You ran 6.10. Why do you have a new start?
Well my start always looked bad. Overall bad technique. When i actually learned how to do it my block 30 went from 3.92 to 3.75 if I remember correctly. All based on throwing my arm and getting full extension. My strength has always been my exceleration from 20-40. Never from 0-20. I just need to couple those together. If that makes sense at all.
Do you feel relaxed with your start?
I do. It seems to be slowed down a lot… in my mind I mean. Before I would just slam my feet as hard and fast as I could to the track and lower my head. Now I fully extend from the glute and it seems to make everything more controlled and easily duplicated. It seems more fluid. I just have an issue since I haven’t worked on it transistioning from it to an upright maximum velocity running form. I wish you could be at a practice and see what I mean.
Oh also I read some of those DB hammer articles. I read a lot about ISO training. I don’t want to open a can of worms so just answer as short as possible . Is ISO training for lower body, squat, lunge, glue ham ect good for a sprinter. Should I incorporate it in my work?
I don’t think there is going to be much of a difference either way since strength work is general anyways. The biggest thing is to be aware of is how, if you choose to use them, the iso’s are affecting you. Doing an iso for x amount of time will create a certain amount of fatigue. The question is how much. If you are feeling sore, tight, or notice a general drop in work capacity as far as sprinting goes(Since that is the work that matters the most. Everything else is secondary.) then you will need to cut back on the duration and/or amount of iso’s you are doing. The same obviously goes with regular weight work, the primary difference being that you are likely more familiar with how regular weights affects the amount of fatigue you generate. So if you are going to use iso’s in the place of regular weight work, develop the volume and intensity slowly to avoid the above mentioned potential problems.
It is probably not wise to switch to a different method of using your weights just as the season is beginning. It takes time and experience to understand the toll that it will take on your body, particularly at your level, and adding or switching to this new kind of work all of a sudden is probably not a good idea.
Not to mention, I don’t believe many elite athletes use this ISO work DB Hammer talks about exclusively.
Well Mike Young’s programs have iso work in them when called for. He’ll prescribe it if you need it for sure.
Dr. Young has many tools in his toolbox but I dont think isometrics would be a key tool in that box.
"I use isometric and quasi-isometric work all the time but it isn’t the focus of the training. Two things that limit isometric work for true, functional, applicable strength development is that fully isometric contractions rarely occur in sporting movements and also, any gains in strength from isometric strength work are limited to +/- 15 degrees of the trained hold angle. Nonetheless, there’s some form of it in every training plan I design with the integration varying from very general calisthenic work to high intensity strength work to speed-power development stuff. I’m not so sure if I’d place isometrics as the core of my speed development program. Having said that, Frans Bosch does a lot of lifts with his sprinters an jumpers where muscular tension is very high (although rarely isometric). I wouldn’t devote two days to isometrics. Use them as a supplement not a primary training means".
I agree he wouldn’t use it much. That was the quote of his I had in mind. Thanks for finding it bro. I still have muy doubts as to if Drob has been following Mike’s plan though so who knows. Shame he could waste all that talent.
My friend the truth will be told soon. 
You should stick to what has brought you to the threshold of a sub-ten performance- so no you should not add isos now. You could send along a clip of your start taken directly from the side at hip level with the camera at the start, 10, 20, and 30m. It might help to see what’s going on.
Thank you, thats what a wise man would do. I see no iso training in this program from last summer:
[b]The weight aren’t really track related very little Olympic lifts/ explosion lifts. Just typically weight room lifts…
Tuesday: Chest and Tri’s This consists of
flat bench 4x15 225
Incline bench 3x10 225
fly’s 3x10
Dips 3x30
abs every set between
Thursday: Back, shoulders and Bi’s… Long and irrevilent workout… won’t spend time with this one
Saturday: lower body
Squat… 4x10 315
straight leg deadlift… 3x12 135
Weighted box step ups with 35 lbs dumbbell 3x30 so 15 each leg
Single leg leg curls… 4x10 50 per leg[/b]
I haven’t been lifting much at all latley. Actually only once in the past 6 weeks. I had turf toe and it seems like the more load bearing movements I do the more it irritates the toe. I have had great relief as of latley though.
