If its’s correct that energy is stored for 2 seconds, will power output be increased in an activity like sprinting for 2 seconds, or will the stored energy only have effect on the first movement after landing. Just wondering if doing 5-10 meter sprints when landing would be effective? I understand that the drop height would have to be lower when landing on one foot, but would it be dangerous even then?
I can’t… I throw that in the list 
I guess bLA raise increase the GH output which in turn increase the hypertrophy and accumulation of connective tissue (tendon, ligaments, etc)? Make any sense?
The ammount of energy that muscle can produce (‘anerobicaly’) depends largely on the ammount of ATP/CP in muscles (remember creatine supplementation? ). Thus, it may be concluded that the more ATP/CP in muscles can increase speed endurance (or time to fatigue, from metabolical standpoint). Altought I don’t have research directly confirming this… Anyway, I guess the cell concentration of CP can be imporved by sprinting and interval training itself, altought the strength training can increase the muscle mass of FT fibers and thus increase CP reserves too…???
BTW, Bear, can you send me the full Weyand articel on duxx82@gmail.com? Thanks in advance. [I have read few articles by Weyand, including the one regarding limiting oxygen don’t limit sprint performance]
Also, what do you mean by building muscle?
Are you refering to muscle volume or density?
By building muscle I mean increasing the MASS of muscles, especially FT fibers. I know you will freak out (:)) becuase this will afect your mass-specific force, but you can’t flex bones. You need muscles to produce force. Advanced athletes DO need new muscle mass due the fact that they are very close to their maximum maximorum force (their strength deficit is small, also explosive strength deficit is small too). To provide futher increase in relative strength (mass-specific force) paradoxically you need to increase muscle mass, rather than maintain it… Altough this depend on the athlete level.
the function of the calf muscle largely depends on the stiffnes of its tendon. due the fact that calf is two-joint muscle, he ‘transfer’ force from more powerfull muscles from knee to ankle. Calf o this my increasing its stiffnes (it can be said that calf work isometrically, and it is pre-activated). Thus, since the muscle itself doesn’t move, his SEC aka tendon do most of the job… That this makes any sense?
Anyway, it is interesting to hear other coache’s opinions. So thanks for spending your time explaining us your approach. I have read your book, but it was maybe year before. I didn’t liked it, but I understand the concept. One coach, friend of mine, who works in soccer extensively follow your approach and uses it, along with Jay Schroeder stuff (isometrics)…
Do you still work with Felix?
I attended the Level III Sprint Summit at Loyola University back in July. Frans Bosch gave five presentations. On three different occasions, he mentioned avoiding hypertrophy training. His comments: “Hypertrophy increases cross-sectional fiber. This is extremely bad for coordination.” Later, he said: “Stop doing hypertrophical training and you’ll be a much better athlete.” In his clinic notes, he had a picture of a giant bull with the following caption: “Hypertophy training>>loss of coordination.”
He also mentioned that, when he began working with high jumper Tora Harris, his first bit of advice was to “lose a lot of weight.”
Are you curious about the overall efficacy of the lift as a training protocol, it’s effect on sprinting specifically or the limitation of it’s effectiveness in regard to an individual’s training history?
BTW, I work with high school through masters competitors of various ages, world wide. One 43year old female ran faster than the existing age group record in the 100m (12.25 vs 12.30) but was foiled by the lack of a wind guage. It was not a windy day.
She also ran on a 4x400 U.S. record setting relay team in the indoor season. Her team took 27 seconds off the old record as well as more than 26 seconds of a currently pending record. Interestingly, she was competing in the 35-39 age group because her mates were in that age bracket.
There are a ton of threads in the archives debating general vs specific lifting and hypertrophy work in combination with max strength vs max str work alone. The European theme has been to avoid all “non specific” lifts as well as hypertrophy work. How’s that working for them these days? BTW, I thought Ben, Asafa, Tyson, Mo, etc were all pretty coordinated.
We could now argue about who’s shooting the Bull.
Without many speculations and phylosophic issues, simply stated: ever applied to a 10.5 or so athlete?
I stated “I do find your posts show a level of intellect that is sometimes absent”
How can you interpret the above statement as an insult? Your posts show a level of intellect that is sometimes absent (from others) … maybe a little bit of reading before jumping to conclusions would have been prudent. My questions serve the purpose of stimulating further discussion. There is no need to be defensive on here.
Sorry, no insult intended. Rather then point the finger, lets just say its a misunderstanding.
I have to back up what Sharmer said as far as the view/perspective of an outsider reading an exchange between two posters.
When I read his response I saw it as nothing but complimentary and I still do. I was surprised his comment was seen as insulting.
“We could now argue about who’s shooting the Bull.”
Ha! Now that was GOOD, Charlie! I always look forward to your quick wit!
O.K, now i’m insulted that I misuderstood the insult that wasn’t meant to be an insult.
