So you put the wrong example.
I understand you may have many…but this is a poor one…Any miler undergoing speed work and cutting on mileage gets faster.
And a 17 y.o. miler, with no stenght trainig background, can progress with any protocol.
These are common sense facts.
A more detailed analysis of the ‘Barry Project’ might clear up the issue. As I noted in my previous post, I selected this particular athlete because I wanted an athlete who 1) had not improved his speed in three successive years and 2) had not changed anything in his training from his freshman to his junior year–and would not change anything in his senior year, other than the addition of the protocol under the guidelines which Barry set forward. I chose a distance runner because I didn’t want an athlete with a ‘bias’ toward any previous strength training program. Many of my track athletes also play football, and they are involved in a more comprehensive (and more conventional) off-season lifting program.
From my perspective, it was important to choose an athlete for whom nothing would be ‘different’ in training-- with the exception of the deadlift protocol. This way, whether his short speed improved or not, I could more accurately assess the strength training itself.
In previous years, whenever I would attempt to implement someone’s strength protocol, and did not record any appreciable differences in speed, it was always because the protocol was 1) not applied long enough 2) was not developed in conjunction with hypertrophy or conversion to power phases and 3) was not conducted with other ancillary lifts and routines.
Based upon these conditions, it would be impossible for me to isolate any specific aspect of the strength program. Maybe that is the reality with the majority of strength programs, but Barry’s challenge was that athletes would get strong very quickly without gaining mass, and would show improvements in speed without having to focus on length of training, cycling, or ancillary lifts.
I liked everything about the protocol, and decided to incorporate it into our training. This does not mean that there are not ‘better’ protocols or more intelligent cycling models that I could apply. For my situation, I have athletes who see themselves getting very strong in a relatively short period of time, and they believe there is a link between their strength improvement and speed increases. In other words, the program is not a ‘hard sell’ for either the guys or girls.
Here is some data on the fly-in 9.8 meter sprints over the past two years. I’ve included the results of one of my fastest guys as well as one of my slowest:
3/01/06: 1.02
5/10/06: 1.00
3/03/07: 1.00
5/16/07: .97
100 Times for this athlete over the past two years:
4/04/06: 11.74
5/10/07: 11.40
One of my slower runners:
3/07/06: 1.33
5/10/06: 1.22
2/20/07: 1.22
5/03/07: 1.14
100 times for this athlete over the past two years:
4/04/06: 14.09
4/17/07: 13.13
What is interesting about a complete comparison from one season to the next is that there is not a ‘guaranteed’ increase in speed just because the athlete is a year older. I’ve always believed that high school kids will improve by a certain percentage just because they ARE older. However, you’ll note from the above that times will sometimes ‘match’ from one season to the next depending on the level of ‘conditioning’ the athlete enters with when we begin practice in mid February. This does change from February to May.
How does this progression compare to the previous season (no DL protocol)?
Times for the faster athlete:
Fly-in 9.8:
2/22/05: 1.18
3/15/05: 1.18
4/05/05: 12.91 (by end of season 5/02/05: 11.84
Times for the slower runner:
Fly-in 9.8:
2/22/05: 1.35
4/05/05: 14.69 (by end of season 5/03/05: 14.14)
The problem with this data is that it basically ‘tracks’ the same athletes for three successive years, and the difficulty with this, as I pointed out earlier, is that these are high school kids who will probably get faster regardless of what they do. I’m in the process of doing a more comprehensive comparison to athlete performances prior to '05.
The majority of our athletes followed the off-season 'Barry Project; with great interest. They saw the athlete who was struggling to lift his own body weight (127 pounds) in mid December deadlifting 340 by the second week in May. During the track season, his mileage, workouts,and competition cycle did not change from the three previous years. His previous best in the 800 was a mid 2:19. With the only difference in training and racing being the addition of the strength protocol, his speed had improved to the point that we could use him on our 4X8 (2:08 splits), which was simply out of the question in prior years.
If you visit Barry’s website, you’ll find additional info on the “Barry Project,” as well as some pictures of the stages of the athlete’s training.
Is it wrong to base my decision about the protocol on the improvements of a high school distance runner? On forums like this, we argue the merits of many peer-reviewed studies conducted by researchers who know what they’re doing. In this regard, I can certainly understand why others would take exception to this mini-project as revealing anything of value.
However, my challenge to Barry was a direct one. If the protocol is was as effective at getting athletes stronger–and faster–over a relatively short period of time, as he believed, I’d try it with the least likely candidate I could find, one with a respectable degree of talent (two miler in the low tens) who revealed no speed increase in three successive years and with no bias toward any strength training program.
