When the rate of loading is faster than the rate at which material absorbs and converts energy to plastic work and damages, then there is an excess of energy that is partly stored in the material's microstructure and the rest of it triggers micro-dynamic excitations. The additional storage necessitates the development of plastic flow constraints and is directly responsible for the observed dynamic strengthening. At extreme conditions, we find that the micro-excitations contribute to the dynamic behavior. The phenomena are universally observed in metals, frictional materials and polymers. In essence, strong dynamics creates conditions at which materials are pushed from equilibrium and temporarily reside in an excited state of behavior. This study is focused on the behavior of metals. The concept is incorporated into a mechanisms-based constitutive model and is examined for annealed OFHC copper.When energy is delivered to a material with rates that are faster than the rate at which the material converts the excess energy to plastic work, then the uncompensated energy is partly stored in the material, while the rest of it is converted to micro-dynamic excitations. In metals, the observed strengthening mechanism 1 is linked to kinetics of the drag-controlled dislocation glide under applied stress 2,3 . Often, it is assumed 4 that the thermally activated dislocation mechanism operates at all strain rates, while others 5 have argued that both thermal activation and drag-controlled mechanisms coexist at high strain rates. A comprehensive review of the theoretical concepts and models is presented in refs 6,7 . In various constitutive descriptions, the effort is focused on connecting the material responses at high strain rates with the rapid increase of dislocation density and the development of fine dislocation structures. Subsequently, the microstructural evolution is coupled with external stimuli such as strain rate and temperature.Experimental observations presented in ref. 8 suggest that the dynamic behaviors arise due to the intrinsic resistance of lattice to motion of dislocations. This mechanism competes with an extrinsic resistance exerted by defects such as vacancies, interstitials and dislocations. The phenomena are studied with the use of standard split-Hopkinson pressure bar and Taylor cylinder tests 9 , where the achievable strain rates are in the range of 10 4 /s. The experiments have been further modified for a combined pressure-shear loading 8 , and then, the strain rates can reach a range of 10 5 /s to nearly 10 7 /s. As reported, the strain rates produce thermal instabilities and the fraction of plastic work converted to heat is much lower from the common ratio of β = 0.9. Even stronger loading is achieved in gas gun experiments, where energy is delivered in much shorter times 10 . The micro-dynamic excitations are consistently detected in acoustic emission (AE) measurements. In metals and rocks, the rate of AE counts is proportional to the rate of plastic strain 11,12 , where in metals bursts of acous...