Absolutely! Completely ignored in some other earlier posts. There are multiple issues in the selection of every task, the key being each task’s interaction and contribution to every other in the creation of the conditions for the optimal execution of prime task number one- Speed Work!
Wouldn’t this also entail an even bigger difference between sprinters vs. jumpers when it comes to strength training approach?
How much speed work exceeding 95% can a sprint runner tolerate before he breaks down? A standard program might contain 30-120 seconds a day 3 times a week, 40 weeks of the year. Leaves a lot of time for other activities, doesn’t it? If you are going to fill the 20 hours of workload that is the norm for elite athletes I think that we in our effort to improve many times are overloading our athletes with non sprinting activities that sometimes perhaps even will disturb development of maximal sprint capacity. Everyone seems occupied trying to explore were the upper limit is before you brake down, not to many are exploring the minimum level you have to do but still improve.
I haven’t had the opportunity to coach any in an internationally perspective super gifted athletes. The fastest sprinter I’ve had the previlige to coach ran 11.74, yes 11 not 10 when he was 17 years old. He managed to run for him a rather impressive 10.18/9.98w as a senior. In general our concept has always been emphasized towards development of maximal speed with rather high dozes of high intensity runs. Of the track the training has been deigned to avoid hypertrophy of ST fibers just as much as is has been targeted to develop FT-fibers with the type of work that I briefly described in an earlier post. That is a constant walk on a very fine line! Very easy to break down due to too much high intensity training on and off the track.
It might sound provoking but if I ever had the opportunity to train an super gifted athlete, I would be very tempted to do more hypertrophic work than I have been doing with my athletes in the past. With mainly FT; -if something is growing it most probably has to be rather fast:-). That type of resistance training is probably a lot less taxing on the organism, leaving more energy for fast running on the track. Isn’t that what we all are striving for, to be able do more specific training? Unfortunately I don’t think many athletes would benefit from that type concept, perhaps with the exception of the “sub 10 club”?
All the best
Håkan Andersson
Sundsvall, Sweden
The duration of the weight training exposure in the phase may have as much to do with any fibre change as the method employed. Cross section training is less taxing on the CNS and a short burst of this type of work can set the stage for bigger gains in a shorter time in the max strength phase.
Another point to consider is the effect of the type of weight training approach- general or specific?
With a specific approach, you must subject fewer target areas to a greater stress in the max strenght phase (more chance for conversion from IIx to IIa?), either by more reps per session or a greater max str phase duration, to achieve the same level of overall CNS stimulus and you don’t benefit from the cross-over effect contribution from other muscle groups that are ignored.
For speed power athletes what would be the longest duration (cycle) of accumulation weights(hyp.) you would recommend?
And will that depend on the somatotype of the athlete and training experience?
Thank you Sir! I will do my best…
First, some clarifications:
We want to increase strength without increasing mass. That is different from reducing existing mass, and that is what I meant in the quote from my earlier post.
It would be incorrect to assume that it was merely improvements to the nervous system, but it is true that there are periods of more intensity in the weight room. High intensity workouts will increase myofibrillar density and recruit larger motor units, and this can be accomplished with less mass. Keeping lifts at 90-95% max without lifting to exhaustion and minimalizing LA allows the lifter to leave the gym feeling good, not tired. Every athlete that uses this system, from soccer to football, basketball to baseball, and track, all show large increases in strength and small gains in weight. The majority of them do the workout immediately prior to event training.
If a runner at 9.8 worked out at full speed, they would be getting some great plyo training and some strength training from maximum force application. But they would not see the same amount of strength gains as they would get from the weight room, nor would they be beneficiaries of the added advantage of those increased strength gains.
Your hypothesis regarding reduced stress from dropping weight training ultimately leading to shorter ground contact times has a build in pre-suppostitional bias. Decreaing existing bodyweight is not a goal. It is a by-product at times.
Cutting ground contact time does not increase MSF, it’s the other way around. Greater force decreases GCT, which means less time to deliver potential force. The fact seems to escape a lot of sprint coaches.
