Blinky,in theorey you are 100% correct but in reality its not that straight forward.yes i could be OLifting insane amounts but just because i can lift X does not mean i can clear to 30m in X time.to simplfy it even more i’ll give an example from a mechanical point of view and i mean mechanical!
take a mini(old version of course!) and put a 4L turbo engine into it.first of all you think to yourself…hey this seems like a beast but try to get it goin and you’ll soon find out.firstly it seems to have the goods but without the proper layout of braking system,exhaust system,gear box system,cooling system and so on it will not deliever the result.
my point is that you may think by increasing X will produce X time but dosen’t always happen like that.look at the bigger picture and evaluate what the actual event is about!
It is so easy to say, we will have to agree to disagree until a WC athlete takes on a WC OL, what would he have to gain? You say this like WC Sprinters are ducking and dodging a race against OL. But ahhh, the beauty of track and field, the clock doesn’t lie. Put an OL in spikes, have him run 30m, clock it and compare to that of WC Sprinters, easy as that.
Let’s clarify this also; Are you talking x-sprinters turned OL, OL with speed training for months before running the 30m, or just a pure OL showing up to the track on a random day, warming up and running 30m?
It would have to be an OL ranked in the top 10 of his weight class in the world no charlatans (bodybuilders and the like or a sprinter turned OL 2 weeks ago). Preferably in the 60-80kg range, verses a top 10 world class sprinter. Obviously some sprint training would have to occur. I never said any WC sprinters are ducking any races nor does any of my input infer this, so I do not know what you are talking about on that point. No top 10 OL has ever offered a challenge as far as I am aware.
When I say we will agree to disagree, I do not think anyone will bother to arrange this.
I think the OL would run as fast as 3.7 secs electronic. It would confirm the point I am trying to make. Maybe I should have stated this earlier. Explosive strength is a significant component of acceleration. You need technique but without power… OL have SO much of the particular strength qualities needed by sprinters for the acceleration.
The whole thread start off asking about the relevance of technique to sprinting. So I guess that we all agree that technique is so important in order to reach higher grounds in the sprint. Are thoses trying to prove the point of OL running world class sprints in 25m saying that technique is not that important in the first 25m atleast, since we can bring an OL with no proper starting mechanics ( even if it was standing ) to run close to those who lets say wasted hours, days and years practiceing it??? I don’t think so. Or then why do we do start training. We can switch to OL and care about top speed and the rest would come. which I don’t think is a valid say.
No I am not advocating that. If I was training a young athlete say 14 onwards then yes I would advocate developing his power purely by OL and other events with little start technique training, done through playing soccer or some games and drills like CF’s med ball work. What I am advocating is that you could have the most perfect technique but without developing the power you will never be able to accelerate fully.
Practicing technique is not a waste of time if the technique practiced over “hours, days and years” was the proper technique, you may never get into the correct exit angle if you are not strong enough. Besides, there reaches a point in technique training where the technique is perfect but strength is lacking. A man who can lift an equivalent of 2.5-3x BW I REPEAT 2-3x BW in clean and jerk (and 3-3.5 x BW in the squat) in an event that generates as much or greater torque around the joints as in the ACCELERATION of the 100m sprint, will be hard to beat even if you practiced that technique ALL your life. The sport of OL is based on strong hip extension akin to the acceleration of the 100m sprint.
Remember athletes go in the gym to improve max strength and by improving max strength, you increase ALL other forms of power,the acceleration of the sprint is an expression of power very similar to OL. If this is the case then it is fair to say that THE MOST explosive of OL’s; equivalent in BW to elite sprinters should be able to match 30m times of elite sprinters or be in that or range or so close that it suggests that the explosive strength is the major component. After the 30m they will be obliterated because technique in top speed, speed maintenance is much much harder to acquire because more subtle movements come into play.
Well. I really belive in that top speed affects acceleration to a great extent. Its a long way to explain. But then you have to graph some good races with known splits. graph speed against distance. Suggest a proper top speed for an OL. And draw him an expected graph. With the first 30 as you expected and the rest as you think he can go according to a realistic top speed. Look at the graph and you’ll see that it doesn’t make any sense
You don’t need to draw graphs and I am not suggesting a specific top speed for an ELITE OL . Also what you are suggesting about top speed does not make sense. There are some sprinters who can match Maurice in the first 30m but have poor mechanics and relaxation afterwards, you can be world class in the first 30m but it will not guarantee you a high top speed. CL had a RELATIVELY weaker acceleration but had the a massive top speed and loads of reserve and maintenance. After the first 25-30m loads of variables not relying on explosive contractile strength come into play. This is where an elite OL would be blown away.
