jumps onto my 36" and 41" ledges (good for long jump prep?). Explosive, powerful, stong.
Dahs d shot, whats ur vertical leap pr?
Anticipatin ur next 80’s stories…very interesting…
Daniel, back when I was around 18- 20 years old, my best vertical topped out at 36" standing flat footed with no run-up. Now, it’s around 31" but climbing higher all the time. I hope it gets better when I resume heavy power cleans and overhead squats. I’ll touch on this subject in the 80’s thread. We hear so much hype about sprinting prowess and vertical jump being so closely correlated, but, in my case, I’m not so sure it applied.
Kool man, I have no idea what my vertical jump is but its probably high, I can dunk a bball on a hoop of the same height as nba, and other stuff. I love jumping cant wait to get started seriously in the pits next year:D Hope your training goes well, I feel that you can surpass ur old mark with enough determination and access to the kind of training help there is today. I always dream of being someone like you when I growing up, in the 30’s but still athletically active, not like other who just bomb out and turn sluggish and unfit:D RespeK man.
One reason for that “the way it was” thread was for some young guns to maybe learn from my mistakes. I can only say, “what if…” I had better training, hooked up with coaches who actually knew what they were doing, had internet and the wealth of info? I would advise anyone to not stop like I did, or in my case, totally change to utilizing different energy systems.
I’m a natural jumper/short sprint, explosive olympic lift type of person and I should never had dibble/dabbled in endurance training!! It’s not like it all went to waste, because I did maintain some semblance of fitness, but I wasn’t utilizing or working to my natural strengths and tendencies. So, now, I’m having to re-program my system.
As for the vertical. Should I have been able to run faster if my jump was so good? The correlation is strong in many folks but, for me, I thought, “if I could jump so well and squat so much weight, why can’t I run a better 100m?” I’ve said before that my friend Mike was consistently 11.3-11.4 and I could beat him by two full strides in practice, so I don’t know what sort of time that would amount to.
Well, I attribute this to not specializing in the 100m, or rather, not developing the specific act of sprinting. Some will say, “well, I’ll just lift, do plyometrics, etc. for a few months, then I’ll come out in outdoor season and be a lot faster.”
I don’t know about this, at least for me. I think this can work if one also concurrently works on the specific motion and nervous system act of sprinting. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. interesting
Liftin’ some weight today
Heavy Power Cleans (well, at least heavy for me)
–73kg x2
–82kg x2x2x2
–90kg x3
Side Press
–2 sets of 5 reps with each arm
Overhead Squats
–2 sets, 4 reps with 73kg.
Please don’t laugh and make fun of the light weights I’m using. I will move back up to lifting my previous bests. My short term goal is 100kg power clean and to match my 425 lb. deadlift PB. Let’s hope that my increased strength will carry over to my long jumps and sprints. BTW, I weighed myself the other mornin’ and I was exactly 174 lbs., which has been steady.
Yesterday’s 30m and 60m reps felt very good; almost like I’m suited for that distance. The 30m reps are probably good practice for long jump run-ups.
All right, let me go on now, it’s time to go eat one of my favorite meals; rice and tomato gravy 
“I’ve been to Georgia on a fast train honey…I wudn’t born no yesterday…I got a good christian raisin’ and an 8th grade education…ain’t no need’n ya’ll a treatin’ me this way…”
Heatwave, I think you’re too used to powerlifting. In sprinting, it’s all about the speed on track, not the numbers in the weight room. A 200lbs+ clean triple is no joke. Keep it up.
Mr. C.
Yeah, I used to compete in some regional olympic lifting competitions and I’m having a hard time letting go… . I keep telling myself to listen to the advice I get here, to apply it, and that improvement on the track and/or in the long jump pit is what matters more than weight lifting numbers, but there is still that part of me that loves the iron. Can I have it both ways?
Today was just a “whatever” kind of day since it was raining outside. I decided to work on some explosive stuff, so I loaded a dumbell up to 80 lbs. and did some one arm snatches. It’s virutally the same technique as the standard olympic snatch lift, only with one arm at a time. You keep all the explosiveness of the standard version but the one arm way is a little easier and not so much technique dependent.