At some point in the development cycle there must be an adaptation phase preparatory to max str work but beyond that a few weeks in phase one and even less in phases two and three may suffice for developed athletes with high FT concentrations. This is highly individual however.
“Cutting ground contact time does not increase MSF, it’s the other way around. Greater force decreases GCT, which means less time to deliver potential force. The fact seems to escape a lot of sprint coaches.”
Coach Ross,
What are your thoughts on higher speed output involving limb momentum, eccentric action near the end of range and elastic energy stored in the soft tissues of the body?
If you apply more force at GC, you apply less possible force because of less time spent on the ground? I don’t understand why this is a bad thing.
To set the record straight, I don’t recall saying that I could have accomplished more than Charlie. I said, and fully believe, that less mass would have allowed him to run faster. You certainly have the right to believe differently.
Your comparison between Felix and Ben are, at best, ludicrous since there is a bit of an age and experience difference between the 2. However, I don’t recall Ben running the fastest time in the world as a 17 year old. Felix dropped a half second per year over each of the 4 years under our workout. That includes a drop from 22.84 to 22.11 her senior year in high school (22.33 w/altitude adjustment). Keep in mind, James, she ran primarily against low level high school athletes, who often ran 2-4 seconds behind her. The 22.11 was against pros, including Kelli White, and she ran them down from behind. Would Felix have run faster if she was running against elite competition during the course of her high school season? No one will ever know.
Perhaps you’re thinking of playing the “It was only one, very talented girl, you were lucky?” Spare me. I’ve heard it thousands of times.
If it was native talent for her, it’s native talent for all of 'em. We got good results from coaching a great talent, Charlie and Smith and all the rest did too.
Felix was the U.S. indoor champion that same year. The head coach of the USA womens team that competed in the World Indoor Championships in 2003 certainly felt I was qualified as a coach. You can read her comments on my website. Let’s see, I’ve worked along with several other top coaches. I initially learned strength training from George Woods in 1967 (he followed up with a silver medal in the shot in '68) along with a former power lifting world champion. I’ve coached with Tommie Smith, who was pretty fast in his day. I’ve worked with other coaches who have had numerous world champions and world record holders in a variety of events in track and other sports. Does that make any difference to anyone? I would hope not. The fact is, James, that what is fact is fact, regardless of the messenger. If I’ve said something that you can prove incorrect, do so.
Mass-specific force is what it is. Are you speaking to the use of the fact of MSF or the training based on MSF? The regurgitation I hear is the same stuff that I heard from 1967 till now. I’ve heard all this before. Just minor adjustments to the same old stuff based.
This statement is quite interesting: “Unless I am grossly misinformed as to your accolades I fail to see how you can reasonably feel solid about disputing Charlie on any grounds short of the theoretical.” So it’s my accomplishments or lack thereof, that make what I do right or wrong, good or bad? Science makes no difference? Do I feel reasonably solid about disputing Charlie? I have respect for his accomplishments, but more than reasonable doubt about some of his coaching methods, which in all fairness, doesn’t make me right or him wrong. But, James, that’s how it should be for all of us to learn and move ahead.
And James, I think the tone of your post was meant to show your utmost disrespect.
At top speed, your limited as to the amount of force you apply by the amount of time available to apply it. It’s possible that you have more power output potential but not the time to deliver it. That’s not necessarily good or bad by itself, but it does matter against competition.
Not more time to deliver it?! If your GCT decreses as you get stronger and apply more force then regardless of how much of that strength you harness you’re getting faster. What is there to complain about? Isn’t that why you do max str training as a sprinter to apply more force? There’s a scooter anology that belongs here. Or a bicycle wheel thing too. How does it “matter against competition” I’m curious
Barry, interesting that you find the comparison ludicrous as (illustrated in my post) the comparison was drawn in an effort to compare the athletes accomplishments as a reflection of coaching strategies. Accordingly, if you still find the comparison ludicrous (provided the context) then you only reinforce the fact that very few speed coaches, in the history of track and field, can share the same stage as Charlie .
