Gaining Weight and Increased times?

Expert Discussion Strength Training
1

I’m around 5’7 145 lbs and I was wondering if I can afford to gain around 10-15 lbs lean body mass to aid in my speed and power and strength levels. Here are my stats:

Bench-185 lbs
Squat-285-300 lbs (don’t test 1rm, i go heavy enough where I feel comfortable enough where I won’t fall back or will stil lbe able to get up)
Clean-160 lbs

100-11.16
200-23.7
training age:
alone- 1 yr
overall-4 yrs

in lay man’s terms I am just wondering if it would be safe if I would go up to around 155 lbs or so with no negative impact on my times, I plan on doing some hypertrophy work and eating right to gain this weight during the off season and to add it as lean muscle mass along wiht increased strength. I heard that if you want to come out of the blocks more powerfully and quicker you need to be a little heavier, only if yourl ight like I am. any input?

2

You will probably see a disproportionate increase in strength for every extra bit of muscle you gain so, yes, an added 10-15 lbs of muscle will likely increase your acceleration. No need to use specific bodybuilding methods though. Weight gain and/or loss is more about eating but the type of muscle you gain (fluid vs actual protein) is more about training. Simply increase the volume of “strength” training. Instead of doing 4 sets of 8-10 do 8 sets of 4 or something similar. That way you hypertrophy the correct motor units and your strength levels will soar.

3

If you follow a sound training program and eat well the weight will work itself out imo :slight_smile:

I wouldnt necessarily shoot to gain “x” amount of pounds

cheers,
Chris

4

Gaining strength should be the only focus. The mass gained with strength training may not hurt acceleration, but can do a lot to mess up max velocity.

5

so I should do functional hypertrophy or whichever is focused on strength and not gaining mass? What are the rep schemes for that? 6-8?

6

[QUOTE=Fabio]so I should do functional hypertrophy or whichever is focused on strength and not gaining mass? What are the rep schemes for that? 6-8?[/QUOT
Try 3-5 and sometimes 1-3

7

Hi Fabio, how u doing ?
maybe my words sounds like a little bit crazy or maybe inconsistent but,
i´m creating a theory and this theory is about Weights and Lost of Speed for Begginer Sprinters.
Maybe you, with your experiences and experiments could help me in the future, i don´t know.
Well, let me try explain this:
Most of times i see or heard about a fast guy ( not so fast, i´m talking about guys that run 100m in times between 12s and 11s ) i try to speculate if this guys are doing some weight work,
and most of times ( more than 90% ) they aren´t doing nothing about weights.
Ok, now we could think:
But Ben was so big ( and powerful ), Mo is big, most of top sprinters are big or have muscular bodys…
Yeah, i agree totaly with this, but hey, they are top sprinters with many many years of train ( i´m talking about all of kind of train; Plyo´s, Weights, Speed, Endurance, Hills, Over Speed, Handcaped, etc…)
I also agree that for Elite level sprinter, weights can be a plus, because they are working near max level of velocity, near max capability.
But i guess weight work is overrated for begginer sprinters.
If i look for me, for example, i stoped completely to run since youth ( 16 or 17 y/o ) and for 7 years i´ve just performed weight work ( bodybuilder stile reps between 8 and 12 increasing muscle size).
So, last year, i returned to run, my PB for that moment was around 15.0s…
1 year after i´m around 12.0s…i´m 6’1" - 176lb.
I´m strong enought to run with 40lb of extra weights and perform a 13.0s race for a hundred, or sprint in a hill asphalt surface wearing conventional shoes and run the same 13.0s,
or perform 6 followed jump stairs (32" each step) in 4.5s.
But, i´m not capable of run under 12.0s a 100m free in a track surface wearing spikes.
Maybe i´m wrong in all this, but it is like my body & feelings are saying:
DON´T MAKE MORE THAN 1 SESSION OF WEIGHT WORK A WEEK.
GO AHEAD TO THE TRACK SESSIONS !!!
SPEED SESSIONS, SPEED ENDURANCE SESSIONS, ACC SESSIONS, TECHNIQUE SESSION, WHATEVER !!!
LET THE WEIGHT WORK FOR LATER !!!
First you have to test your genectics, if you are one of those privilege guys ( like NEO ) so, go for it, whatever you do you´ll be fast…
But if you is just a “normal” guy with a lot of will to run fast,
well, lethe-weights4later.

8

Agreed. This is sound, reasonable, and logical advice.

Agreed.

9

I also assumed that, but instead of gaining weight I started to loose it. (DAMN!!!) Went from 69 kilos to 66.5!!! eating 6 times a day!!! My opinion, be a neat freak so you can control exactly how much you use up and how much you put in. Hopefully It’ll work for me… I’ll let you know how it goes.