Is the sarcoplasm usefull to speed?

Expert Discussion Advanced Sports Sciences
1

Is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy truly useless for the sprinter?

Do people with large sarcoplasm have lowered electrical resilience in their muscles? (a good thing if they do.)
Charlie mentioned one of the benefitsd to tempo is lowered electrical resilience.

Certainly, I have noticed that when I do electrical muscle stinmulation, my rectus femoris contracts very hard, even on the lower settings, perhaps becuase of lowered electrical resilience in that particular muscle.

Can sprinters speed benefit from slow tempo, jogging, rep work, aerobic training and/ or sarcoplasm of the muscle?

I mean, these elite sprinters, they’re not just a bunch of fast twitch fibres, what about the rest of their composition? Does their sarcoplasm contribute to the speed they run, not just the myofibrils.
Anything special about the REST OF THEIR muscle? Not just the power fibres.

All comments welcome,

2

I said lowered electrical resistance, not resiliance.
Yes, low intensity work has value in recovery etc. you might argue that it is merely aiding in the establishment of the conditions for maximal effort (primarily sprinting) but in any event, it has an effect.

3

what if instead of tempo work you build into a system of maximal effort the qualities needed to allow for continued maximal effort, first by determining the cause of fatigue and the limitations of your current ability then building a program which not only compensates for your inablity to work maximally but also teaches your body how to work maximally all the time. you said it yourself charlie “you might argue that it is merely aiding in the establishment of the conditions for maximal effort…” now imagine those condtions were set to allow for continued maximal effort day after day. thoughts comments.

4

Same argument- different day. By all means, if you can build a better mousetrap- then DO IT!
The frequency of maximal efforts is meaningless unless such training expands the limits of human performance. Let us know when you, or any of the other promoters of this even approaches what is possible now, let alone exceeds it.

5

Im not following James Colberts post what is he trying to say?

6

He is saying you need to find a way to train with maximum effort every day.

7

Thats what I thought. I wonder if he is including weight training into the equation.

8

I think he’s going more along the lines of a theory.

9

charlie wouldnt all maximum effort lead to over
training

10

One of the main things sprinters in particular need to avoid is type IIb > IIa conversion, so extensive aerobic work isn’t really needed and should be frowned upon. As long as the athlete is conditioned enough to run the distance of their sprint then extra distance isn’t really necessary, and in a lot of cases serves the opposite purpose. Even tempo runs… they aren’t light jogs. The body is constantly working at a high degree of effort.

Don’t get me wrong though, I think conditioning is very important…but only for the length of the sprint if not just a bit over (50-100m)!!!

11

So should we avoid weights too if we don’t want IIb to IIa conversion?

12

Well a % of fibers are going to be converted no matter how hard you try. Never the less, it’s all in the nature of what your doing.

If you weightlift with high repeitions then your going to be looking at fiber conversion. Low reps = higher strength gains less fiber conversion. Same thing with sprints vs long distance running. Your body doesn’t know the difference between plyometrics, weights, running, etc…it’s all in the load capacities on the muscles and joints and what’s expected of the CNS to perform the particular movement. The principle of specificity in action really…it’s just what angle your coming from.

13

Does lifting specificity really have that much to do with sprinting?

14

IMO no, your simply just increasing the load output of the body as a whole, which in turn gives you more available power to work with when sprinting. A strong weightlifter will sprint faster then an untrained individual, but a trained sprinter will outrun a weightlifter because of specificity. The weightlifting just gives the sprinter more available power that can be harnessed.

15

This is from Ivan Abdajiev. (former Bulgarian eighlifting coach.) I highlight the part I am interested in.

"…And those are the different shapes of muscles. We have one muscle that could be one after another one, when they’re parallel, . . . this is the different types of muscles. They all have a particular function, they all react to different things. For instance, when we
have slower, but heavier exercise, then those muscles are the ones that are doing the work. The ones that need speed and heaviness at the same time, then those parallel muscles are activated, because power or strength of the muscles depend on different things, different parameters.