Another topic of interest to me are your words "Perhaps you’re thinking of playing the “It was only one, very talented girl, you were lucky?” Spare me. I’ve heard it thousands of times. Barry, are you familiar with the phrase ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’? I remind you that you brought it up, not me.
I find it curious that you in one sentence refuse to honor the position that Felix is merely a result of ‘native talent’ then in another you are stating how she ran world class times as a teenager. Am I the only one who finds irony here.
Furthermore, for you to find the comparison ludicrous as a function of the two athlete’s age difference only strengthens the validity of Charlies methodics.
Charlie worked with Ben since he was a mid/late teenager and, RE your inability to recolect Ben’s teenage performaces, Ben was not setting junior world records at that time. In fact, the degree of improvement over the course of the subsequent decade is nothing short of monumental.
Thus, if any talk of born or made is to be initiated then there is no arguement against Felix being much more of a demonstration of the former. In fact, her world class accomplishments at her young age only serve to illustrate an early peak which is (historically) a function of natural abilities.
(Now, as I stated, Felix is no doubt a great athlete who has benefited from coaching and I do not in any way intend to diminish her performances. ) This is a discussion between coaches not for or against athletes.
Your inability to recolect any junior world class performances by Ben is a clear, only if subconscious, hommage to Charlies coaching strategies.
Certainly one’s client/consultant list does not define one’s efforts as a coach. The accomplishments of those who have benefited from a coach, however, certainly define the skills of that coach realizing the potential of the athlete. The alternative to this logic is such that coaching is a nebulous undertaking, and although the masses are overwhelmed with ignorance this certainly does not discount the validity and certainly unanimous recognition of great coaching/coaches.
This, along with most other forum exchanges rooted in anything less then butt kissing or pure fact, appears to have quickly morphed into an exercise in perception. How in the world did you interperet my post as implying that you are ‘wrong’ in your coaching methodology. The point that I felt was clear, specifically in my closing paragraph, is such that your self stated (having more then reasonable doubt regarding Charlie’s methods) is of interest to me considering the world class success experienced more then one world class athlete of Charlies.
Barry, unfortunate that you feel as if I am disguising disrespect with my attempt to articulate clearly.
Misplaced that I should have to state that I intend no disrespect, but it is understanable given the nature of these faceless words on a screen. Barry, if it reassures you (which in reality it probably won’t seeing as how we are two strangers having a debate on a computer forum), you should know that if I intend on communicating as the disagreeable aggressor there will be no confusion.
Take this at face value, I am a coach who has the utmost respect for great coaches, such as Charlie, and I am amused by the fact that you find doubt in a coaches methodics who has repeatedly proven them at the world class level.
James, good to see you posting again, but somewhat ironically, I have to disagree with someone who knows more than me, namely you:
Does that mean that Charlie is 100% correct? The doubt was with “some of his coaching methods”; not all.
I have to agree here. Challenge is fair game, just as I’ll answer back with my views. It’s clear from this thread that this has been a good thing. There are some great posts here for everyone to read and think about.
As for “one athlete”, one is one more than most will ever develop.
The old ancient Greeks were organizing Olympic Games for almost 1000years, with probably professional athletes and coaches for the majority of times. There is a shame that we don’t have a clue at what level they were competing! The 200m champions were apparently the most celebrated winner, unfortunately we don’t know their times. I had the privilege to visit the Olympic museum some years ago, nice display, very interesting, many names and portraits of great champions, but no results. One grey sandstone got my attention though. It had the inscription “Bybon son of Pola lifted me over head with one hand”, the stone apparently weighs 150kg! I find it interesting to compare that achievement to modern strong men competitions were the biggest Atlas stone weighs 165kg. If that is true, were does that put our strong men in perspective?
Modern sports is less than 100 years old and professional sports much younger than that. We are building much of our different training concept around empirical experience, still we like to portrait that modern sport is a product of science! In media we often give and get the impression that modern sport is really advanced and that modern athletes are hitting their head in their personal genetic ceiling. Excuse me gentlemen, but I think that that is far from true.