–some kettlebell stuff to get warmed up
–Dumbell snatches with one arm
I started with a few reps with an easy 60lbs., then worked my way up to 80 lbs. doing sets of 3 reps. I didn’t even bother to count total number of reps, I just know I done a bunch of em’
–Abs.
–I’ve also been dinking around with standing broad jumps and, my best one has been 10 feet, 2 inches, however, most of them are in the mid-upper 9 foot range. I don’t know whether or not these do any good for anything other than to monitor my “explosiveness”
progress.
–Lastly, I did some more grip work. I work with my Captains of Crush grippers. These ain’t your sporting goods store gripper; these are VERY HARD grippers to fully close. I can easily close the #2 gripper, which is around 200 lbs. of grip pressure and I’m still working on the #3, which is 365 lbs. of pressure–very hard. I got those grippers from www.ironmind.com
Now, I’m sure you may be thinking, “heatwave, why in the world would you waste time on grip work” and I don’t blame you, it’s a very fair question. The answer is that I believe too many of us go to the gym, do our thing, but totally ignore one of the most important aspects of being strong–grip. Have you ever done heavy cleans or deadlifts and had your grip fail you, causing you to drop the weight?–grip
Strong hands/forearms should be the litmus test for anyone who boasts and brags about how much they can lift and how impressive their triceps kickback is. I’m astonished at how many gym regulars can’t close my grippers and who have a weak grip. To me, strength is incomplete with out a strong grip. It doesn’t take up too much extra time to develop.
Have a good one
Ok, here it is real quick before I go out on the town with my woman.
–jumps onto my 36" and 41" ledges
2 sets of 4 with each height
–60m x 5
–30m x 5
–Stretch a little bit
Tomorrow, if I feel well enough, will be a good solid weight lifting day. We’ll see.
I’ll probably take next week off through the Christmas holiday. The whole clan is driving to Atlanta area to visit and stay with my mom’s brother, so I may have very limited training opportunities. The rest’ll do me good, right?
After that, I’ll probably start concentrating more on the long jump preparation and continue 100m “training” lol . Or, I may ditch the whole track/field thing and do something all together different.
Yesterday was another “weights” day.
–One arm dumbell snatch–75-70lbs. Four sets of 3 reps each.
–Overhead press with my 45lb. olympic bar. I loaded the bar to 65 lbs. and did overhead presses with one arm at a time. Try it sometime, it’s hard to do because you have to balance that long olympic bar.
–Power cleans–I just did a whole bunch of these with weights ranging from 77kg up to 87kg (170-190lbs) range. Up to about 20 total reps broken up into sets of 3.
–Overhead squats–77kg. Two sets of four reps.
–Overhead “walks”–I took my 24kg kettlebell, snatched it overhead, held it up overhead and went for a walk of about 30 yards, repeat with other arm. After this, you shoulders will be burning.
–Thank you for your support and may all of you have a merry Christmas.
I finally got out to the track yesterday. It’s been a while and it felt great. I was in control. My wife and I have to juggle our workout schedules sometimes. She lifts weights on several days per week, so we have to give and take as for who’s gonna watch our boys, etc. while the other works out. Being the awesome husband I am, I usually accomodate her any way I can.
–Workout at one of our local high school tracks; temps around 50 degrees but windy, making it colder.
–800m warm up
–5 reps of 120m
–rest for a few minutes, breathe in the refreshing fall air.
–5 more reps of 120m;
–400m easy jog
–Stretching
–The reps were run at about 70% speed, nothing too flashy here. My focus was on keeping my feet straight, keeping my arms moving smoothly (instead of flailing around) and not leaning backwards. I’m slowly stretching out the distances; now at 120m reps. Left knee feels like it has limited mobility compared with my right knee. As I’ve mentioned, years ago I severed my cartilidge in that knee. Here’s to hoping that I regain mobility.
I can slowly feel my body getting stronger (in the sprinting sense) and more adjusted to fast running. It’s a slow process and I have to be patient and not expect miracles overnight. My GPP phase is essentially nearing it’s end. I’ve been going since September and, after the new year, it will be time to really focus. Somehow, I will add in some preparations for long jump if my left knee will cooperate.
