I tried the potentiation the way James mentioned well above in this thread, but I’ve gotten much better results with the overspeed portion using rest periods along the lines that Charlie gave (probably years ago) for flying sprints: 10-12 min.
Possibly the difference may be that Verkhoshansky in his “stimulus” approach is using sub-max weight loads. But if you run the resisted portion at ~100%, you may benefit from significantly longer rest periods. That’s the way it works for me, at least.
I think it may be a question of ability. In my dissertation I used a 4.5 minute rest from 3RM Squat to a flying-20 and found potentiation. But although I was using international jumpers and decathletes, there were no international sprinters…
I origianlly wanted to look at a possible potentiation effect of overspeed, but there seemed to be a real lack of literature.
Have you ever considered using some contrast in a competition warm-up? (Facilities allowing)
This yeah at the birmingam games dwain used a quick release belt before his races
Are the resisted and overspeed runs you are doing flying sprints?
The people who would have the data on the contrast version of overspeed would be Loren and Dennis Shaver. I don’t know if they respond to emails, but, obviously, Loren makes large numbers of presentations (for a fee).
You won’t see much on potentiation of overspeed for high level athletes, because most coaches are conveinced that it does not work or that the injury rate is too high. And for straight towed overspeed the literature is controversial at best (see the abstracts listed mid way through the thread), thus even if there was potentiation data it might well be wrong when applied in the method described in this thread.
I have tried the Verkhoshansky stimulation method (with sub-max weights) and found that it does not work for me for 100m. Seems to work well for shorter events with accel (so might be of some use indoors) but seems to fail when the sprint is long enough for SE to be taken into account.
I haven’t tried this as a warmup for racing, but it is worth considering. The UK pros were all over Southern California races this spring and I did see some warming up with light sleds, which I mentioned in one thread in April. I have had better results for downhill the flying times with 2X20m flat block starts preceeding the 2X40m uphill. I’m going to take longer delays (10-15 min) before each of the downhill flys the next time to see which is fastest.
Don’t know if the contrast method works any better once SE is taken into account, but it’s worth a try.
Loren gives the resisted sprints as 30m accels up a slight slope (see about midway through the pdf):
http://www.nwaswimaths.com/programs/VIDEOS2.pdf.
I use 40m accels from a crouch start. The overspeed (downhill) is 30m flying from a 50m leadin for me, but this depends on your fitness (and your willingness for risk at MaxV!). Everything I’ve read about this says that the uphill/downhill segments should be in the 20-40m range (flying leadin not included).
What changes in the body take place that allow this enhancement to occur? Is it hormonal? Is it increasing the pool of energy available to devote to sprinting?
“Resisted sprints: 3x30m (accel. 15-25m)”. So is this an uphill ‘flying 30?’ Seagrave is using? I’ve been using 40m accelerations…
What is the purpose of overspeed? Is it only to get the body used to a higher rate of turnover? The reason I’m asking this is because I run in normal running shoes on an indoor track when the weather is bad and my rate of turnover is significantly higher just because the shoes have much less grip than my spikes. I feel like my foot flys out from underneath me as soon as it touches the track, but this is just because the friction is less without spikes. Does running like this have any effect similar to overspeed since the turnover is improved even though I’m actually moving slower across the track?
Something is seriously wrong here. Once you are near top speed, there’s no way your feet should be slipping on an indoor track. In running shoes, your turnover should be noticeably slower than with spikes. The added weight makes a significant difference. Perhaps your brain is fooled somehow?
One of my mentors worked very closely wih Seagrave and there are elements of contrast work in his training, I will see if I can post some next week.
That’s weird. When I don’t wear spikes my feet just don’t catch the track the same way as they do when I’m wearing them. I thought it functioned the same way as trying to run on ice, where you might cycle your legs faster but not go anywhere because of the lack of grip. My running shoes are fairly worn and the bottoms are kind of smooth.
I think I know what you’re talking about, I’ve gotten this “effect” if you can call it, when wearing flats maybe one time when i did intensive tempo.
But I’ve got this effect also A LOTT when I had to (in the past) wear my spikes… with no spikes on them! Just the shoe itself in a indoor track because the spikes werent permitted.
I often felt insanely rapid turnover/super short ground contact, though strides felt short… lol…
Yes, my strides are short sometimes as well, so I try to focus on lifting my knees higher while keeping up my rate of turnover. Usually I can’t keep it up for long though because I start to tighten up.
Regarding the possible potentiation effect of a contrast/OS warm-up…
Not sure how relevant this is but I did contrast training 1hour before a jumping session on Monday… I jumped 7.30m off a ‘skip-on’ 8 stride approach…
What was the warm up? How does this correlate to your normal performance
2x40m up/2xfly 30 down
1hr
4x50m 95%
Jumps
Last years best off 12strides was 6.84…
But I’ve been jumping 6.80-90 mini-boxjumps (2") off 4-6 strides lately.
It’s the fact that contrast wasn’t detrimental and maybe a potentiator which is interesting… and I didn’t get injured!
From what I can gather 7.30 off a short approach is near elite level… although those guys really thrive at speed.
You guys are going crazy with all this contrast training.
Wouldn’t you if you’d dropped .55 from one race to the next??
For some odd reason I did this workout 36 hours before a meet!
Ran a pb in the 100 heats while easing up then pbed by 2 tenths in the finals all out to the line with 0 wind.
200m time… 2.5 tenths pb.
No injuries at all.