Today we can’t even imagine at what level athletes will compete in 100, 1000 or 10000years (if sports still exists, in it might have been banned due to corruption and cheating as the Old Olympics games ironically were). Some times it’s mind-boggling to speculate how training for sprinters will be designed in the future! I think that self-criticism is healthy, for me there are thousands of unsolved questions and thousands things to be improved before I honestly can say that my athletes are getting 100% out of their individual talent, and unfortunately they never will. What will coaches of the future have learned from science and from empirical experience from other coaches and athletes? An very effective tool to improve things is to exchange ideas, in that respect a free forum like this is an incredibly valuably tool for everyone. I take my hat of and bow to everybody that contributes almost on a daily basis especially to Mr. Francis himself.
When I first got in contact with the sport of swimming I was truly disturbed by the fact that a sprint swimmer swims 5000-8000m a day even though their racing distance is as short as 50m (21-23seconds work). Asking for an explanation, the response was that swimmers do this due to empirical experience and the fact that water is an unnatural environment for humans, meaning you have to spend a lot of time in it to adapt and develop a for humans unnatural movement. Some people say that sprint running is indeed unnatural for humans as well, do you agree? If, what does that mean in terms of volume of fast sprinting to master the task.
Doing consulting in other sports I try not to challege the fact that they are the expertise in their particular sport. I will contribute in other areas, it has manly been strength and power realated issues. It has been very interesting working with some of the best sprint swimmers in the world, a totaly different world for a track coach! I’ve been amazed how hard even rather young swimmers cab train. I have also been amazed how fast swimmers recuperate even after very taxing work in the pool. I guess that swimming is less demanding than working against gravitational forces but I also have a feeling that water is an amazing environment for recovery. It’s a shame that most sprint runners seems to be lousy swimmers, me myself gets totally lactic after 25m of crawling:-). Has anyone tried to exchange tempo runs for water activities?
It’s hard to neglect the fact that practice makes perfect. If you want to race fast you have to train fast. That seems to be a common opinion on this forum, unfortunately that is after 100 years of experience still not the norm everywhere. In the early 1990.s I was going crazy on high intensity and specificity on the track and high intensity of the track. I neglected low intensity training and the athletes were the once that had to pay. I learned my lesson and now low intensity training is standard in every period. It is nice to see that seems to be the norm for coaches active on this forum as well. There is no longer a question of what to it has more to do with when and how much, isn’t it. Unfortunately athletes don’t have red light bulb on their head tat will shine when it’s time to stop, we as coaches has to make that decision. I’m really curios about the Omegavawe system that almost sounds to good to be true, it might be the tool that can assist me in that judgment. I would love to see the system evaluated by independent sources, if it is as effective as it is claimed and seems to be, the company has nothing to lose allowing that to take place.
The original question mass vs. strength development by heavy lifting. Either method will alter the MHCIIX-IIA ratio. Meaning it has to be periodized rather carefully, if you want your muscles to express the most amount of fast protein when it counts (at peak form)! Needless to say the same goes for neural capacity as well. I think that very talented athletes should develop their neural capacity to its fully but I think that they can afford to gain more mass than their less favorable brothers. Alison Felix vs. Ben Johnson. There seems to be a strong correlation between testosterone production and FT fibers. Women on average has testosterone levels approximately 1/10 of men’s. That is probably one of the reasons why muscle samples of women many times looks like those from distance runners with larger ST than FT fibers. In my opinion women should avoid hypertrophy in general and concentrate on development of neural capacity and exercises that targets development of FT fibers. To say that Ben Johnson or any other high caliber sprinter should follow the protocol of a female athletes just because she has been successful, has no relevance regardless of her level of success as long as she stays drug free and doesn’t intervene in the major difference between men and women.
