
Both heavy strength training and explosive training improve RFD, and the balance depends on the lifter. A relatively weak trainee gets a lot from simply getting stronger, because a higher ceiling lifts the whole curve. Stronger lifters tend to get more from explosive work: jumps, throws, Olympic lift variations and ballistic lifts with light loads. Intent matters on all of it, so lift moderate loads with the aim of moving them as fast as possible even when the bar moves slowly. Keep sets short, rest fully and stop a set when speed drops noticeably.
Measuring it, and its limits
Laboratories measure RFD with force plates, often during an isometric mid-thigh pull or a jump. Outside a laboratory, countermovement jump height, a reactive strength index from drop jumps, or bar speed from a linear position transducer act as practical stand-ins, though none of these is RFD itself. Early-phase RFD is noticeably less reliable to measure than peak force, so small changes between sessions are often noise. Compare only like with like: the same test, equipment, warm-up and time of day.
Common mistakes
Leaving explosive work until the end of a session, when fatigue has already taken away the speed it is meant to train; it belongs early, straight after the warm-up. Turning jumps and throws into conditioning circuits, which trains endurance rather than rapid force. And assuming any fast-looking movement trains RFD: light loads moved without maximal intent, or jumps with long, soft ground contacts, do little for it. Jump volume and landing quality deserve as much attention as height.
Examples
- Jump height depends on RFD
- Sprinters need high RFD
- Trained by moving weights explosively
Compound exercises
Put this into practice with exercises from the library.
Bench Jump
Plyometrics · Bodyweight
Bench Press - Powerlifting
Powerlifting · Barbell
Bench Press - With Bands
Strength · Bands
Bench Press with Chains
Powerlifting · Barbell
Bench Sprint
Plyometrics · Other
Bent-Arm Barbell Pullover
Strength · Barbell
Bent-Arm Dumbbell Pullover
Strength · Dumbbell
Bent-Knee Hip Raise
Strength · Bodyweight
Common questions
What is RFD?
How quickly force can be produced - critical for explosive power. Rate of force development (RFD) measures how fast you can generate force from rest.
What exercises train the RFD?
Good options include Bench Jump, Bench Press - Powerlifting, Bench Press - With Bands, Bench Press with Chains, Bench Sprint. Each links to a step-by-step guide with demonstration images.
What are examples of RFD?
Jump height depends on RFD; Sprinters need high RFD; Trained by moving weights explosively.
Put it into practice
12-Week Muscle Building · £29
A 12-week, four-day hypertrophy plan in three phases, with a modest calorie surplus