What would you say, in terms of time is close or in the range. I would have to say anything after 3 tenths in 30m isn’t close enough or in the range to prove any point.
It seems you have either backed off your initial thought or we all misunderstood your claim. In your first post you wrote:
MARTN:
I’ve heard that O lifter are faster than 100m sprinters for the first 25 meters.
So those people who never trained for sprinting are actually quite good at doing it.
So let’s say we take a already fast O lifter and make him learn the right technique. By how many seconds could he improve his 100m, considering he has an incredible potential due to his strength?
And after maibe 6 months of sprint training?
DAZS:
See what I mean, you said, “O lifter are faster than 100m sprinters for the first 25 meters.” Now you are saying, “O lifter can match speed or be in the range or close enough for 30 meters.” Huge difference between faster, match speed, in the range, and close enough.
You also said, “so those people who have never trained for sprinting are actually quite good at doing it” Now you are saying, “obviously some sprint training would have to occur”
Maybe if this had started off right there would be less reluctance to compromise.
Just to answer your initial question, “how many seconds could he improve his 100m”? I don’t know we would have to see what he runs in the 100 and just how bad his mechanics, endurance, and speed are.
I think a better question would be, more to your other point. “If we took an elite 14 year old sprinter and had him strength training like that of an OL, what might he be able to accomplish by 17, given all other aspects were in place”?
You make some good points. I think an elite OL who converts to sprint training would be running elite to sub elite times without much considerable training, as he would be very developed in the CP energy phase and have the explosive strength requirements in place.
So, if I understand, once you get the first 25m down, it’s just a matter of finishing that last 75m and you’re all set!
Problem is, the other 75 includes all the max speed phase, but, dreams are good too.
I don’t think he is saying he would be set to run elite times in the 100, i think he is saying elite times in the 25, correct me if I am wrong Martn. I think you could have an argument there, but it is still a little subjective.
You are correct Dazs that is what I mean.
Read my other posts on this thread I have been very very careful not to commit to saying or suggesting what an elite OL would achieve after 30m. I have said in my posts that the max speed phase is another thing all together after the first 30m. I hope this is clear now.
This thread has gone so off topic, it’s not even funny. Do you all even remember the name of this thread? lol
Well i’ll try to get us back on track. How important is technique? I say important as hell. I’ll use 2 of my guys for example. There’s one guy on my team who is the fastest on the team(guy A), then there’s another guy who has the fastest times on the team(100/200)(guy B) Guy A who is the fastest, had probably the worst form i’ve ever seen in my life when I first met him last year. It was literally hard for me to watch. But this winter I worked with him, and helped him get his form under control to where it’s more tolerable to look at. His times have improved, and he runs a lot more relaxed and under control, but he still has some things to correct.
Guy B has much better form naturally, and absorbs more of what I teach him. Reminds me a lot of Frank Fredericks. Now guy B is running faster than guy A, but he isn’t faster than the guy A. How is this possible you wonder. Well the reason is because guy A is putting a cap on his potential by having trouble with his form. He can go much faster than what he’s shown, but his form won’t let him see that potential just yet. Guy B is running much closer to to his potential because he has less restrictions to worry about. All he has to do is go out and try to run his fastest each race. While guy A is worrying about whether his form is good, he’s forgetting that he’s supposed to be running faster than the guy next to him.
So technique is very important. At least I think it is. A lot of the pro’s you see who are running fast with bad technique, could be the next Olympic champion or world record holder if they fixed whatever was wrong. Mo Greene, Michael Johnson, Allen Johnson, Ivan Pedroso, Johnathan Edwards, are all the best at what they did in my opinion. Those are the guys I use as examples when i’m talkin to my athletes. I never say go out and run like such and such, but you know what I mean. Those guys only had to worry about how fast or how far.
You are right, the title was, “how important is technique” but the actual post had more to do with explosive strength and running 25 meters. However, you are correct, technique is very important and that is the bottom line.