We could debate who on my team might have been a better ‘candidate’ for the project, but this was one I knew would really make ole Barry squirm!
Barry,
Couple of questions about the effecient of the deadlift:
I agree that it is a more ‘effecient’ means of providing stimulus (with respect to volume) - however isn’t this benefit more than offset by the increased risk of overtraining? What about the greater loads needed to achieve the same relative intensity?
Also, my experience has always been that improvements in the deadlift are far less specific to other exercises, while the other exercises, such as the squat still have a substantial roll over to the DL. What are your thoughts on this?
Ps. If not needing spotters or a rack is a consideration, is this all academic?
Using terms like “any” can lead to lots of problems, and a lot of “common sense” is neither sensible nor common.
Actually, I didn’t put up the example, Ken Jakalski did. I didn’t suggest the person, Ken did. It was his way of testing my training protcol. We barely knew each other and I certainly didn’t have any knowledge of the athlete.
The “test” was to see if the runner would increase strength with minimal gain in mass as well as improve his time.
I’ve not seen many 127 lb distance runners increase their max lift from bodyweight to almost 2.70 x bodyweight using 1 exercise, lifting 2-3 times per week, averaging 10 reps total per session and gaining a couple of pounds of bodyweight.
Of course I only started strength training 40 years ago, so maybe I’ve not been around long enough. 
I should mention that this last track season I worked with a high school multi-event athlete who increased bodyweight about 3 lbs using the same workout. However, within 72 workout sessions increased the deadlift from 190lbs to 340 lbs. HER starting bodyweight was 115. Her 100m time dropped from 13.35 the previous year to 12.75 (she only ran the distance once). This high school junior also also dropped her 400 time by 2 seconds and her 300Ih by 1.5 seconds.
Oh, she also ran no distance longer than 70m in a workout, from the start of conditioning for track until the end of the season. Her average repeats, including the 70m runs on that single day, for the track season was 33m.
Now “common sense” would dictate that she should have minimal, if any, improvement in the 2 longer races if she never ran (in any workout, pre season to end of season) more than a quarter of the racing distance.
MSF! 
Hi Luca,
We only lift and average of 10 reps per session (20 if we bench). Hardly overtraining in that area. Within that 10 reps, we will not go below 85% max and we will occasionally do a real max. Most of our work is based on “virtual max”, using the simple range of lifts chart: 1 rep at 100% 2@95 3-4@90 and 5-7@85% (we never exceed 5 reps). Using the “virtual max” concept allows us to prepare the athlete to have a very high rate of success when doing an actual max.
I’m not concerned about how the lift translates to other lifts because we don’t do other lifts.
The deadlift fits all that one needs on the strength side to achieve maximum speed.
I want to reiterate that I did what most of you do for about 35 years. I know every argument for why you do what you do because I did the same thing. The first time I lifted a weight was in my junior year of high school when I had the dubious “honor” of spotting for shotputter George Woods in 1967 (He won the silver in the '68 Olympics). Our workout was 5x2 at 95%max for the deadlift, squat, bench, power clean, clean & jerk and the snatch. All in the same workout 2x per week. The workout time averaged between 3-3.5 hours, with an occasional 4hr marathon. Wood’s was doing his reps in the bench at 450-475 so even spotting wasn’t easy 
. Never heard a single word from him or Dave Davis (an Oly shotput qualifier in '64) about over training.
Our athletes are not “overtrained” compared to every other set/rep scheme I’ve ever seen. Wood’s workout was always around 60 lifts at 95%
When we leave the weightroom, we’re not tired, not feeling the burn of lactic acid, etc, because we don’t bodybuild, we get strong.
Bear, do not take it as an assault or whatever.
It is very interesting yoir protocol and your thought provoking…but High school atheltes can get better just because of physical maturation and simply training.
Just that.
Apllied to senior high -medium level athletes, agedo 20 or more, would add lots to the discussion
just that…
Great thread! Thank you.
I find the following by themselves provide enough food for thought,and took the liberty to highlight what I found myself indeed stimulating.
I agree. I would like to see this principle applied to a 10.x male instead of a bunch of lower level athletes.
That being said I do find that Barry’s system works well for those at the lower levels. At the very least, the improvement in deadlift weight can be a lights-out confidence booster for them.
I do find your posts show a level of intellect that is sometimes absent. I may not agree with your findings but certain questions do arise. You state that rep volumes don’t exceed 20 per session, repeated twice a week. Do you periodise this? Do you increase rep ranges to 5?
