Star you keep confusing this topic with powerlifters, James said you can develop enough strength to be successful in your sport using submax load, you may not become world class lifters but will develop sufficient strength for sport.
For the most part I think your charts are accurate if you are fresh and not competing with sprints, jumps etc.
No, I’m just talking in general. James works with football players, and their strength requirements are much different than sprinters. I don’t actually think there is some universal level of strength for a sprinter. My comments are confined to those that feel the need to improve strength, and how do you go about integrating strength training into an already demanding training program. Furthermore, I think that lifting confined to no more than 70%, especially if lifted in an non-explosive manner, is not the answer to max strength for anyone.
Star, the confusion in regards to the 1RM percentages probably stems from the populations we’re talking about here. TWhite isn’t bad at math, he’s a professional football player. He’s used to being around explosive freaks. And fogelson is in a similar boat. While not a professional athlete, the people he lifts with are athletes. Not lifters, athletes.
Reps relative to 1RM percentages should be expected to vary greatly between populations, with ultra explosive athletes falling at one end of the scale and endurance athletes at the other. Sprinters, which most of us on this site are, sit at the far end of the bell curve, hence the “strange” percentages.
On a personal note, when I was much younger and actually trained my bench press, I managed 305 lbs x 1 rep. However, I could only bench press 225 lbs for 4 reps. That’s 74% of my 1RM for 4 reps. For me, doing 5 x 3 @ 75% would’ve been impossible, let alone 80%.
If by out of shape, you mean people that compete at a high level in a sport the actually requires fitness, then you might be right. I’ve trained with people who competed in Beijing and people that will be competing in Vancouver and none could come close to these numbers, whether fresh or after sprints/jumps/throws/sports practice.
If you are a believer in CP charts he says:
% for a fast twitch dominant: 8 reps 70%.
% for balanced fiber ratio: 8 reps 77%.
% for a slow twitch dominant: 8 reps 86%.
speed and special endurance certaininly can play a role in ones capacity to handle high intensity lifts for more reps? There is not one definite role it is more a result of the programming as a whole. Does the athlete regularly use between 75% and 85% for max repitions?
Ouch, you missed the bit ““Great start no finish””. but I will get over it.
I take everyone at their word, but I am amazed at comments like ‘could only get 4 at 75%’ and ‘5 x 3 at 75% would be impossible’. Perhaps its a result of rarely lifting heavy? As far as CP’s charts, his balanced fiber ratio is only about 1 rep off of my chart…(CP=8RM@77%, my chart=9RM@77.5%).
As far as the fast twitch CP numbers, this greatly contradicts Charlie’s comments that Ben’s 6RM was probably close to 90% of his 1RM due to well developed SE. According to CP’s fast twitch numbers, Ben doing 2 x 6 at 600 would put his 1RM at about 923 (600/65%). This is crazy. When I asked Charlie about this, he felt that Ben’s 1RM may have been less than predicted by charts. In other words, he could outperform the charts, which is what I would expect.
For those that can’t do 5 x 3 at 75%, what weight would you use if working hypertrophy at 4 x 8-10?
Originally posted by star61
I take everyone at their word, but I am amazed at comments like ‘could only get 4 at 75%’ and ‘5 x 3 at 75% would be impossible’. Perhaps its a result of rarely lifting heavy? As far as CP’s charts, his balanced fiber ratio is only about 1 rep off of my chart…(CP=8RM@77%, my chart=9RM@77.5%).
As far as the fast twitch CP numbers, this greatly contradicts Charlie’s comments that Ben’s 6RM was probably close to 90% of his 1RM due to well developed SE. According to CP’s fast twitch numbers, Ben doing 2 x 6 at 600 would put his 1RM at about 923 (600/65%). This is crazy. When I asked Charlie about this, he felt that Ben’s 1RM may have been less than predicted by charts. In other words, he could outperform the charts, which is what I would expect.
For those that can’t do 5 x 3 at 75%, what weight would you use if working hypertrophy at 4 x 8-10?
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Yea im kinda with u on this one here. Im someone who has horrible SE. I cant maintain my top speed through a 60m race, yet i still have no problem doing 8 reps of 80% of my max on the bench press or squat. I dont knw where these numbers are coming from. What could the “4 reps at 75%” be attributed to? And better yet, would this type of rep max have any indication of a person’s ability to maintain his or her top speed through a 100m raise?
5x3 @ 75% would be doable for me, but still difficult and I can’t do 3x5x80% (have done 2x5). My curve seems to even out more as the percentage gets lower. I would use 60-70% for 4x8-10, possibly a bit higher than 70, but unlikely to get all sets/reps then.
I doubt it has any great relation at all. Completely different tasks, different energy systems, different requirements all together. Most people that have a hard time maintaining top speed have issues with relaxation and likely postural issues related to a poor pelvic position that is burning up huge amounts of energy during acceleration and top speed versus strength endurance (might be different if looking @ a 400m). I’d question whether the person even has great top speed as most of the time they are simply ahead because of acceleration and the differences in top speed haven’t shown until later in the race.