–Thank you for reading and for your support, God bless you and may you all have a merry Christmas.
I hit the weights again yesterday, working on explosiveness, agility, flexibility.
–a little warm up to get the body temp on the rise
–overhead presses, one arm at a time with my olympic bar loaded to 65 lbs. It’s harder than you think. 2 sets of 5 reps
–Power cleans–
73kgx 3 reps; 78 kgs 3 sets of 3 reps.
–dumbell snatches, one arm at a time
60 lbs.x 3; 70 lbs. 3 sets of 3.
–Overhead squats–78 kgs. 2 sets of 4
–Dumbell curls 45 lbs.–a few sets of 3 reps. I normally don’t do biceps since mine are naturally well developed, but it’s been a while so I thought I would do a few to get my biceps moving forward, if nothing else but to impress the women.
I’ll probably slack off a little on the one arm snatches because my rotator cuff, which is still in recovery, is feeling a little uneasy today. I may do one more track workout and one more weight session, then take a break until the new year before hitting it hard again.
Bye
“I ain’t as good as I once was…but I’m as good once…as I ever was”
Today was one of those days when I just “didn’t have it” in the tank. I took off yesterday to buy my wife a new car, felt alright today, then I go out to the track and just had a flat performance. It felt like I had a 50 lbs. weight on my back during my reps.
Sunny, low 50’s temperature, moderate wind :mad:
–800m warm up
– 3 x 120m (about 70% effort)
– 1 x 200m (felt like crap at the end of this. Around the bend and homestretch were into the wind)
–6 x120m (terrible, felt like my legs were made of concrete)
–300m medium run
–stretch, cool down
–My strength training numbers with the weights are increasing all the time, but unfortunately, my running seems to be stuck in neutral at the moment.
I’m just going to have to be patient and realize that I’m not going to reach my old PR’s, etc. overnight. I may not reach my ultimate goals this upcoming season, but rather, it may take this upcoming season and the NEXT season before I realize my goals. I need to keep the long term perspective, while setting some moderate, shorter term goals for the summer of 2006. We’ll see what happens.
Thank you for your support and may you all have a merry Christmas.
see the post below
Today will be my last day of training for this whole GPP period. I’m going to cap it off with a heavy weight lifting session.
–heavy power cleans, overhead presses, overhead squats, maybe a few other things.
My left knee hurts–a lot–and is causing me to have to back off a little bit. In fact, my whole body hurts with aches/pains in various places like my shoulders, knees, wrists. I’ve been pushing it hard since September. Me, wifey, and the boys will be travelling to Atlanta to visit family for Christmas, so maybe the break will do me some good. I’ve been discouraged lately because my running doesn’t seem to be improving at all. My weight lifting numbers are steadily improving though, but I’m not seeing the correlation between more strength to faster running. Granted, I have not gone all out with my sprints, but everything seems to be stuck in neutral.
This will be my last workout until the new year, at which time I’ll re-assess things and see what I want to do whether it’s to continue training with a track focus or to forget it all and just do stuff to stay in good general condition. Bye, bye
Finally, back from all the holiday travel. My week was good and bad. I drove over to Atlanta area to visit family and we had a great time with the whole family all that, but, I got really sick. I was really weak and I puked my guts out. I actually kinda enjoy vomiting. It feels powerful, like I’m flushing all the toxins out of my body. I don’t know if that’s what really is happening, but it feels like it anyway. I had a violent vomiting episode, then I washed up and went back to what I was doing, as if nothing happened.
As for training, I haven’t done anything for a week. My left knee hurts like crazy, I’ve been sick, I’ve been on the road, and I’ve eaten too much bad stuff. I think I may go on a day-long fast tomorrow to help clease my body and get back to normal.
Out of all that stuff I mentioned, the real pisser is the fact that my left really hurts all the time. For some crazy reason, I can lift weights and feel no bad effects, but sprinting seems to aggravate the pain. I don’t know what this will do to my progress.
Training and overall state of mind (athletically speaking) has not been very good lately. My left knee hurts like a mo-fo and I just can’t get the mobility for the proper knee lift and leg turnover. Maybe that’s why I’ve seen virtually no improvement in my sprinting, I don’t know.