How do you integrate speed work with max weights & plyometric training without overtraining?
How is doing 2x5 deadlifts twice a week then leaving the weight room overtraining? Might be if you deadlift 900lbs but not for any high schooler.
Barry,
Do you use plyometrics year round? If so, what’s your take on this? This is from an article at T-Nation written by Christian Thibaudeau (6 Dumb Training Mistakes) I’m intersted in your response to the pet peeves italized at the bottom of the article, since this is what I learned about using plyometrics.
Dumb Thing #6: Misusing Plyometric Training
I’ll start by explaining exactly what plyometric training is, as the term itself has been tagged to several types of training that aren’t true plyometric training (e.g. low intensity hops and bounds).
Plyometric training is also known as “shock training.” It was developed by Yuri Verkhoshansky in 1977. The objective of this method is to increase concentric power and force output by stimulating the muscles and reflexes via a “shock stretching” action preceding the overcoming portion of the movement.
This is accomplished by dropping from a certain height (typically 0.4m to 0.7m, although heights of up to 1.1m have been used by very advanced athletes) to elicit a powerful stretch activation, then jumping up as high as possible immediately upon landing (or projecting yourself in the air in the case of a depth push-up). The following pictures show the execution of a plyometric/shock exercise known as a depth jump:
It’s been established in both Eastern and Western studies that depth jumping, or shock training, can significantly increase power production and vertical jump height. This is mostly due to the following factors:
- An increase in reactive strength
Reactive strength refers to the capacity to rapidly switch from an eccentric/yielding action to a concentric/overcoming action. Lack of reactive strength will lead to a longer coupling time and, consequently, lower force and power production during the overcoming portion of the movement (Kurz 2001).
- Neural adaptations
Viitasalo et al. (1998) found a different neural response between athletes doing a lot of jumping and regular individuals when doing a depth jump. Jumpers were able to activate more motor units during the movement (greater EMG) and plan the motor command faster (higher and more rapid pre-action EMG).
Kyröläinen et al. (1991) also found that 16 weeks of depth jump training led to better jumping efficiency. Schmidtbleicher (1987 and 1982) found that trained subjects were able to use the kinetic energy produced during the eccentric portion of a depth jump, while in untrained subjects this eccentric period was actually inhibiting instead of potentiating!
Finally, Walshe et al. (1998) concluded that the superiority of depth jump training over regular jump training was due to “the attainment of a higher active muscle state,” meaning that the fast eccentric portion of the movement increased muscle activation.
- Structural adaptations
Depth jumps have been reported to cause some muscle soreness and muscle damage (Horita et al. 1999). This is understandable since the eccentric force produced is very high, albeit rapid. This may indicate that depth jumps are a powerful stimulus to stimulate structural adaptations.
However, depth jumps don’t lead to significant hypertrophy. So the nature of the structural adaptations following depth jumping isn’t quantitative in nature, but qualitative: an improvement of the strength and contractile capacity of each muscle fiber.
Soviet literature gives the following guidelines when practicing depth jumps:
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The joint position upon landing should be as close as possible to that of an important sport action (Laputin and Oleshko 1982).
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The amortization phase should be short enough to avoid losing the elastic energy produced, but long enough to allow for the shock stretching to occur (Laputin and Oleshko 1982). Research indicates that the elastic energy from landing is stored for up to two seconds. So in theory you have a window of two seconds between the landing and take-off phase. However, to maximize the training effect you shouldn’t spend more than one second on the floor.
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The height of the drop should be regulated by the preparedness of the athlete. The heels shouldn’t touch the ground during the landing phase. If they do, then the height of the drop is too high (Laputin and Oleshko 1982). A height varying from 0.5m to 0.7m appears to be ideal for most strength and power athletes (Roman 1986).
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Depth jumps have a very powerful training effect, so the volume of work should be low, i.e. no more than 4 sets of 10 repetitions (or 40 total jumps spread over more sets), two to three times per week for advanced athletes and 3 sets of 5-8 repetitions (or 15-24 total jumps spread over more sets), one to two times per week for lower classes of athletes (Laputin and Oleshko 1982).
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Because of the very powerful training effect of depth jumping, it’s idiotic to perform this type of training systematically throughout the year. The shock method should be used in blocks of three to four weeks with at least four weeks between blocks (Roman 1986). In fact, some coaches recommend no more than two to three such blocks per year (Medvedyev 1996) and only when a rapid rise in power and reactive strength is needed to further performance gains.