Well. Charlie said that he had the top speed to go. I’m happy that he mentioned the top speed phase in this way showing its importance. Well. I’m quite happy that martn doesn’t believe in what I said. Its something very very important that I have deduced and in a way verified it with real top coachs. In Previous posts with charlie I mentioned little things about it and he always showed me right on the points all but one. I’d like to keep it to my self. But if you can track it then you’d be really smart. I’m not ready to explain it anyway. But one last thing. Get as MUCH races as you can . 50 races for example. check out this. see the top split of the race. See which athlete did it. You know what. You’ll find that he won. Only in an odd case or two it would be different and he would be 2nd no more and the difference would be 0.01 maybe 0.03 I don’t know.
If you’re still not convinced. Then VERY good for you. As for all the theories your trying to prove. Why not just apply them and be happy to be the unique person to believe in some great idea alone who will produce the greatest results and try to be happy instead of careing so much about all what others are saying!
Even staying with the first 30m and not talking about top speed: Bens 30m split time was 3.80s in Seoul and Rome, I think.
Would Ben ever being worried racing an Olympic lifter over 30m?
If one watches Ben’s start alone - who would expect an Weightlifter to sprint 30m faster? Where would the lifters extra power come to help him?
Sprinters do a lot of OL, too. Difference is, just enough to increase their sprinting ability to the maximum.
Look at Ato’s Box Jumps - and there are Sprinters capable of jumping higher than that (up to their own bodyheight!) - where’s the extra explosive/jumping power the lifters have?
It is BS, just like Kevin Levrone being the fastest man on earth. At least he proved it being BS!
It’s a statement like: “I know a man, he’s so strong, he would beat up Lennox Lewis in the ring (following boxing rules) - if they would not box more than 2x3min rounds.”
It’s not worth arguing.
For maximum success in sprinting you have to sprint in perfect technique - you just can’t do that without a certain strenght/power level, and the higher the strengt level, the more perfect your technique can be (maximum force being applied, minimized ground contact times - was discussed here very often already…) There is no technique without physical strenght and physical strenght without technique won’t make you fast either…
BODYBUILDERS ARE NOT OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTERS STOP MIXING THEM UP, THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T COMPREHEND AN OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTER MOVING FAST FROM 0-30M.
KEVIN LEVRONE IS NOT AN OLYMPIC LIFTER HE IS A BODYBUILDER HE LIFTS WEIGHTS TO IMPROVE THE LOOK OF HIS PHYSIQUE HE NEVER STOOD A CHANCE EVEN BEFORE HE DARED TO UTTER ANY NONSENSE.
WEIGHT LIFTERS (OLYMPIC)-THE ONES WHO DO THE SNATCH, CLEAN AND JERK TRAINING FOR MAXIMUM LIFTS?
TO ANSWER THIS ANOTHER WAY. FACT, WORLD CLASS SHOT PUTTERS AND DISCUS THROWERS HAVE 20M TIMES THAT ARE IN THE RANGE OF SUB-ELITE TO ELITE.
YOU SAY THAT SPRINTERS DO JUST ENOUGH OL’ LIFTING? WHAT IS JUST ENOUGH? IS IT NOT BETTER TO LIFT 180KG AT 5M/S THAN 100KG AT 5M/S?
I THINK PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT THEIR LOCAL GYM RAT WHO IS BLOATED DOING BODYBUILDING, DOES N’T DO ANY FLEXIBILITY SHORT SPRINTS OR POWER WORK AND EQUATES THEM TO WORLD CLASS OLYMPIC WEIGHT LIFTERS.
YOUR STATEMENT IS RIDICULOUS AND “BS”. IF YOU TOLD ME THAT THIS GUY WAS A VERY STRONG GUY AND DID SOME KIND OF MARTIAL ART OR BOXING RELATED SPORT LIKE BARE KNUCKLE FIGHTING AND WAS AT THE TOP OF HIS SPORT AND THE SPORT WAS NOT MAKE BELIEF LIKE WRESTLING (NOT THE CLASSIC WRESTLING SPORTS I MAY ADD), AND WEIGHED ABOUT THE SAME AS LL, THEN YES IT MAY BE POSSIBLE.