Now, what I mean by that is that i’ve insulted myself for being insulted when no insult was intended other than what I perceived as an insult, which really wasn’t and was never intended to be.
So, I need to apologise for my insult to everyone who might have been caught up in my being insulted, which I should not have been anyway.
In other words everything is fine among all of us…for now. I guess.
Unless there’s someone out there who thinks…
females: 11.29/22.11a, 52.26 and 11.33/23.36
Male: 10.62 who willl be back this next high school track season. The first female you know, the second was ranked in the top 60 of all women in the U.S. that year.
Now exactly what point did that make?
What I would like to see from you, in all fairness, without speculation and philosophic issues, what difference the level of athlete would make. In other words, show me why you think it would not work with a more experienced athlete (or what you perceive is more experienced).
I don’t want to see any solely anecdotal info or guess work on you part, just some solid research that would justify your position.
Show me research that would state clearly or even imply that the protocol we use is limited in effectivenes and only applies to “lower level” athletes. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about the dl alone, but the overall protocol.
When you’re finished with that, could you supply me with background information on you so I know what level of athlete/coach I’m addressing?
Well… half anway!
I’m not sure how important the time is as the same principles have been applied below 10.00 and the general concept has been applied up to an infinity of slowness. It’s how it all fits together and what has to be done to break through barriers at the extreme performance end to keep times dropping. As well, we might as well open up the discussion between male and female training. What do you do about general training with females when upper body strength capability is so different relative to lower body vs male abilities?
You may want to clarify that, Bear. You only had her on your deadlift program, not your sprint program!
And the male? Did he do your lifting AND sprinting or just the lifting? How long was he in the program and what were the advancements during that time? Or are you going to argue again that the deadlift protocol is the most important thing?
What part of Felix’s development was advanced by the leg press, which you said you used for at least 2, maybe 3 seasons with her before the deadlift?
So people from ‘infinitely slow’ to ‘a top guy’ can successfully base their program on a few deadlifts, some auto regulated sprints and calling it a day when everyone else is training with 2x or 3x the volume/training time? Yes, I am asking seriously.
I am curious about the efficacy of deadlifts only weight training for sprinting in regards to a sprinter with a significant training history including ‘common’ weight training. What is your opinion on high level sprinters that train 16+ hours per week? Would your system be
more effective for them while requiring only ~7hours per week of training time?
I have a few new 400m girls and I probably will put them on your weights system (seriously). I would love for them to cut 6-7sec off their time ( not serious).
Barry,
Perhaps my questions were not clear enough, so I will clarify.
The management of overtraining, as described in your reply, is too simplistic - the balance of volume, intensity and frequency requires micro & macro managment at elite performance levels.
You said you lift on average 10 reps per session at no less than 85 % - I think it was Zat. that says 3 - 9 reps at >90% is optimal, obviously this does not consider other high intensity elements already present (track work and whatever else).
The lack of consideration of these factors does not support the argument that these methods neccesarily translate to elite / high performance levels.
The point I make in regards to the deadlift is that it is highly specific to itself - more so I would argue than the squat. You suggest the huge potential for improvement in the deadlift contribute to improvements in sprint speed, but the nature of the deadlift is that it is a relatively easy lift to improve.
Either your use of the deadlift is as a specific means, in which case translation to other lifts is definetly a factor, or as a general means, in which case the integration with the actual running needs to be more thoroughly explained.
Sprinting is a vastly different beast when you move from 11.0 to 10.0 - even the difference between 10.0 and 10.5 is huge. It could be argued that elite female performances have very little significance to male training protocols on this basis.
How does your approach vary with the performance level of the athlete?
Lastly, I am not proposing a bodybuilding/high volume nor any other program as an alternative - I am only interested in the merits of your program and not in comparisons.
I mean all of the above with absolutely no disrespect, I am very interested to hear your responses.
For one,waiting for Bear:“infinitely slow” people and “a top guy” are still all HUMANS,if we are still willing to recognize and accept it,after trying our best to set as many differences we could for as long as we can remember.
Sorry Dazed, I forgot to answer this question.
As you stated, if negative horizontal force exceed positive horizontal force then the runner is slowing down.
The change in speed = ((average horizontal force * time of force)/force of body’s weight). At world class speed the negative horizontal forces will result from the braking on the ground + the wind resistance on the body.
If the runner slows, contact time almost certainly increases and net braking forces must be greater than net propulsive force, as per the above. There is a strong likelyhood the “why” of decrements in speed are due to fatigue reducing muscle force which, inturn, reduces ground force application.
While I believe that muscle fatigue eventually leads to less force application, I’m not aware of any current reseach that shows this to be the cause (Alain Belli might have published some observations on this or related, but I’m not sure.)
Hopefully, a clearer picture of how these factors relate will available in the near future.
Hope this helps!