I think he’s talkin about power to weight ratio. In car terms it would be Horse Power per liter. A Viper with a 8.0L V10, that produces 450hp, is “stronger” than a Ferrari F355 with 385hp 3.5L V8. But when you compare how much horse power each one makes per liter, the ferrari, is much “stronger”, and also much more efficient.
Those sprinters who don’t lift are still strong. Just strong enough to move their own body weight effeciently. Any more weight from the added strength and they might become slower. Just gotta find the optimal level for yourself. I think you may have just misunderstood what he was saying.
Is that really STRENGTH, though? Not to suggest that Carl was weak by any means, but my inclination is to believe that CL’s jumping ability was more attributable to his proficiency on the the other side of the power equation, i.e. his rate of force development.
3: Stronger muscles DO create faster movement around a joint than weaker muscles, when confronted by the same resistance.
This is true, but consider that the resistance encountered during sprinting is trivial compared to that which is encountered in the weight room. The lower the level of resistance encountered, the less strength matters with regard to speed of contraction.
#2) Build speed BEFORE speed endurance. In other words, if you have no speed, how are you going to build speed endurance??? Yet, I still see high school coaches having their 100m runners running 400’s to “build a base” for their 100. This is BULLSHIT! The 100 and 400 have completely different energy system requirements. I start my 100m athletes with 10m sprints and work their way up. Remember that the shorter the race, the more important the start and first 10m becomes
I disagree with this approach. An athlete can’t train maximum speed over 10m…
Interesting discussion guys.
My thoughts are that a one size fits all training sysytem is an incorrect approach; of course one can have a general frame work, but each athlete has individual strengths, weaknesses and training history. I know this isn’nt rocket science but people tend to forget it when arguing over details.
Personally, all my gym/weights work is geared to increasing my VHJ and SLJ.
My track work is geared towards specific fitness and improving my technique/form and relaxation during acceleration and top speed.
This, coupled with the correct nutrition, sleep and competitive psychology…Hey Presto! I run faster!
I think that greater strength levals produce higher velocity from the very first split seconds. Charlie mentioned something in speed trap about imediate pressure and ultimate pressure and then mentioned something that my fuzzy brain cannot put into good grammar right now.
For what it is worth, my athletic performances have allways been very correlated to what I do in the gym. This is partly BECUASE gym work has allways been atleast half my training and has allmost allways been a part of my training.
That’s just the direction towards max speed, as you can’t go fast right away in the program.
Think of long-to-short and short-to-long as acting along a speed curve, moving up then down again. So you could work on accels out to 20 and then ues accel to 20 + maintain, generating enough speed to break the world record in the 600m, then 30m accel + maintain to break the WR in the 400m, 40 + maintain for the 200m, accel as far a possible, up to 60m for the 100 WR.
So you can see you can work on Speed and SE at the same time with either approach. The diff is that with L to S you work on accels only out to the distance you’ll use for the SE at any given time, while with the S to L approach, the accels are worked on beyond the distance you use for SE (for example accels out to 40m, but 30m + maintain for serial reps over 60m) Thus speed is developed ahead of SE.
1: I think it can be described as strength, and ultimate strength favourably affects RFD if the strength is achieved in a progressive way and up to the point before diminishing returns (shorter max strength phases within training blocks). Of course, as work anywhere on the time-to-force can effect the curve everywhere, it can operate in both directions.
2: I wouldn’t describe the forces generated in sprinting as trivial.
"This is true, but consider that the resistance encountered during sprinting is trivial compared to that which is encountered in the weight room. The lower the level of resistance encountered, the less strength matters with regard to speed of contraction. "
A lot of the Jamaicans don’t have the lifting background from what I have seen down in florida but have great numbers in a few weeks of lifting just from the contractile velocity of the track…Carl Lewis started to lift later is his career, perhaps people could list his numbers? I wish their was a tomtellez.com to shed some light.
very very interesting thread…we need to increase the force we apply during a foot contact time which at the same time we want to decrease…2 aims running against each other.tht leads us to one ans. SACRIFICES…i mean atthe acc phase u must sacrifice tht short foot contact and train ur max strength…while atthe top speed u must sacrifice the hight force implication…all this at the end leads us after putting the principle of specifity in mind tht the only way to sprinting fast 100 is to lift fuckin heavy weights for ur acc…and use the overspeed technique as much us possible…thts wht makes me wonder why everyone denies the overspeed importance…ato boldon,maurice greene all these ppl??? wht about u Charlie???
I still can remember John Smith’s words about the deceleration phase he said its tht part of the race where u use all tht work u did in the lifting room…doesnt tht mean tht the gym is a place to train ur energy sys? ( i am talkin here abt the 100 nt any other sport) … in fact i am with u tht track is a the place for the energy sys training but i guess for the 200 m race…But the gym is the place for the 100 m
Cant Get u Charlie…u always went with the idea tht frequency is much more imp than stride length…frequency=less foot contact time…overspeed=increased frequency…this gives us :overspeed=less foot contact
nope that is incorrect. If you are overspeed training you are being pulled faster than your body can react/adapt to. Therefore forcing you to land in front of the centre of gravity and INCREASING ground contact time.
I have used overspeed devices before and found the same result Charlie mentioned above.
There are plenty of slow powerlifters who can squat 3-4 x their bodyweight just as there are fast ones. Relative strength is good but only if it can improve relative power. The approach of just focusing on strength will work for those who naturally are fast or have good RFD but not necessarily for everybody else. The thing is, upper level football players and sprinters tend to naturally fit in that group. Make them strong and everything else will take care of itself. But that approach won’t necessarily work for everyone else.
Overspeed is not a good plan??? Well. I have to admit that my worst injuru ever came from overspeed. And its easy to guess. It was my back. But that never stopped me from believing in overspeed although I don’t feel like doing it anymore. Its just that I’m a bit scared of it. Its like I KNOW that if I do it again I’ll injure my self. But then I have achieved the best gains ever in my life when I trained down from something like 11.0 to 10.57 in one months of overspeed and speed endurance. I have to say it was crazy but I did it and I was up there at no time. Any explaination?