LISTEN THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE IS SIMPLE. YOU NEED HIGH AMOUNTS OF EXPLOSIVE STRENGTH, THE SPORT OF OL I AM TRYING TO SAY, WILL ILLUSTRATE THIS POINT IF YOU TOOK A 60-80KG MAN WHO COULD CLEAN AND JERK 3-3.5X HIS BODYWEIGHT AND STUCK HIM NEXT TO A WORLD CLASS SPRINTER HE WOULD VERY VERY COMPETITIVE. THIS WILL SHOW THAT YES TECHNIQUE, IS IMPORTANT BUT EXPLOSIVE STRENGTH RELATIVE TO BODY WEIGHT EVEN MORE. BECAUSE YOU COULD HAVE THE BEST TECHNIQUE IN THE WORLD WEIGH 100KG AND ONLY ABLE TO LIFT 1.5X YOUR BODYWEIGHT IN SQUAT AND 1X IN CLEAN; YOU WILL BE BLOWN AWAY. AS SIMPLE AS THAT. REMEMBER A STANDING START WOULD BE A FAIR WAY OF DOING THINGS.
ELITE WEIGHT LIFTERS WITH THE SAME BODYWEIGHT RANGE AS ATO ARE CAPABLE OF DOING HIS BOX DRILL. THERE ARE SKI ATHLETES IN THE NORWEGIAN TEAM CAPABLE OF DOING WHAT ATO DID.
HAVE YOU EVER READ OR SEEN A TEST TABLE FOR ELITE WEIGHT LIFTERS? THEY INVENTED THE VERTICLE LEAP WHICH IS A PERFECT EXPRESSION OF EXPLOSIVE CONCENTRIC STRENGTH THE PARTICULAR TYPE OF STRENGTH THEY TRAIN FOR. IF YOU SAID THAT ATO JUMPED OFF A 1M BOX AND REBOUNDED 1-1.5M WITH A VERY SHORT COUPLING TIME THEN I WOULD PUT MY HANDS UP AND SAY NO CONTEST. IF YOU ARE TALKING UPWARD VERTICAL LEAPING ONTO A BOX, THEN I WOULD BET KNOWING THAT A3-3.5X BW ELITE WEIGHTLIFTER WOULD BE CAPABLE.
THERE ARE FEMALE SPRINT ATHLETES WHO HAVE BETTER TECHNIQUE THAN MANY MALE SPRINTERS AROUND THE WORLD, YET THEY (THE ELITE FEMALE SPRINTERS) ARE NOT RUNNING FASTER THAN THEM, SO YOUR CHICKEN AND EGG SCENARIO APPLIED TO TECHNIQUE HAS VALIDITY BUT FALLS SHORT. SO WHAT DOES THE ELITE FEMALE SPRINTER LACK APART FROM DIFFERENT HORMONAL PROFILE AND FISHING TACKLE? STRENGTH STRENGTH STRENGTH.
Like I said agree to disagree. You can’t get to top speed without a world class acceleration. We should all care about other peoples ideas it may help to trigger something else. Look at what I have written, I did not say technique is not important what I am trying to say is yes you need to develop technique but explosive strength is hugely important ALSO in the first 30m and without the prerequisite strength you may never have the ability to execute in the correct take off angles and movements. To illustrate the point and carry on a discussion I dared to do what most followers of a particular sport rise to. To suggest that a particular sport A’s elite can match or even beat another sport B’s elite in an activity very similar sport B. Remember this. Shot putters and discus throwers have excellent 15-20m times that would shame many male sprinters, even elite. So it is not so ridiculous to suggest that an elite OL could do better because they would have comparable body weights.
I am trying to bring about healthy discussion about the best way to approach training for the pure acceleration. As the original question was whether technique was more important?
This is why I joined this forum to share and beat out ideas and to argue points of view, and share info with 100s of people from all over the world. So if you have found out something that is useful, then share it with us, this is a forum for sharing ideas. Please do not take offence to anything I may have written, its nothing personal I try to be very objective I am making my comments on experience and knowledge gleened from people like yourself and literature.
Just so people don’t get confused, the amount of weight you can lift (clean, jerk whatever) is not really an indication of how strong your muscles are or how explosive you may be in terms of a specific skill. The amount of weight you can lift (your ability to demonstrate strength/explosiveness using weights) has far more to do with leverage (body proportions) and technique than explosiveness. When strength training do not compete against others simply aim to improve the amount of weight you can lift as much as possible. It is perfectly possible to be an elite sprinter or any kind of power athlete and only clean 1.5x body weight – all it means is that you don’t possess the limb ratios required to compete at a high level in the clean or whatever. However, in your chosen sport you do have the right anthropometrics and, therefore, can be very explosive. The only reason anyone can clean and jerk 3x their body weight is if they were born to do it.