Charlie (or anyone ‘in the know’) ~ Would you be able to outline for me, what Ben was squatting at various points in his development, and how his 100 times corresponded with his strength level at a given time in the history of his development? Also, I’d read once that if one were squatting only to parallel, that were you to drop below parallel, that for every inch below parallel, one could only handle 15 lbs (or so) less weight than one could when squatting to parallel… raw-ballpark-gestimate. Does this ring true to anyone? Thanks much!
there are FAR to many variables to consider and everyone is different so the 15lb per inch theory is not practical to use.
(Thanks)… Yes, granted… thus the “raw-ballpark-gestimate” 
I guess suffice it to say that one’s full squat will (obviously) most likely be far less than one’s half squat. Other than that, it’s needless and impractical for me to beat my brow 'bout the details. As to the question about Ben’s lifts as they corresponded to his times over the course of his career, there probably is little practical use in that answer as well. Forgive the clutter of the initial post.
No, i think your original post raises some interesting points, even if some deem the answers to be of little value. When we get the answers we can then decide whether it was a pointless question to ask or not. I myself am interested in what Charlie has to say in response to your original post.
Just because these rules may not apply to everyone(regarding weight/squat depth), it is still beneficial to share this knowledge, especially if many people fall within the rule. For example, i have heard/seen/read on many occasions that one’s power clean (among none specialists) is approximately half of what one can deadlift. I have seen so many trainees fall within this guestimate that i definitely subscribe to its truth. There will be plenty who don’t fall within it however. It’s still worthwhile knowing about this ‘rule of thumb’.
Good original post!
I never had a rule of thumb on that issue, nor did I have a specific formula of expected lifts for a given performance. I will say that Ben’s lifts progressed steadily throughout the years, with the early programs more directed to anatomical adaptation- a wide variety of lifts with fairly high volumes. Lifts and Rep and Set numbers decreased throughout the years with a significant drop in numbers in 1985, which coincided with his performance rises.
Charlie,
Do you think that the higher volumes in Ben’s earlier days contributed to later on in his career in any way? (with weights and in other areas if this was the case).
At what age did you start Ben on lifting?
Charlie, knowing what you know now, would you have still followed the same weight protocol? Would you have adjusted the early programs anatomical adaptations at all? What would you have done differently?
Thanks
D.
Given the results of the strength program for Ben, I wouldn’t make changes to his development path.
Thanks for the info charlie.
Another question if I may, How long did this anatomical adaptation last in Ben’s case? How did the sets/reps progress over the years?
Thanks Charlie
D.
Right, because the man did get up to 26600, so it does seem like he did exactly the right thing. But I think most of the young training age people on the forum, including me, are going through max strength phases that go to very low reps. Should we not be doing this?
i think CF was thinking more of the long term (olympics, high aspirations) and we are thinking of the short term (last year of high school at the farthest). you will quick results with max strength training but maybe we whould be doing more running until our genetic potential runs out and then start max strength training. This is what a lot athletes did.
i know im thinking of the short term anyways as i doubt i will get o olympian status.
Charlie ~ you’d stated that, ~ “Lifts and Rep and Set numbers decreased throughout the years with a significant drop in numbers in 1985, which coincided with his performance rises.” ~ Did you decrease the volume of work on the track as well? Is it conceivable that just as a low-rep / low-set / high-weight protocol produced profound benefits, that adapting the same protocol on the track might likewise bring further benefits? Do you foresee the possibility of one harvesting greater results from (for instance) training as few as 2 days per week on the track to maximize recovery while following the aforementioned weight-training protocol? I began wondering about this a few years ago, as I’ve made incredible gains in the weight room from following such protocols, but it’s been many years since I competed in sprinting. A couple of years ago, I did a sprint workout, and felt far faster than I did as a teen. I began to wonder about adapting such methods for sprint training. - Thanks kindly!
Journeyman, your thoughtful comments raise many points.
Because we are all individuals with differing abilities, strengths and recovery capabilities - there should never be a one-size fits all approach to coaching and training. Coaches that only have/adopt a single training blueprint forsure can have successes but will also have a similar amount of burnouts, dropouts and injured athletes. Thats why coaching isn’t just scientific, it is an ART!! Constant adjustments, assessments and fine tuning are necessary in an ‘athlete centred environment’.
I believe that too many athletes overtrain; don’t forget that training to improve performance is governed by GAS i.e. the ‘General Adaptation Response’. That is, one must stress the organism and then give it time to recover thereby allowing the body to over or supercompensate, then one can apply more stress and so on. Much better to be a slightly undertrained, healthy sprinter with spring in your legs, than an overtrained sprinter who’ll be competing ‘with the brakes on’. The latter happens FAR TOO MUCH at all levels. This is one of the reasons why so many athletes have such inconsistent performances.
An Ectomorph may not be able to tolerate more than 2 days a week sprint training/coupled with weights…the only finish line they would be racing towards is burnout. Whereas a Mesomorph may not be stressed enough to improve at the optimal rate by such abbreviated training.
Remember. Quality training, quality recovery that is right for your physiology and body type.
Clean athletes cannot expect to emulate the seriously harsh training loads of athletes that use or have used anabolic/anti-catabolic hormones and expect to survive let alone recover and improve!
Interesting… thank you. Much of this echos where my instinct had been leading me over the years, but having not sprinted for so long, I’d no proof of what benefits a sprint program, ‘cut from the same cloth’ as my weight-training regime would result. I had a feeling that many athletes adopted a regime that left them bereft of proper recovery. The sprint workout that I alluded to previously was a 200m repeat sprint routine, each rep done at about 90+ percent. After years of just lifting - big general movements, high-intensity, low-rep/low-sets/high-poundages, and no track work), I swear I ran faster (at my advanced age… mid-30’s) than I did as a teen. I fully expected to ‘rig’ even in a 200 after such a long lay-off, but it didn’t happen. The plan is to increase my strength to levels a fair bit first, while dealing with some injuries from which I’m mending, and then to gradually add sprintwork that follows the philosophy behind my weight-training program. If all goes well, I’ll try my hand at competing again. I’ve also been a vegetarian for the last 12 years, and that seems somehow to have slowed my again a fair bit. Actually Ben’s former agent came to my workplace a couple of years back and thought that I was a decade or more younger than I am - (happens all the time).
Typo: Should read as, “slowed my aging”…
Thank you Mr. Francis for making this site available.
TJ2K: Would the best development path change much if it was for a short term vs the long term?
Journeyman: The vol of sprints would rise over the early years and eventually plateau, however, later on, at the highest performance levels, the volume would have to decrease in order to allow intensification to continue.
Thank you kindly charlie! It pleases me to hear this. It seems that real-world proof mirrors the hypothesis of where my instinct leads. If I might ask one more thing… a permutation of the initial question… what was Ben’s top full-range (deep) squat - (reps/poundage)?
in my opinion, if i was dealing with long term training, i would stick with higher reps, never going below 5 or 4 reps weighttraining. i would stick with sprinting and jumping exercises until he has reached his genetic potential with that and then move to power weight training with lower reps. its just a thought.
Charlie,
So you feel that for an athlete who feels they need to gain about 15 pounds eventually to fit into their ideal body type, they should do pretty mcuh all higher volume hypertrophy work in the weight room at the beginning and try to add the weight before they progress to trying to convert it into strength that will play out on the track? What about gaining five pounds a year for the first three years? I’m not sure if I’m interpeting you right.