The whole thread is really interesting even if sometimes my english is a barrier to understand everything. It has had extension in supertraining yahoo discussion… In both forum it led to violent arguments… pointless…
I won’t comeback to Weyand study, which i already said it has nothing to do with elite sprinting on a track, and i’m still perplex on what material it gives to the coach : no one has problem to go from jogging to sprinting, and understanding the biomechanical differences between the 2 doesn’t help to find solution to make improve the sprinters (improve max speed).
I have had good private discussions in the past with Barry, but the big problem starts when the coach is on the track and the sprinters tell him that the heavier the athletes feel, the fastest they are. What validity to give to “scientific” findings when the subjects (in this case elite sprinters as opposed to machines or laboratory mouses) can feel and claim the opposite?
Where is the truth?
The human beeing motion (complex combinaison of mechanics, physio, psycho, etc) is far to be understood, that’s why we are still waiting for the genius who will make a bipedian robot who can run.
If we had Asafa, Tim, Ben and Mo running at 12m/s on force plates with the lastest scientific apparatus, we would have a clearer picture of what happens in sprinting, but would it answer to the coaches’ questions on which volume/intensity/density to build the programs? What to do with a sprinter who refuse to lift weight, an other one who can’t jump at all, an other one who can’t do short sprints due to fragile body, and so on…
I don’t know enough physiology to fully grasp my own idea , but I agree. Purely on the basis of observation, it seems that athletes do seem to need “mass beyond that which is theoretically needed” to actually perform at a high level over time and remain injury free. This is what I was getting at in my example of gymnasts above (who knows how many pages back). It seems, to use an imperfect analogy, that the athlete needs a bigger battery to provide both the voltage (peak poker) and current (work capacity) without overloading the circuit.
This just in: What about hormonal factors? What if the “added” muscle mass helps keep the body in a higher state of readiness?
I think I should shut up now and let you guys who actually know something continue.
Well fellas, I will tell you what I am thinking and believing. As educated as we may be about the various sciences we can use to govern our training methods, there is still so much beyond what we have addressed.
We could get into electromagnetic fields of the body and how training effects it (by the way, I don’t think anyone has a clue on how this one would work…lol). We could go into all the things that arent seen within the body, all the adaptations for tissues, neurons, and thoughts we have not yet discovered.
I personally believe that Bears’ methods are good because I followed them prior to reading the book, discovering them on my own merit. To have another person follow a similar approach gives me confidence that the bulk of my training was very efficient.
One thing I will always strive for is to be the fastest regardless what program I follow. I will constantly evolve and try to refine every aspect of my routine until I am left with something so simple and effective that it makes people say…“wow.”
I urge you guys to be open to suggestions, trying them before the criticizing. After all, I believe we are the best guinea pigs, not some fluff from a P.E. class that are employed in most studies. We know various models, like I said, we just dont agree with how to arrive at the ideal. I don’t think we ever will. Its like two artists having the same style, or two sprinters for that matter.
You’ve brought up an interesting point about Electromagnetic fields. it is clear that there is a third circulatory system beyond blood and lymph and these biologically closed electrical systems for the organs, muscles, and circulatory system have a major role at the cellular level.
Much of what has been accepted about the nature of exercise (min 20min 3x/wk, min 80%max vol contractile force to constitute exercise) is false.
Obviously, such a principle would preclude the value of 75% tempo or other low intensity work (65% of my entire program!). This was based on the assumption that protealysis was a prerequisite to improvement, while it is now understood (at least by some) to be a side effect to be avoided whenever possible.
I spent some time working with CP children who benefited greatly from EMS applied at 20h, 5 sec on 5 sec off at levels below perception, overnight during sleep, when hormone production is highest.
The intriguing part is that many of these children, who tend to normally be found in the 20th percentile for growth, moved to the 50th percentile after a year or two. We also had an MRI presentation on a withered hand treated this way that grew to closely match the other hand. Freaky stuff that just illustrates how far we have to go to have a real picture of what is going on.
Meanwhile, “prevailing wisdom” discourages those who don’t want to work for 20min 3x/wk at a med level from working for 10min, 6x/wk at a more modest level, since they’re told it’s useless!
I have a question regarding the relationship between the speed of limb movements and Ground forces. Did the study, or your application of its findings, take into account the effect that faster limb movements have on GF and GCT?
