Backed up by electromyography, I find squats to be the most overrated exercise around. Even though Charlie stated ‘sprinting was a back dominant sport’, he still employed/favoured squats highly, which from my research are quad dominant (right? or wrong?), both front or regular & don’t hit much glute neither. Wouldn’t deadlifts/barbell hip thrusts/reverse hypers etc (ham/hip dominant) be favoured options?.
Anyway a bench/squat variation?. What does everyone make of these below, (opinions) please?. You don’t see many people performing this any more. A forgotten strongman’s exercise, great for overall body strength development.
I think there right up there IMO, anyone into really strengthening the core in particular, increasing your plank time etc should be hitting on these. According to electromyography, great for glutes, hams, delts etc.
Yes? or No?. Performed dynamically or isometrically?. All opinions appreciated.
This goes to the heart of Charlie’s approach to weight training, which was to provide a general stimulus and rely on crossover adaptations. As the sprinters got faster there was a general trend away from heavy pulling movements like deadlifts and more emphasis on pushing movements such as bench and squats in order to shift the workload off the specific motor units that were doing most of the work during the sprints.
What EMG work woul that be? Bret Contreras’? Because if so, the man has no clue what he’s doing.
Even though Charlie stated ‘sprinting was a back dominant sport’, he still employed/favoured squats highly, which from my research are quad dominant (right? or wrong?),
Depends on how they are done. A high bar Ol style squat is different than a lower bar power or PL style squat.
both front or regular & don’t hit much glute neither.
Horseshit. If you think squats do not work the glutes, explain why all PL’s and OL’ers have monster glutes.
Why speed endurance work? What about medball throws, jumps, powerspeed drills? Your accel volumes are very low. Do you have a progression planned?
Have you considered hills? Are you jumping right into 40 meter sprints?
Race, I have to go with Lyle on this one. I don’t get this attempt to rid the world of squats by academic and anecdotal trash. I would love to see the EMG that shows squat not being effective at all over activation of the lower body. I have been training athletes for close to 20 yrs and it has been a staple. I can promise you that if you have athletes who don’t squat, when they play those who do, they will manhandle your athletes. This field is becoming ludicrous with ll this Johnny come lately attempts at paradigm shifting. It reminds of of rehab. It used to be they rehabbed ACL injuries on leg extension and they said squats weere bad for your knees. Now, don’t do extensions due to shear force, just squat. Makes no sense. I will continue to have my kids squat and I will continue to put athletes on scholarship as I have always done. Not going to throw the baby out with the bath water.
In my humble opinion, if people want to find excuses to avoid productive exercises, let them. You can’t save everyone. It’s like people who write off Charlie’s training system. It’s their loss. Screw 'em.
[i]CF Lecture Series : Weights for Speed Bundle (CFWFSB)
3 lectures covered the most intimate details of incorporating weights into the general to specific phases of a training program. ALL 3 lectures are in this download.
Lecture One
“Weights for Speed One” first and foremost, covers the differences between a General and a Specific lifting program. For those familiar with Charlie’s training methods, he favors the General Weights Plan, agreeing with coaches of all sub 10" performers. His reasoning and analysis is thorough throughout both lectures.
Lecture Two
“Weights for Speed Two� shifts from the more fundamental and crucial analysis of program explanations of lecture one, and brings more detailed applications of different types of weight training, for different types of levels. Of course, it is important to grasp the philosophies of lecture One, to understand all the specific applications of lecture Two.
Lecture 3
In this lecture, Charlie covers off specifics on pulling everything together and gets into some additional discussion prior to the series conclusion.[/i]
No thread/topic/URL in particular but anyone wanting to increase there vertical, that maybe a good research tool. I have only just found that site myself.
I will probably start to include squats back into the workout.
I just downloaded an ebook called Dinosaur Training by Brooks Kubik. It mainly refers to how the oldtime strongmen got insanely strong & the exercises they did (which you don’t see many of anymore).
I’m considering this somewhat variation to the squat (quote taken directly from the book) with my own isometric twist (tendon development).
Bottom position squats begin with the bar placed so that the lifter has to wedge himself underneath it to begin the exercise from the low position of the lift. As you might imagine, these are tremendously difficult ways of doing bench presses and squats - enormously harder than the regular style of performance. Of course, that is precisely why dinosaurs do their benches and squats in this fashion: bottom position work makes the exercises HARDER!
“Any excessive amount of strength work, executed over a prolonged period of time, reduces movement speed and a muscle’s ability to display explosive efforts. A cyclic, wave-like increase and decrease in the amount of strength work provides the same wave-like but steady increase in movement speed and explosive muscle strength”.
– Prof. Verkhoshansky -
“Even today, I’m not a real heavy lifter; I just go heavy enough to develop the muscles. I don’t go after it like some other guys, mostly the shorter runners [laughs]. I’m not really that kind of sprinter.”
– Usain Bolt –
The entire application of periodization is so varied and individualized, that the application will vary greatly from athlete to athlete. I agree that if all you do is push in the weight room, you will likely run into this scenario. Like Charlie said, this is part art and part science. Anyone can learn the science, the art lies in the ability to discern when to push and when to reign in the athlete. Hopefully people work from a year plan and stress facets based on this.
Conclusion. These results suggest that isometric squat training changes the stiffness of human tendon-aponeurosis complex in knee extensors to act negatively on the effects of pre-stretch during stretch-shortening cycle exercises.