I agree Mike probably would use Iso’s if he felt I needed it but we have only had two 2 hour training sessions together since I have signed with HPC. So the majority of what we have changed or not changed is based on my assesment of myself. Which is hard to do at times. Mike would have fixed all of the problems I bet if we were in a situation to work together.
I was just wanting to basically know if I would be able to supplement some of the ISO’s I read about. I don’t want to lose strength nor do I want to re injure the toe.
Are you not still doing upper body lifts/ If not, why not?
The benefit of an iso ala inno-sport/WGF is you can zero in on the part of the movement and muscle groups you want and extend the time under load for the portions of the exercise or muscle groups you’re trying to target. Providing the load you use is adequate, this can provide a greater strengthening effect.
Let’s say you need more glute and ham strength and squats are your primary strength movement. Your normal workout is 400 pounds for 5 sets of 3 at a two seconds down, 0 pause, and 1 second up tempo. That’s a total of 9 seconds under load per set for a total time under load of 45 seconds per workout. But how much of that time under load is spent in the stretch position with your glutes and hams doing the majority of the work instead of your quads? 10 seconds total…maybe.
Now let’s say you do iso’s…You lower down near the bottom of a squat or lunge and hold the position for 10 seconds per set with the same 400 pounds… Now instead of your glutes and hams getting a few seconds under load per workout they’re getting 4 or 5 times that amount. Additionally, there is less microtrauma with isos the gains are primarily neural. So more strength and less hypertrophy. That’s not always a benefit but for someone who has to watch weight it is. Also, because they create less microtrauma you can recover faster and strength training will have less of a negative impact recoverywise on your sprints.
With all that said, they’re no magic bullet - they can be fairly tedious to implement (need to calculate max load, figure out dropoff, unload and raise the bar after each set etc), but they can be beneficial.
I think everyone understands the potential benefit of isos.
Personally I see them more beneficial in the gpp or as a part of low intensity work.
Hello Kelly,
What you write about increasing the TUT for certain muscle groups/joint angles makes perfect sense.
I have a few issues regarding the way ISOs are widely suggested lately (i.e. long holds of 120-180"; not referring to your example in this case):
a) TUT: why going up 20 folds? Is there a progression suggested?
b) Hypertrophy: high TUT in a stretched position will surely bring some. Unless the TUT of the stimulus is extremely low or extremely high, a muscle cell will adapt with a certain degree of hypertrophy given an intensity treshold has been surpassed. What is the experience in this regard of those that use long holds?
c) Strength: What has a 120-180" hold to do with the neural component of strength?
I hope some of you guys more versed in the DB/Schröder methodology can solve my doubts.
Thanks.
ISOs??
I’m waiting for an answer to my earlier question.
If you have been very successful with your training so far and only need to extend the distance at the pace you’ve already achieved to approach the 10.00 barrier, why are you even considering doing this now, when it has never been employed by anyone at your current level???
I call this “Coachitis”… definition: The intense need to piss on territory to prove you’ve been there.
I repeat the Cardinal Rule: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Charlie,
The only reason for me to consider ISO is because normal, heavier lifting seems to irritate the toe. I haven’t been lifting upperbody really at all… I am trying to get rid of my darn chest and shoulders. Well when I say at all that measn very lightly about once a week. Thanks
the bench 4x15 and incline 3x10 at 225 is body building type work. this will definetly put on the muscle.
in order to increase strength and avoid the additional muscle mass i suggest 8 sets of 3 starting at 50% of your max and progress up to a weight you can only get 2-3 times. i would avoid single reps in your case because your strength level puts you at risk of injury. this template will stress your cns and make up for the decreased running volume. However, i did read that Charlie said Ben did 3x10 @ 360lbs for bench while injured in order to keep his cns reserves.
then do some kind of pulling exercise to work the back. this is very similar (basically the same) as Charlie’s wieghts program for his high level sprinters with the somatype already in place.
for the legs, do a lot of reverse hypers (it may be tough without the machine most gyms do not have one or, get someone to hold your legs.
Charlie,
How do you feel about leg extensions for quads when an athlete can not squat due to foot injury?