Both GF and GCT would be effected by the speed of the down stroke as well as the speed of recovery; the first due to higher forces upon ground impact, the latter due to increased down force due to an increased opposing force (IE knee lift).
Also, on a side note, I was wondering how much control you had over Allyson Felix’s programme as a whole. I was under the impression that she was coached by Pat Connolly, and then moved to Bob Kersee when Connolly was unable to stay in SC.
I was her strength coach throughout her high school career. The sprint coach and I worked together and were of the same mind as far as overall training
I would like you to show me any studies that specifically back up your initial questions. In addition, the study was ABOUT faster limb movements vs MSF
“I won’t comeback to Weyand study, which i already said it has nothing to do with elite sprinting on a track, and i’m still perplex on what material it gives to the coach : no one has problem to go from jogging to sprinting, and understanding the biomechanical differences between the 2 doesn’t help to find solution to make improve the sprinters (improve max speed).”
Hi PJ,
Science and physics don’t change because of an elite athlete, so I’m not sure I understand your initial statement. It gives a lot of material to the coach.
“…but the big problem starts when the coach is on the track and the sprinters tell him that the heavier the athletes feel, the fastest they are. What validity to give to “scientific” findings when the subjects (in this case elite sprinters as opposed to machines or laboratory mouses) can feel and claim the opposite?
Where is the truth?”
This is a coaching problem, not a training problem.
“If we had Asafa, Tim, Ben and Mo running at 12m/s on force plates with the lastest scientific apparatus, we would have a clearer picture of what happens in sprinting”
We do have that, it just not acceptable to many coaches.
“What to do with a sprinter who refuse to lift weight, an other one who can’t jump at all, an other one who can’t do short sprints due to fragile body, and so on…”
If you have uncoachable or untrainable athletes, no study is going to help
When working with younger athletes (developing) how do you differentiate between hypertrophy and MSF means of training? How safe a program would those protocols be for developing athletes?
15-18 years of age. Athletes mature physically at different rates, with different morphology. How do you move an athlete to greater loads without hypertrophy, or is their an optimal level?
Anatomical adaptations for young athletes occure through the use of reps in the hypertrophy range?
Then that’s where science (which science are we talking about btw?) ends and coaching starts. This is important because you point out that science fails to help elite athletes. A big part of them are “uncoachable or untrainable”, and this is the kind of challenge which interests me at the highest point.
Weyand study : the problem is that study compares a wide range of physically active people (not sure we can call them sprinters), form jogging pace to fast running pace on treadmill, beeing strapped into an upper-body harness suspended from the ceiling to prevent them from falling and being propelled behind the treadmill during the test. One of these people managed to reach 11.1m/s, OK, but on incline mode, and the slowest one was 6.2m/s (are we still talking about top speed here, or a lazy jog by a sleepy folk)…
From this method, how can the findings be helpful for sprinters and their coaches to make them imporve from, say, 11.1m/s to 11.8m/s? On your case, i don’t understand how you can build a strength program on a so poor study for sprinting (surely interesting for treadmills makers companies…). This is not a critic of your strength program which i believe is good, that’s just the link between your program and the scientific support you claim.
You did not understand me, PJ, science does not fail to help elite sprinter
The study was done at level running, inclined running and declined running in order to test the different variables to see if there was a change in how an individual would respond to because of the change in slope. In all three cases, there was the same linear relationship between the fastest and slowest time, by the application of mass-specific ground force support. The reason for using the treadmill and harness was to eliminate the effects of wind, differences in track surfaces and other variables that would nulify the test. This is how testing is supposed to be done.
Tell me PJ, what studies do coaches build their programs on now? Photos? Ultra-high speed videos out doors in differing conditions and surfaces without taking gravity into effect? No measurement of force? Guessing? Coaching the way they were coached by a coach who also did the same?
I haven’t heard biomechanists say there were errors in the studies, just coaches. And not all of them either.
If the aim was to eliminate effects on wind, why not doing it indoors. Treadmill has not only the effect to eliminate wind, but also air resistance, which is, during ground contact, the only external force on athletes body besides weight applied on COG vertically and downward. We already know that running in high altitude and see level has not the same effect on speed, thus mechanics of stride is slighlty modified.