Originally posted by fogelson
I doubt it has any great relation at all. Completely different tasks, different energy systems, different requirements all together. Most people that have a hard time maintaining top speed have issues with relaxation and likely postural issues related to a poor pelvic position that is burning up huge amounts of energy during acceleration and top speed versus strength endurance (might be different if looking @ a 400m). I’d question whether the person even has great top speed as most of the time they are simply ahead because of acceleration and the differences in top speed haven’t shown until later in the race.
I completely agree, most people mask their poor top speed in shorter races due to great acceleration. However, assuming just for the sake argument, that there was a relationship between a person who can do 4 reps at 80% of his or her max, and their SE, do u feel that the athlete would be able to raise that to 6 or 8 reps because they happened to improve their SE through sprint training? Or would u still say that there is not enough of a relationship to even speculate?
I don’t think there is enough of a relationship to even speculate. Even if there was somehow not only a relationship, but a 1:1 relationship (basically 0 chance of this happening), most people’s lifting is after their sprinting (whether immediately or some period in the day later) and their lifting might be affected by the improved sprint performance(s).
I just don’t see the relationship to begin with, however, because there are so many extraneous factors.
Star, go back and read what I said before you make sensationalist statements. I never said it was impossible, simply that it was difficult. For me, 80% of my best squat is 432 lbs. I can tell you that aside from the times when we were forced to do Westside style circa max lifting, I never had to do a lift above 400 lbs. to have a max over 500.
What sensationalist comments are you talking about? I was quoting RB34, not you. And while I won’t question the fact that you’re saying you never trained above 75%, I have personally never met a single lifter, and I have met hundreds, that squat over 500 without ever training heavier than 400. Neither have I ever met any 500+ squatters, and I know dozens, who never train above 85%, much less never train above 75%.
If that’s you, and I’m not actually questioning it, you are the exception, not the rule, and certainly no basis for forming a training philosophy for max strength development.
Regarding lifting high numbers of reps for a given %age and sprint SE, the common point is “work capacity” (as opposed as “work power” as we sometimes find in the litterature), so yes there is a relationship.
Those charts would be useful for sprinters if their readiness to lift was permanent:
- Some day, 90% might really feel like 100% depending on the context (where we are in the training micro-cycle, what we did the same day or the previous days, etc), since weight lifting is not the #1 priority for sprinters.
- The capacity and the power of work for a given activity doesn’t coincide time-wise, so it’s probable that the day a sprinter is doing his absolute 1RM, he doesn’t have the best endurance to do, say, x reps of 75% (which should have take place some weeks before).
The 2 fastest sprinters i’ve trained have considerable difference in their work capacity on running Speed Endurance and Special Endurance workouts. Both have the same PB in weights, and they could hardly do more than 1 rep for anything above 90%. However, the one with the best work capacity on the track could do about 2 more reps for lifts at 80% or beyond.
Note that the one with the lowest work capacity have the best finish at 100m and 200m(relatively and intrinsically), hence he have a higher “work power”.
Back to the original question “is max strength important” : Sprinting is an “endurance of speed-strength” event. Strength component is there, and it include all its expressions.
Letzelter (FRG) showed that the level of max strength level has less and less important as age goes up (relationship between max strength and sprinting : 72% at primary school, 58% at secondary school, 7% at high level sprinting).
Looking at an individual progression, the progression at max strength and sprinting is parrallel up to a certain training age a qualification level.
For sure, those studies are biased by the training education and methods in place in FRG, but even using world-wide data, we find the same trend, however limitation in those studies lies in the fact that measurement of max strength is dependent on the training methodology and motivation consideration, also not everbody is doing max tests in the gym. Hence comparisons are dodgey.
There is a danger getting caught up with numbers in the weight room. My primary point is that you can build the “strength” to lift 500+ with sub max lifting. The ability to express that strength does in fact require lifting circa max weights, lifting big weights is a skill and has a technical component just like any other movement pattern. However this improvement is exclusive to lifting because the rate coding is specific to the movement being performed.
Having the necessary strength to excel at sprinting and expressing that strength in the weight room are two very different things.
I will suggest the reason they don’t reach top speed is because they pop up too early and try and muscle their way through it. The technique they use for the squats is different to how they are trying to run.
Interesting comments from CF:
Since lifting under the 80% will not interfere with the CNS envelope, can we use rep ranges that are higher and increase strength that way so we don’t drain the CNS but get strength
improvements?
I would say no for a couple of reasons:
1: You’d gain too much cross section if the reps were high enough to actually create any
challenge.
2: You’d risk running into the issues of intermediate intensity training.
3: You’d sacrifice an opportunity for recruitment enhancement.-
Guess all this talk about submax weights is nonsense?