Isn’t cycling your feet 5 times per second lying on your back completely different to cycling your feet 5 times per second when trying to shift your entire bodyweight down the track???..
I’m referring to the acceleration phase not what is happening 60m down the track. How the hell can I accelerate and get that feeling of having a good leg frequency when all my body wants to do is jump. When I was lifting heavy is was just like I had one massive leg stride and my frequency went out of the window.
So what does this mean Charlie. Does strength training increase or decrease leg frequency in your opinion. I have found it to be the latter.
I have found it increases stride length and I hear that faster sprint times are through greater ground forces which I respect but in terms of accelerating, lifting heavy does nothing for me.
The difference between being on your back and on the track is that you have to deal with ground contact forces now, which as Charlie implies, will slow you down if you are not strong enough. The difference therefore is the strength of the individual, not the frequency at which they move their legs.
Perhaps you could explain to me what you are thinking about when you run? Did you feel more air time when you were strength training? sort of like you were propelling yourself further off the ground?
Depends entirely on the amt of work- and your tolerance for it in conjunction with the rest of your training. With the right vol, a max strength phase will improve your frequency, once you’ve spent some time in the maintenance phase. This is explained in the Forum Review.
Since I’m more of a soccer player than a 100m sprinter, I put acceleration in more of a higher light than how fast I’m running 60m away down the field. I found lifting heavy helped alot when I got into my running, 20m- 100m or so down the field, but that is 0-20m to late. It is hard to explain.
Before I started my strength training, I admit to overloading the hip flexors in my workouts which gave me the quick leg frequency. I then started the strength training, training the Legs, Hips & Back, Hams, Glutes, throwing in oly lifts etc and I just felt like I was having far to much air time and yes propelling myself further off the ground. I couldn’t get my leg frequency going from 0-20m because I would be in the air for so long and I was finding it hard to get the leg turnover I had before the strength training. I was thinking that it could be a mental issue, I may have been running quicker with greater ground forces but I felt my legs were not physically moving as quickly as before.
Ideally I would have loved to have kept the leg frequency and then 20m on got the jumping feeling. But the weights just made my legs feel heavy (could have been overtraining), and I couldn’t get the leg frequency I wanted from doing weights.
I’m still trying to find the line in my training between having the jumping feeling but getting off the mark like a greyhound. Its alot of trial & error. All I seem to think about nowadays is improving my speed and boy I do alot of thinking.
no23 regarding the calf injury you described. Could you calf-raise at the time pain free?
I have recently experienced a very similar, if not the same, injury. My physio put it down to tightness in my lower back, and my piriformis which were caused by over-pronation. The remedy was to wear some orthotics which I had previously had made but stopped wearing. The problem cleared within a week. Also stretch the outside of the calf/achilles by doing the normal sort of stretches but move the leg inwards ti hit the tight spot.
Rock and Roll
Improved Frequency is due to a decrease in ground contact time, and air time increases relative to GTT. Also, increased power leads to increased relaxation and ease of movement, which lowers the volume of muscle signals extraneous to the desired action, which, in turn, makes alternating actions SEEM slower, even though they’re not.
No23 Get some therapy on the calves. Stretching alone wont be the answer.
ok i’m having the same problem as no23 was having only instead of 5 weeks, more like 3-5 months without any speed training on track , just elementary school gyms, and small hills 30-40m max. pb for the past year was 12.28ht, and now that we started going to the track finally my 100m time is 12.45ht. Did’nt lose alot of speed but hoped to be faster, difference being i got stronger like no23 so it feels like im slow. The only thing im worried about is my spine curving to the right and my 1cm short right leg of mine. Other then that im fine assuming i dont pull something
i would also like to point out what rock n roll described is what im having, and boy oh boy am i not used to this air time, it is confusing the heck out of me. I dont know if im moving to fast a turnover and going nowhere or am getting air time which im getting alot now from weights and feel way to slow for my likeing. i have stop thinking thats what i have to learn