Furthermore, does this study warn us about the difference in support with a moving ground (treamdill) and “static” ground (usual track)? (Crucial point for the breaking phase, it probably limits the positive speed of the foot at touch-down (see Ralph Mann study 1985?). If differences in tracks is a problem, do the study on the same track with in the same portion of this track. I can’t imagine this study done in different places. I guess all the physically active subjects were joined in the same place.
I’m sure harness was a disturbing factor for let the body sprinting freely. Upper body plays an important role in running, so in what extent did the harness prevented it to play its role?
I think most of them are based on pragmatic observations. The first training philosophies in the XIX Century were kind of : to run fast at 100m, practice 100m running. The complexity of cinematic and dynamic of 100m running was clarified in the 1950-60 years mainly thanks to German Gundlach, Soviet Ionov, American Henry or Polish Hoffman.
On the other hand, i’m still not convinced at all by the applications of physiology researches for sprint training.
Faster down stroke should help decrease braking force upon touch down.
More importantly is the ground force generated by accellerating the knee away from the ground. It’s basically Newtons third law of motion. In order to accellerate the knee away from the ground, force must exerted through the other leg and into the ground, the faster the knee rises the greater the force must be. You can test this pretty simply by standing one legged on a set of scales (keep the leg rigid) and drive the free knee upward. This would account for at least some of the effectiveness of Charlie’s step over cues at top speed.
From reading the study I was under the impression that the study was was about the frequencies and actual limb velocities were not measured. In regards to this the range in which the limbs travel as they are repositioned is not measured. I’m probably missing something here, but on the surface it seems like this could be an important variable when it comes to actual limb speeds vs stride frequency.
Another thing I don’t think the study took into account was the effect of air resistance. On a tread mill you don’t get this, but out on the track, unless you’re in a vacuum you do.
I think for the reasons given by PJ as well as these the study, whilst interesting, isn’t close enough to a real world environment or in depth enough to draw practical conclusions from.
Like PJ I don’t think there is anything wrong with your weights programme, but it may be an idea to take a closer look at other coaches philosophies rather than dismissing them as “relatively unimportant parts of running mechanics”, particularly when they’ve not only coached athletes who have competed at every level, but have set new levels in the process. There are too many weights coaches who believe the be-all-and-end-all is in the weights room and what goes on on the track is of little consequence.
Yes, but it is the horizontal (backward) velocity of the leg & foot that matters.
Yes, we are not exactly in a need of a study to prove that the free leg AND the ARMS contribute to ground forces… The basic laws of mechanics will do and for the non-believers there is always the scale.
However, I believe that it is speed, not force, that we want from the upward/forward swing of the leg. That is, to reach a high knee position so that we then have enough distance to accelerate the leg/foot downward/backward to minimize horizontal breaking force at the impact of the ground.
If force was the prime motive, a straighter swing leg could be just as efficient if not more so. For example, look at the swing leg of triple jumpers who primarily want force from the movement (speed is not as important as they have much more time to reach a high knee position).
Bear,
I also had some questions on the testing protocol used in the Peter G. Weyland Study.
This was written by Tudor Bompa. As it does not directly relate, there are some things to consider in regards to the validity of the protocol used in the Weyland Study, ‘the treadmill’.
The over-speed treadmill
In the early 1990’s, the industry has produce over-speed treadmills, which claim to improve athletes’ speed. Like most other treadmills it has a carpet, which can achieve velocity of over 40 Km (26 miles} per hour. The athlete runs on the carpet in an attempt to progressively reach maximum velocity, and to match the mechanically imposed speed of the treadmill. The claim that this training device results in the improvement of maximum velocity has to seriously be questioned. Why? Let us try to review what make an athlete faster. If you want to maximize your players’ speed you should consider improving the following three major -sprinting elements:
Stride length: it normally increases as the propulsion phase increases. The more powerful an athlete applies force against the ground the longer the stride. However, the improvement of stride length is possible only to players who’s skills levels are, bellow the national level. Many, world-class sprinters are improving maximum velocity without increasing stride length. The over-speed treadmill cannot result in improving the stride length simply because the athlete never has the time to actually apply strong force against the ground, in this case the carpet. Since the carpet moves from under the athlete’s feet, he/she will never have the time to actually apply full force during the propulsion phase.
