With regards to mechanical changes, I think the emphasis has to shift increasingly towards pick-up drills (easy, fast, easy) as the surface gets softer and/or slightly uneven, as changes increase with velocity.
Aside from my earlier flip answer and the fact that this discussion centers around the effect of varying surface hardness on tendons, just what, exactly, should our policy be?
If Ben is off limits, is Tim and Justin? How about Mo, since a drug dealer submitted 40,000usd in his cheques in evidence at a trial? Should we drop ALL discussions about top sprinters since experience tells us we can predict that many of them will sooner or later run into a problem?
This is exactly why drug discussions are off limits here and this is also why we will discuss training question regarding ALL sprinters, past and present whether you approve or not.
If unfiltered training facts don’t appeal, there are many other sites which cater to sanctimony, fantasy, and deliberate blindness.
Personally, I don’t think what Tim, Ben, or any other athlete did to improve their performance diminishes their accomplishments in any way. They ran how fast they ran, and they worked extremely hard to get there. But you just got roasted crazyhops.
This is true, but one of the things that happens when you get faster is the body allows for a higher total leg stiffness. Again running on grass/a compliant surface puts a slightly greater emphasis on this. Think of it kind of like overspeed drills. Something like rolling sprints with the wind. During the drill you can hit a max V that’s higher that you would during a 60m sprint. You might not see this result immediately(ie. you won’t instantly see an increase in your max V the very next 60m sprint repetition) but you have increased the potential(I think Charlie calls it neural imprints but I can’t remember off hand, sorry if I misnamed the term) that will allow for greater increases in max V later on. It is a similar concept with doing at least some of your training on grass. You probably won’t see the increased leg stiffness on the track immediately after running on grass, but by forcing the body to increase its response to ground contact you have increased your potential ability to display higher leg stiffness on a regular/more stiff track.
Good discussion. Hopefully I was clear enough that you get what I was trying to explain.
at 2:34 you can see powell doing some 20m starts from blocks on the grass in standard running shoes. Perhaps the grass can lets them run with more aggressive front side mechanics that might slow you down on a harder surface(too much breaking force)but when running in runners and grass surface the breaking force would be minimal and put less strain on the bodies
Hi, I was just wondering why any sprinter would want to increase serial recruitment of muscle fiber? fast Sprinting uses parallel recruitment, and speed endurance for the 100m is based more on top speed and strength than anything else. I would never knowingly seek serial muscle recruitment!
Since I want to stay as far away from anything that looks like series recruitment, give me 50-80m repeats any day. Never 300’s unless I am in EARLY GPP and need to use 300’s to get base work - cardio, small muscle group strengthening, and general strengthening. If you want to get max speed gains, you will still have to convert the strength gained from running 300’s to “max speed strength” which requires massive parallel recruitment.
John Smith may use them as part of training and not just for GPP, but that doesn’t mean they are worth anything for non-world class athletes. Remember, elite athletes can only truly do speed work every 7 days or so, so they have to fill the time with something - and it is to their benefit to receive as many productive training stimuli as possible. The 300m oculd be a productive training stimulus for teaching relaxation, mental toughness, and psychological effects.
On a side note, if you aren’t a 10.2s (really I just mean fast, and at least a medium training age) sprinter, I wouldn’t assume that anything John Smith does would be ideal for you unless you have a really good reason to.
Since when can elite athletes only do speed work every 7 days?
If this was the case, they’d be stiff after every renewed session as it would be too much shock.
There is the nature of the speed session- max or sub-max- but that varies according to individual capacity.
GPP training is usually hard but the presence of speed from the beginning limits how far such training can be removed from the demands on the actual event.
Lactic capacity and/or levels can be reached either by the type of individual rep or the rep series with short breaks. (300m or 5x60 for example)
Perhaps he is of the train of thought like so many i have been coming across as of late that One body part can only be trained once per wk in the gym… And that if your not sore, your not growing…
Bloody Mike Metzer and his Heavy Duty Principle strikes again…
I was referring to max speed sessions; but even sub-max speed sessions can only be done several times a week. You can’t do all speed work, and an elite does even less - that was my point. You gotta fill more time with non-speed work for athletes who are closer to their genetic potential.