Charlie and Clemson,
I’d really like to hear from you guys on this one. This is a long post, so bear with me, I think a lot of people might be interested.
I finally ran my first race in 14 years (since high school). It was a pathetic 12 flat, but that is actually faster than I ran in high school (on average) and I had fun. So, not bad for a 32 year old. I actually beat some younger kids!
However, I think I’m not transmitting enough force into the ground. I’m not talking about subjective sensation, since I usually ignore my legs when I run and don’t really feel them.
I’m speaking in objective terms. It has more to do with the fact that my strength levels have increased significantly this past year and I’m not translating that power into the track, despite consistent speed work along side the strength training. In fact I think my sprinting has helped my lifting more than the other way around.
And no, I have not been doing excessive volumes of lifting. On average I lift only twice a week, doing 2-3 exercises for 2-3 sets each. My average workout volume is about 5 work sets total.
To give you some solid numbers, since I began this year’s training cycle in September, my squat (full depth) has increased from about 225lbs to 315, my inclince press has gone from about 195 to around 235-240. I can do bumbbell rows with 120 for 4-5 reps fairly easily and it’s my least consistent exercisee. I realize my leg strength is low in relation to upper body, but I’m working on it as best I can.
I thought that such a significant strength increase would have a greater translation to my speed. A big problem with my training is that I don’t have any timing in my workouts, for a variety of reasons, so I’ve been flying blind so to speak, without any real feedback as to how things affect speed. The only numbers I’ve been able to see are in the weight room. However, even if I was aware of the effect on speed (or lack thereof) I’m not sure how I would go about adjusting the training in response to training times.
I have always felt that my major deficiency is elastic strength, which is why I asked so many questions about plyometrics when I first joined the forum two years ago. I have just recently developed enough elastic strength to perform hurdle hops without killing myself. I tried it last year, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.
Anyway, I’m really looking for ideas for how you would approach this situation. Increasing plyometric training seems like the obvious answer, but I’m wary of simply doing more jumps without knowing how that will affect the overall program.