The part of the muscle which is contracting is called sarcomere. The longer it is, the faster it reacts, the faster it contracts. The shorter it is, it could provide enormous strength, but in a longer period of time.

And there are muscle groups that can work without oxygen provided, anaerobically.
And there are those muscles who work aerobically, with oxygen.

For instance, when we have a sprinter or cross runner, this is the muscle which is activated .This is used for running and sprinting and longer running periods. Those two muscles which are located on both sides of the knee, they take part when sprinting is necessary, also called out of phase muscles. They turn food into energy without using
oxygen. When we are talking about longer distances, then the energy is formed using oxygen. So that the ones that are used for longer running distance, they have a bigger number of mitochondria. This is where the cycle of Krebs takes place and over 1,500 kilojoules of energy are formed.

And when we are talking about anaerobic working of the muscles, then we are talking about 60% less production of those mitochondria from the same amount of energy. So in the longer period, when we look at different training muscles, there are different muscles that are used for different groups and they are the ones who change their size
accordingly to the training system.

That is why when we change, when we are not lifting weights, when we are doing something else . . . if we say that on the upper picture the engine is the one that is used to lift weights, if we do something else not lifting weights we are using other muscle groups, in another exercise not weightlifting, those are the muscles that are being contracted…"

end quote.

My questions;

The part that is contracting is the sarcomere?
Does he not mean the fibres WITHIN the sarcomere?
Does his point about the length of the sarcomere point towards … that you should try to increase your range of motion? Does this mean that certain stretching exercises can be very usefull? If you lengthen your sarcomere, does that mean you could potentially improve the reflex speed of the muscle? And the relaxation speed?
Are these factors not as important as the maximal strength of the muscle when it comes to sprinters?

Help me out here please, I cant see the wood for the trees again. :o

16

the sarcomere is just a section of the muscle fibre, and within the sarcomere is the myosin and actin protein filaments. its these filaments that slide over one another and cause contraction.
what he is saying about fibre shape and strength is not something you can change. its just what the muscle is. ie, the pec major is a shape of a fan, large at one end (chest) and narrow at the other end (glenohumeral). the bicep is more of a parallel muscle (like a tube). different muscle shapes provide different strengths. If you picture the pec major in the shape of a fan, it has heaps of fibres heaped in an area within say 3inches from the glenohumeral joint. If that area contracted, then that force is then pulled towards a narrow area, thereby producing greater force. Akin to say, a water pump - it has at the suction end greater diameter pipe and volume, and on the discharge end, the pipe is narrower to change that volume into force or speed of flow.
Changing the size of the sarcomere, well, thats just bodybuilding.

17

Along with the sarcomere being longer, more sarcomeres in series also increases shortening velocity. Both adaptions seem to occur because of eccentric contractions done throughout the ROM used. (I think one study used rats running downhill compared to running on a flat surface, with the downhill running leading to the greatest increase in sarcomeres in series.) This adaption, along with increasing the number of sarcomeres that are the same length, occurs primarily because it keeps sarcomeres from stretching beyond their optimal length, which would lead to instability of the sarcomere and result in possible muscle damage.

18

1 and 2) He’s talking about the actin and myosin fibers of the sarcomere unit

  1. Output is increased by rate coding (how fast messages are transmitted by the cns) and by fiber recruitment. I have never heard anything about length increasing strength, which imo is wrong. When you talk about hypertrophy of the muscles it refers to more myosin/actin fibers being created.

  2. Relaxation is important of course, but this comes from increased muscular and nervous system output not from sarcomere length.

19

Does anyone know what happens in anaphase II. LOL. What are we biology students now. Isnt charlies new updated theory have you lift everyday which might apply to high sessions everyday.

Could he be suggesting speed work everyday. Either way I say lifting everyday or speedwork is too much. Ill go as far to say, the old stuff was better. Id refer to training for speed or speedtrap for sprint training. Two of the best books ever written.

Guy from boston.

20

Biology is a large factor to further knowledge for the training enviornment, so yes we are.

Where did you hear about Charlies “new theory”?