The good news is that my weight lifting numbers keep going up, up, and up. Deadlifts, presses, and even my grip work. I’ve mastered the Captains of Crush #2 gripper and am now working on closing the #3. But, I just can’t figure out why, in spite of my higher strength levels, I just don’t seem to be getting any faster. I’ve done plyos and I have squatted over 400 lbs, deadlifted 425 lbs., cleaned 115 kgs, full snatch 92.5 kgs., vertical over 30" and I’m STILL slower than smoke and not getting any faster. Body weight has been the same at 175 lbs.
My motivation isn’t very high right now for sprinting/jumping and, honestly, I’m more amped up to set weight lifting PR’s. I haven’t even bothered to list my workouts from the last week. Yesterday I screwed around with a few light deadlifts (300 lbs.) and some light military presses. Today, I did some hills. On a side note, during my squats, deadlifts and cleans, I don’t feel any pain at all in my knee–only when I do sprints.
I feel your pain man.
I have some very similiar expierences to you. sore left knee only when sprinting not during tempo or weights. also i’ve just bought the iron mind grippers 1 and 2. cant wait to get started on these.
Also im happier lifting than running because i see more results theres.
What i did was i took the xmas off from sprinting. I still lifted and did tempo / med ball throws but nothing that caused me pain. I got regular contrast showers and swam and stretched loads. Also i bought the proper thermal gear. Is it cold where you live? The cold was causing me little niggly tweaks and tears. Not any more i hope.
Last night as you saw in my journal was my first night back sprinting in a few weeks and i felt very good. maybe not any faster but definitely looser/ more relaxed with no knee pain.
Maybe that can help you if you take something from that. Get the knee sorted at a physio and get in some swmming etc
As i’ve realised improving at sprinting takes longer than any other skill. maybe its time to ditch the stop watch for a month or so. I have done this and went from 13.6 to 13.1 over 6 weeks. Still very slow but a good improvement. I reckon if i had the watch id have lost heart after a few weeks and not kept it up for the long haul…
Good Luck.
Hey Jo, I hope you have fun with the IronMind grippers. If you need some pointers on closing them, I can tell you how I have trained for it; I can slam the #2 any time I want, but, now I’m trying for the #3, which seems so far away at the moment. :eek: But, at one time the #2 felt the same way…Now, if I could just get the strength, vertical jump to carry over. So much for that whole, “increased strength = faster” argument, huh?
I can’t really attribute my slowness to the cold. It’s not really cold at all where I live, but, or course it’s not the same as in the summer months, when everything seems to go smoother. The more I’m going through this, the more I’m thinking my left knee is to blame. About 10 years ago, I had an injury where (according to the doctor) I did some major damage to cartilidge below and behind my knee cap. In spite of all the rehab/exercises, it’s just never been back to 100% mobility. If I sit for long periods of time, it’s like the knee “freezes” into position and when I stand up, I have to often very slowly unhinge and straighten my leg out and walk around for a minute to get it back to normal. I just can’t move it back and through fast enough when sprinting. Ironically, when lifting, I don’t feel a thing.
It’ll be a week or more before i get the grippers. Post is slow getting to this side of the world. I bet i’ll not even be able to close the number1 grippers. cant wait to get them though. Should be fun. I use a normal grippers here at work all the time. Whenever i get angry i use them for a few minutes!! It stops me getting all pissed off and really releives any stress at work. I bet ironmind never thought of that as an advertising campaign
I wasnt saying the cold made you slow, just that winter training is tough because you increase the chance of niggly injuries. Just last night here there was freezing fog so dense that i couldnt see my cone 20m ahead of me not to mind my 40m cone.
I read about your knee injury while on the phone to your wife. Love hurts eh??
sorry bad joke.
Did you ever try some rehabing under water? Im starting to do aqua jogging a lot these days as recovery and i find it loosens me out a lot without any stresses from ground contact. Because its an old injury there may be lots of scar tissue built up so a few trips to the physio / sport massage may help work it out a bit. Longer term im sure you could get the hang of self massage.
Im no expert on this but i’ve always found contrast showers / massage / gentle stretching / tempo instead of sprinting to cure all niggly injuries. I am 22 though…