Reveling that unfortunately there is not one method that will work for everybody. Sometimes one of the most rewarding job can also be hell, just like it’s to write in another language:-)
All the best
Håkan Andersson
Sundsvall, Sweden
Mr. Ross,
how and with which training implications Your MSF concept would apply to Sprint Swimming,where actually top speed is hit soon after the start from blocks or push off from the walls and from then on the longer the distance/time swum,the longer the time available to apply force?
I have always had rather good results working with female sprint swimmers minimizing hypertrophy in the gym, carefully watching their relative strength level,and concentrating on the neural side of the equation and the distribution of the stimuli,surely at least in part for reasons Mr.Andersson brilliantly highlights here, but I would like to move discussion towards consideration of force application (“delivery system”) and its implications.
Thanks.
PS:Mr.Ross gives me the occasion to bring this up,but along with His own I would very much appreciate Charlie’s and Mr.Andersson’s contributions, as well as other members’ naturally!
Ben Johansson? You mean that great swedish sprinter of the 80’s? The one with the mullet?
Doing consulting in other sports I try not to challege the fact that they are the expertise in their particular sport. I will contribute in other areas, it has manly been strength and power realated issues. It has been very interesting working with some of the best sprint swimmers in the world, a totaly different world for a track coach! I’ve been amazed how hard even rather young swimmers cab train. I have also been amazed how fast swimmers recuperate even after very taxing work in the pool. I guess that swimming is less demanding than working against gravitational forces but I also have a feeling that water is an amazing environment for recovery. It’s a shame that most sprint runners seems to be lousy swimmers, me myself gets totally lactic after 25m of crawling:-). Has anyone tried to exchange tempo runs for water activities?
Good points since gravity is the primary variable why the training is different. I respect both track and swimming environments and understand the differences between water and land based sports. Swimming is very technical and forebrained since most of the movements are at velocities that you can adjust for. As the swimmer becomes more advanced the less time they have to set up a catch and must prepare with swims closer to top speed.
Tempo in the pool should be a total body workout and has far different cardiac responses. I don’t like runners doing water running since all it does is tighten hip flexors and don’t milk the lymphatic system when no ground reaction forces are used.
According to Peter Weyands’s article mass-specific force is force/mass, that is acceleration. Nothing more, nothing less.
But a 100m sprint is not about constant speed running. It is about accelerating up to the highest possible horizontal velocity and then trying to keep this velocity. The only way to increase horizontal velocity is by applying horizontal force.
We certainly won’t go faster if net horizontal force during a ground contact is not positive. The vertical lift is necessary to be able to apply horizontal force efficiently.
Surely every coach is aware of that it is force capacity in relation to body weight that matters! For horizontal movements as well as for vertical movements as horizontal acceleration = horizontal force acting on body / mass of that body. The effect of gravity is the same regardless of body weight. A heavier person does not fall faster than a lighter person. That is, vertical acceleration = (vertical force acting on mody / mass of that body) – gravity. Gravity is an opposing acceleration factor that is independent of mass
Alone this division may be misleading. When one leg is swinging free, the other leg can either be in contact with the ground or not (i.e. swinging free).
It is certainly true that stride rate should become faster by decreasing ground contact time but this does not imply that no work on the swing action should be done. Quite the opposite. As stated above while one leg is in contact with the ground, the other leg is swinging upward and forward. The force of this swing is transmitted into the ground. Further, to be able to produce force efficiently during ground contact, the preparatory movement during the swing is of utmost importance. When the alternate leg leaves the ground (i.e. end of ground contact) the free leg begins to drive downward and backward to meet the ground. A high backward velocity of the foot (in relation to the center of mass of the body) will minimize the breaking impulse. We need a high start position of the foot (i.e. high knee lift) to be able to reach this velocity. To reach a high knee lift we will need to minimize the inertia of the swing, in the preceding phase, by folding the leg (butt kick / step over).
Mr Ross, I would be interested to hear more about your strength training methods with women sprinter. I understand that you use the deadlift. With regards to neural stimulation and a minimization of hypertrophy, I think this makes a lot of sense. Håkan Anderssons comments on slow and fast fiber differences between women and men, is worth noting in this context.