Propulsion phase. The major element in making an athlete fast is the propulsion phase. As the force applied against the ground increases the duration of the contact phase, or the propulsion phase, decreases. Therefore, the determinant element for speed improvement is to shorten the duration of the contact phase. This is possible only as a result of increasing leg power (the force generated by gastrocnemius and soleus muscles). However, the fast moving carpet is not propelled as a result of an athlete’s increased force application. On the contrary, the carpet rolling speed is mechanically induced therefore, not conducive to improving force application to the ground, and therefore, cannot result in athletes’ speed development. The only condition in which force application increases is when the ground is immobile. Or, this is impossible against a carpet moving under the feet and away from the athlete. Under this condition the player will never have the time to apply force against the ground.
Stride frequency is the third element of sprinting. Sprinting frequency depends, among others, on the height of the athlete, or the length of his/her legs. Shorter athletes always have a higher frequency. But a short sprinter has rarely been a high class sprinter. Therefore, frequency is important, but far from being determinant. Since sprinting on treadmill is not conducive to a powerful application of force against the carpet, high frequency is artificially achieved at the expense of high force application during propulsion phase.
Since almost everybody, without even being an average sprinter, can move legs fast in the air (the time between the propulsion phase and landing on ground), and as a result have high leg frequency, frequency itself cannot compensate for the inability to apply force against the ground. However, if you want to increase stride frequency, do it by reducing the duration of contact phase. This is the only way to increasing the force of the propulsion and as a result, to improve speed. But, since speed training on a treadmill cannot improve the force of propulsion, treadmill sprinting is both a waist of time and money.
Do you want to improve your players’ sprinting abilities? Improve, the force of propulsion!
There are, 'however, some fancy treadmills, called in some places “acceleration training” device. 'The player is attached to a harness which has a bungee that pulls the athlete forward. However, this new form of treadmill is even less effective than the traditional type. And since the athlete is pulled forward even faster, he/she will have even less time for increased force application against the ground.
Treadmill sprinting creates, however, a few other challenges to the individuals using it. As a player is forced to adjust to an artificially created over-speed, to increase frequency at the expense of strong propulsion, the mechanics of running is changing as well, such as: the knee of the propulsion leg not fully extended; recovery leg is not swung-up towards the buttocks as it should be; since the propulsion leg is not fully extended the thigh of the drive leg does not have the time to be driven up to horizontal; and the trunk may be slightly leaned backward, therefore changing the center of gravity as well. In addition, treadmill running also results in altering the firing pattern of the Ff fibers, not exactly conducive to maximum velocity.
So far I’m hearing nothing but guessing and reliance on the visual. I’m hearing that you have not one shred of scientific evidence for any of what you are saying. In fact, since you have no science to back up what you say, no measured effects, you simply take the postion that all scientists involved in human locomotion, in fact, all mamalian bipedal and quadrapedal running mechanics don’t know what they are talking about. The fact that they go through much more rigorous peer reviews than the posters on this site could put up doesn’t seem to matter. PJ laughs at the xix century coaches because they coached what they “perceived” by what they saw was right. And we’ve progressed to standing on scales?
Tell me what “basic laws of mechanics” you alude to? The ones that scientists discovered?
So far all i’ve seen is, “I believe that it is speed, not force, that we want from the upward/forward swing of the leg. That is, to reach a high knee position so that we then have enough distance to accelerate the leg/foot downward/backward to minimize horizontal breaking force at the impact of the ground.”
So if we simply believe that it is true, it’s true! Why bother studing it!
Hi Nap, before I get kicked off here for my last post…
We don’t go through any “forced” (for lack of a better term) hypertrophy stage, just the neuromuscular adaptation stage. For example, in the deadlift we start at 50% bodyweight to learn the technique properly. The standard deadlift motion is so close to motions done in daily activities that it is easily adapted. We progress through bodyweight percentages over several sessions, watching for form breaks, such as early knee lock, rolled shoulders, etc. Reps are kept low, 3 or less, generally hitting 160% of bodyweight by the end of the 4th session. From that point on the training differs for each athlete. I’ve used this method to start lifters from ages 15 and up. Under that age, I’d rather they did bodyweight exercises only.
, but I agree. Purely on the basis of observation, it seems that athletes do seem to need “mass beyond that which is theoretically needed” to actually perform at a high level over time and remain injury free. This is what I was getting at in my example of gymnasts above (who knows how many pages back). It seems, to use an imperfect analogy, that the athlete needs a bigger battery to provide both the voltage (peak poker) and current (work capacity) without overloading the circuit.