The strength program I’m on right now for sprinting has minimal hamstring strength work. Would it not make sense to be doing equal strength work on both the hams, and the quads… assuming of course the core is strong. Furthermore how much of a factor is a weaker core in quad and hamstring strength work?
Pretty sure its a dumb question… but I’m a bit confused with what I’m up to right now…
Thanks!
Perhaps do slightly more hamstring than quad work (total sets per weak) if you want your hams to be even nearly as strong as your quads. Exercises such as squats and cleanc will count as both quad and ham though the quads will get more work in the squats than hams ofcourse. That’s an xtra point for the quads. Score your workout regime and yopu want there to be more points for the hams. Throw in glute ham raises or hyper extensions for starters. If you can’t do proper glute ham raise then cheat and use some of your arm power to assist the movement.
People who do parallel squats in particular are often limited in their progress with the exercise becuase of a lack of hamstring and core strength.
A mechanism kicks in which will prevent their quads and glutes using to much power in a multi joint exercise, so as to lessen the chance of ripping the hamstrings etc…
Also, when sprinting with good posture/strong core, your glutes, quads and hams can use more of their force becuase your improved posture will put your limbs into better positions to do so.
thanks a lot GOOSE!
Your hams are already getting plenty of work from the sprints. If your quad strength is not up to par,ie: the antagonist, it could limit the force output of the agonist in sprinting,ie:hamstring. The quad muscles act similarily to the “golgi organ” in this case in order to keep a balance between the quads and hams.
Loopfitt, I’m sorry but did you not see how hammy has written that he had minimal hamstring work in his program and that the quads weren’t the problem.
How many believe that there hams are actually stronger than there quads?
Very few athletes have stronger hams than quads (probably less than 0.1 % and becuase of a quadracep injury or other problem like they don’t have a quadracep.) I doubt anybody who visits the website or forum has stronger hams than quads.
I recomend anyone to do the following test;
Hold your leg in ANY position with foot OFF the ground. Contract your quads and hams as hard as possible and your leg will extend becuase your quads are stronger. Don’t come back with the argument about “peak torque” becuase I’m talking about from “any” position.
Your leg didn’t extend?
O.k, now repeat the exercise for a second time. This time don’t kid yourself, turn off the conscious and subconscious fears, turn off the safety survival mechanism that’s trying to prevent your quads from using all of there power and just watch your quads don’t hyper extend the leg and damage your knee and rip at your hamstring tendons if you use more than 90 % of your quad power. (That’s 90% of conscious quad power, not 90 % of potential quad power which is higher.)
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=1768&highlight=co-contraction
“I recomend anyone to do the following test…” I’m not sure about that test, you can’t maximally contract muscles without external resistance can you?
In either case; If you cannot contract maximally without external resistance
both the hams and quads would have that same disadvantage however…
“dynamic tension” techniques have shown that it is possible to get as high a tension in biceps/triceps without any external resistance.
I was stressing that the sprints themselves offer a strong stimulus to the hamstrings, thus the lack of “strength” exercises in the aforementioned program. Also, I feel neural firing rates are not the same thing as absolute strength, thus my reasoning. Sprinting demands high activation of neural firing which I believe has to be trained or “taught”, for a better word. The hamstring contain a higher concentration of fast-twitch fiber than the quads. The strength imbalance is mostly caused by cross-section size of quads. By improving the firing rate of fast twitch fibers in the quads will create a more balanced neural enviornment for sprinting. Are there studies to prove this? Honestly I have no idea, this is based on what I have experienced in the real world. Take it for what it is, MY experience.