Defranco's View on sprint training

[chris30]

@fast11_12

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?

You improved over 4 tenths from overspeed and speed end work? What is your current PB?

cheers,
Chris

[numba56]

@t-bone

numba, no need for the disrespectful comment. where did Charlie turn down Defrancos methods?

I didnt, someone commented earlier that Defranco using the short to long approach was full of sh*t, i appologize, you know, young teen who work out an all…haha

[THEONE]

@Clemson

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.

Carl was over 275lb in the clean and bench in 96. They were also lifting before the track workouts.

[fast11_12]

my personal best is still 10.57 elect. But that was 10 months ago. After injury I came back and ran 10.09H. I don’t know how fast I’ll do elect. this year. Wish me good luck

good luck to you too chris

[Flying_Duck_2]

@chris30

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.

Chris

tht happens when u tooo overspeeded (new verb ) if u were pulled to run a 103% of ur best then u ll body will adapt and the CNS willl try to speeed the impulses to go through the new conditions…the final result is running this 103% without the belt and so on…wht u described happens when u exceed the 103%

[fast11_12]

here’s my point on overspeed. Overspeed to me “was” a way to get me to my top speed without giving the effort. So imagine that you have all your ATP ready at top speed and you’re ready to go! See. So someone pulls me to that top speed while I’m just responding easy. And when I feel I’m way too fast I start the real action. It gives the feel of maintaining your top speed for over that 1.6 limit.

[numba56]

listen, if you feel like overspeed works for you then do it! Others here dont like the method, no need to justify it if it works for you…But as you said you did injure yourself badly with it…so one has to wonder…as well I dont know of any top sprinters who do it?

[Flying_Duck_2]

@fast11_12

here’s my point on overspeed. Overspeed to me “was” a way to get me to my top speed without giving the effort. So imagine that you have all your ATP ready at top speed and you’re ready to go! See. So someone pulls me to that top speed while I’m just responding easy. And when I feel I’m way too fast I start the real action. It gives the feel of maintaining your top speed for over that 1.6 limit.

excellent point of view…didnt think abt it from tht point bfr…it still leads to the same principle which is challenging the CNS…NO CHALLENGE NO ADAPTATION

[fast11_12]

@numba56

listen, if you feel like overspeed works for you then do it! Others here dont like the method, no need to justify it if it works for you…But as you said you did injure yourself badly with it…so one has to wonder…as well I dont know of any top sprinters who do it?

huh…
I said the good point and bad point. I said I broke off that much off my time
and I said I injured my self. If you don’t like overspeed then leave place to these who want to talk about it here

[martn76]

@kevinG

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.

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.

Yes It is a form of explosive strength more specifically, reactive strength, relying less on muscle contraction and more on muscle and tendon eccentric qualities and stiffness. Believe me the guy was strong. Imagine doing one leg box drills off 40 cm boxes look like kids playing hop skip games in the playground?

Also you are wrong to suggest that the resistance levels experienced in the weights room are greater than in sprinting. Your body has to apply force equivalent to 3x body weight OR more in 90-180ms per foot; that is a MASSIVE amount of resistance created by gravity on your body The accelerative forces around the hips are only equalled by very very heavy cleans and snatching performed at speed, you will only experience these forces in the weights room if you are very strong or a world class weight lifter.

Remeber that depth jumps on their own can load the body far greater than many weights exercises will ever be able to affect the body.

[kevinG]

@Charlie_Francis

I wouldn’t describe the forces generated in sprinting as trivial.

I’m not saying that the forces generated during sprinting are trivial, but rather that the resistance encountered is trivial compared to that which is encountered during weight training. My point is that, although becoming stronger may allow a muscle to produce faster movement against a higher resistance, the amount of resistance encountered during sprinting is not not that high in the first place and therefore the returns here will not be as appreciable.

[numba56]

start an overspeed thread then…all im saying is there is no need to justify it to everyone, if you like it and it worked/works for you then fine…thats all i said, and i started this thread, which isnt really on overspeed at all, but the thoughts of Defranco’s views on sprint training…and the purpose of overspeed training is to make recovery faster correct? Why not just load the hip flexors…or run with the wind behind you…?

[fast11_12]

@numba56

start an overspeed thread then…all im saying is there is no need to justify it to everyone, if you like it and it worked/works for you then fine…thats all i said, and i started this thread, which isnt really on overspeed at all, but the thoughts of Defranco’s views on sprint training…and the purpose of overspeed training is to make recovery faster correct? Why not just load the hip flexors…or run with the wind behind you…?

well… That is a very much good way to do overspeed. Good one there. But then I didn’t try to prove overspeed. I’ll never ever do it again anyway. But I was just trying to say that its a two sided sward that can cut both ways.
And since is YOUR thread that YOU started it and that its NOT on overspeed then I’m sorry talking about overspeed here along with the others, including Charlie

[Charlie_Francis]

@Flying_Duck_2

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

Increased frequency in races comes from the decrease in contact time- but overspeed does the opposite, even though you’re pulled through the air faster.
Another post mentionned towing as a means of entering the top speed zone with less effort, leaving more energy for that. this is a possible use provided the towing is absolutely smooth and doesn’t pull you out of form. Otherwise you risk severe injury and a loss of form.
There are a number of threads on this topic in the archives and it is covered in the Forum Review, available on the site .

[numba56]

@fast11_12

well… That is a very much good way to do overspeed. Good one there. But then I didn’t try to prove overspeed. I’ll never ever do it again anyway. But I was just trying to say that its a two sided sward that can cut both ways.
And since is YOUR thread that YOU started it and that its NOT on overspeed then I’m sorry talking about overspeed here along with the others, including Charlie

you can discuss what you want, just dont tell me to go post else where…

[chris30]

@fast11_12

my personal best is still 10.57 elect. But that was 10 months ago. After injury I came back and ran 10.09H. I don’t know how fast I’ll do elect. this year. Wish me good luck

good luck to you too chris

thanks man good luck to you as well.

[kevinG]

@martn76

Also you are wrong to suggest that the resistance levels experienced in the weights room are greater than in sprinting. Your body has to apply force equivalent to 3x body weight OR more in 90-180ms per foot; that is a MASSIVE amount of resistance created by gravity on your body The accelerative forces around the hips are only equalled by very very heavy cleans and snatching performed at speed, you will only experience these forces in the weights room if you are very strong or a world class weight lifter.

This can’t be true. If the RESISTANCE ENCOUNTERED (force directly opposing muscle contraction) during sprinting is greater than that which is encountered in the weight room, then why are the muscles able to overcome the resistance so much more easily during sprinting? Why are the muscles able to move thier associated body parts in a small fraction of a second during sprinting, whereas movements are much slower during weight training?

I think you are confusing the resistance encountered with the force produced by the athlete.

[numba56]

reactive actions by muscles and tendons…and as well the super short duration of the impact…the prestretch created by this huge amount of force allows for a huge concentric contraction/action…please read around the forum on this and look at a lot of the research involved with sprinting as well as plyometrics, as this is a very well documented thing…

[t-bone]

@Charlie_Francis

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.

When an athlete comes to you, how do you decide if it’s best to go S to L or L to S?

[numba56]

i would think itd b based on event, training age, age, what they have done in the past, some input from the athlete, as well as their state of physical shape…