Remember that every training method, regardless of how effective it is, will lose its effectiveness over time. Shock training is no different. If you use it year-round there comes a point where you’ll get no added benefits from it. However, by using short “shock” blocks you can give a quick boost to your performance. Since you only use depth jumps for a short period, you’ll get the same performance boost every time you use such a shock block.
[i]The Pet Peeve
Okay, with that out of the way I can discuss the matter of my pet peeve: misused plyometric/shock training. As we saw earlier, shock training can have a very powerful effect on power production, but it’s also very stressful on the myotendinous structures and the joints. This method also leads to very rapid gains in power output, but the gains quickly stagnate and come to a halt.
My biggest problem is with coaches who use plyometric/shock drills too often, for too long, or with an excessive volume. What happened is that somewhere in the late 80s and early 90s, plyos were discovered by North American coaches and seen as one of the secrets of the Eastern block athletes. However, North American coaches are often seduced by the “more is better” approach and started to include way too much volume of plyo work.
The problem with many coaches and athletes is they don’t feel that depth jumping (and other shock training) is hard; it’s not very tiring compared to other means of training. Because of this, they feel they can get away with using a super high volume of shock training. Huge mistake!
With plyometric work, more is definitely not better. Quite the contrary, doing too much shock training will lead to structural damage which will lead to overprotective “safety mechanisms” (Golgi tendon organs and muscle spindles) which will actually lead to a decrease in power production, not to mention that the risk of injuries increases significantly.
Another related problem is using plyometric training for too long. Shock training is designed to give a quick boost in peak power production. It was used once or twice a year for phases of two to four weeks, not more than that! And it was quite effective when used that way.
Yet nowadays we see North American coaches use plyometric work year round with their athletes. This will diminish the potential benefits of the method. The goal of shock training is to provide a quick boost in power production. If it’s used year round your body gets used to the method as the quick boost effect is thus lost. It can also lead to some degenerative joint problems, especially at the ankle and knee joint.
Finally, another act of stupidity is when coaches use plyometric training during a season. This is beyond idiotic, especially if the sport involves a lot of jumps already (basketball, volleyball, track events, figure skating, gymnastics, etc.). A volleyball player might perform over 400 maximal jumps per week of sport practice; the last thing these athletes need is more jumping! The already high volume of jump and landing work can take its toll on the joints. Adding shock training is a surefire way to lead to a decrease in performance (best case scenario) or an injury (worst case scenario).
Bottom line: Use plyometric/shock training to provide for a needed boost in power production, not as a year-round system (e.g. perform a four week shock training block six weeks prior to an important event; stop two weeks before said event). And when you use it, don’t let the amount of fatigue or soreness be your guide to adjusting training volume. Stick to 40-70 total ground contacts per week. [/i]
Careful when reading plyo articles that they relate to the speed work being done. Results will vary dramatically between those doing significant speed work and those not doing it.
Remember that an increase is an increase. By that I mean that moving the landing intensity up has a strong effect, even if you move up the intensity marginally from what you’re used to, thus short periods of increase a few times a year can work with only marginal change, and, therefore, only marginal adaptation stress.
Barry,
From reading your article I must admit that you confused the ’CNS fatigue’ with ’intensity overtraining and overreaching’. Charlie is guilt for this: he named errourenously CNS fatigue a phenomena which is rather an ’intesive overtraining’. CNS fatigue happens in most of activities including marathon (see Noakes papers) [and it is hard to guess is it protective inhibition to protect from catastrophyc failure, or is it inhibition of volition processes] and it deals with performance decrecement DURING the activity. CNS fatigue or peripheral fatigue may be the cause of increasing sprint times during sprint training, after an apropriate drop-off point the training should be stopped.
CNS fatigue on which Charlie talks is rather a CUMULATIVE ‘intensive overtraining’ due too much of high intensity sprinting, lifting and jumping. Organizing training into High/Low doesn’t have to do anything with references you quoted, since they explored the instant CNS fatigue on activity and not overtraining cause by too much volume of intensive training means.
As for upper body mass… well read Bosch and Klomp book, page 146.
‘During running, however, medial rotation develops in the hip of the stance leg. A relatively large amount of power will be needed (from abdominal muscles and pseudo-rotation) to achive this medial rotation. Having a powerful upper body and wide shoulders will be particulary advantageous for a sprinter.’
On the topic of avoiding hypertrophy work and rep ranges. First off, there are couple of hypetrophy types. We need FT hypetrophy (myofibrilar) which is ‘functional’ and also transfer to force production capacities (You can’t flex bone). It also builds muscles which can latter, due increase strenght potential, increase their power output with more intensive strength training. Second, you need to eat alot to build muscles, thus you can spend great ammount of time in ‘hypetrophy range’ without mmass increase if you don’t eat at least 200-400 kcal beyond maintenance calorie levels. Third, spending too much time in low reps/high intensity may lead to intensive overtraining, thus some form of ‘cycling’ must be used.
Fourth, ‘hypetrophy’ ranges may increase tendon strength due lactic acid accumulation and thus increase its stiffnes and thus elastic recoil during running. BTW, they can help shed some fat off, both duing maintenance caloric eating or by keeping muscles on during fasting/dieting.
Fifth, even if you increase muscle mass, mass-specific force will increase because athlete will gain more strength than mass, relatively.
Sixth, increase muscle mass will basically increase ATP/CP pool which may lead to greater speed endurance and even higher Vmax.
Seventh, athletes are humans, not ‘elastic spring’… they love to see on themself the effects of strength training. If they think good on their performance and visual appearance (I am not promoting BB or its methods, but rather funtional hypetrophy), they will think good on training program and thus you will have greater compliance and motivation, which is very important…
Just my 2c…
Duxx,
Can you explain how hypertrophy rep ranges or LA accumulation can increase tendon stiffness or elastic recoil during a sprint? Thanks.
Are you suggesting that a 10.x runner is not subject to the effects of gravity or that they don’t use elastic recoil to reposition limbs?
Are you implying that force tracings would differ significantly as to when force is applied?
I would certainly be interested in research that shows this to be the case!
My lack of intellect prevents me from answering your questions. 
I guess I worded my statement improperly. I meant to say that I would like to see the results of the deadlift protocol on advanced athletes as well as high schoolers.
Dont insult the guy, I want to hear what he has to say!!!
Hi Duxx,
Please explain how increased ATP/CP pool would create additional speed endurance if muscle fatigue is the primary factor for reduction in generation of opposing force.
The rate of muscle fatigue and consequent decrements in speed can be quantified for each athlete. See “Sprint performance-duration relationships are set by the fractional duration of external force application”
Peter G. Weyand, Jennifer E. Lin, and Matthew W. Bundle, February 12, 2006 :
“These results do not support the widely held view that performance-duration relationships can be explained by the maximum rates at which ATP can be made available. Rather, a reliance on anaerobic metabolism somehow induces decrements in the mechanical performance of the musculoskeletal system as the cumulative duration of the contractile ativity becomes more prolonged. The mechanism almost certainly involves the progressive inhibition of intracellular force production that occurs with intense sequential contractions, but it may also include reductions in the muscle volumes available, and perhaps other factors.”
Using our algorithm based training allows us to predict the max speed of any runner (with greater than 97% accuracy) from very short distances to runs of 4 min duration (distance over time for the longer runs). We can then give each individual a specific sprint workout without over training them. When they exceed the time to complete a repeat run, they stop running. We don’t exceed 10 repeats (we know that they have improved if they are able to do this so we retest max speed) and if they cannot make the time by the 2nd attempt, we stop them. Using this methodolgy, rather than guessing, significantly reduces the propensity to over-train.
Also, what do you mean by building muscle?
Are you refering to muscle volume or density?
We do “cycle” our program, but in a shorter time frame.
Tendons aren’t our main concern in training, muscle–primarily the calf–is.
To reiterate, I’ve done all the hypertrophy/periodization/base building, etc. you describe.
Our workouts, specifically time under load, is significantly shorter than any other I’ve seen, for both weightroom and on the track, and it’s not by accident.
Regardless of the weight, 5x2 reps (which we rarely use) would take about 22 minutes to complete. Of that time, 20 minutes is resting (sitting down). The max set of 10 repeats would take about 36 minutes of which 34 is resting (sitting down).
Not a grueling workout by any stretch of the imagination.
I think that one genial intuition Carlo Vittori had was that speed-endurance for the short sprinter is NOT strictly ATP-CP dependant, rather CNS dependant. That might explain the PBs in longer events of athletes trained with shorter than event distances.
Regarding Bear’s program, I have used a similar program with extremely good strength increases by its users. Three exercises, 9 reps in the range 80-85%, 1 rep in the range 90-95% and 10 reps in the range 50-60% a week plus 2-4 reps over 100% every 3-4 weeks (1RM test day), per exercise. I have adapted it to a 7 week MxS phase, and I have got roughly a 25% increase in the SQ and DL 1RMs in that period for most users.
Unfortunately in that case the users were either fitness enthusiasts or lower level athletes, so I cannot report on the performance enhancement of such program, but I would say that it (the one I used) fits very well in a sprinter’s annual periodization without the fear of CNS burning.