Well I wouldnt say its a new theory. Some of the newer stuff is a little different then the older stuff. I think you can refer back to the new gpp phase and his new dvd. Theres a thread on it. Its not the same. I like the old stuff better. I mean both have to be pretty good. Its charlie. Im just telling you what I prefer.
The more sarcomeres in series, the ‘longer’ the muscle (altough it is not longer becasue you aren’t stretched the bones and thus his attachents) and the greater the ‘potential’ shortening velocity. Potential is because, it is measured in vitro.
The longer the muscle, the F-L relationship shifts to the greater length - the muscle can produce more force in greater lengths. Is this good or bad? If this is the case, then muscle would be unable to produce greater force in shorter lengths and it is going to be unable to reduce force (eccentric force). So, be careful with incresing one thing and screwing the another
Can you perhaps link me to the thread or explain a little about the new dvd/gpp dvd? Is he just advocating lifting everyday or what exactly is “different”??
Actually, it’s not just “potential” shortening velocity–this has been directly measured with respect to sprinters. See, for instance:
“Sprint performance is related to muscle fascicle length in male 100-m sprinters,”
Kenya Kumagai, Takashi Abe, William F. Brechue, Tomoo Ryushi, Susumu Takano, and Masuhiko Mizuno (2000)
In this paper, sprinters with PB 100m times of 10-10.9 sec, and 11-11.7 sec, had their muscle
fascicle length measured, with the fastest sprinters having the longest fiber length (more sarcomeres stacked in series). There are a number of other papers which show the relationship between fascicle length or leg morphology and sprint performance.
Along the same lines, see:
“Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy and Structure and functions of Skeletal Muscle Fibers in male body builders,” D’Antona G et.al. (2005)
In the D’Antona paper, conventional bodybuilders, (multiple sets, 6-12 reps/set, <2 min rest per set) were measured for muscle fiber characteristics. The bodybuilders were shown to have higher IIx fiber content and greater stretch shortening velocity than controls, which compares with research on 1-3 reps/set showing a large conversion of IIb => IIx => IIa, which is not what you want as a sprinter.
Given that the usual rep ranges for sarcomere hypertrophy are given as 3-5 reps for IIx and 8-15 reps for IIa, it appears that lifting in somewhat higher rep ranges will make you faster albeit weaker.
Sorry renegade. are you saying that tempo running is too high intensity, so it stresses the body in a way not useful too sprinters? What about light jogging. I often wonder this. Does light jogging (I mean very light) stress the body enough to invoke a fibre tranformation? If not, could this be a useful tool for improving body composition and developing a certain level of aerobic fitness? Or, because the stress is so minimal, would there be no aerobic adaptations whatsoever? Does that make sense?
No I think tempo is very useful because it stresses in a way that IS useful to sprinters. The effort level required in tempo is much higher then a long distance run so because the distance is longer then the regular sprint interval it’s a lot more taxing on the body. IMO and I could be wrong, I don’t think there’s any specific training adaptations or large fiber conversion that could be measured with a very light jog because the stress on the body just isn’t high enough. At the same time though, a very light jog eventually will cause you to break a sweat at some point no matter who you are and once that happens its because the aerobic system cannot handle it any longer at that intensity. IE: walking is not a discussion, unless your walking across the province/state. In regards to body composition and aerobic development I would say that high intensity intervals are much more useful then low intensity work. The ATP/Pcr and glycolytic pathways only last for so long before it turns to the aerobic side so sprints of 400-800m are using a fair ammount of the aerobic system. Since this is at a high intensity, the conditioning from a long distance sprint would already be enough to train for a moderately long distance low intensity run up to a certain point.
I just said you had some options during the GPP when the sprint work isn’t that dast. When the speed work IS fast, I still say lift after the speed days only (EOD at least)
Tempo makes you sweat and gets the HR well up, but just isn’t that hard overall.
Charlie do you consider hard as percieved effort or in regards to cns intensity? I find a lot of athletes at distances between 400m-800m find the run quite difficult if they’re not accustomed to the conditioning of it but at the same time, are able to do it several times over with proper recovery because it isn’t taxing on the CNS.
Gotcha. That’s what I read in your CFTS so it doesn’t seem like it’s “new” haha. I thought he was referring to a drastic change in training philosophy.
You become so accustomed to such stimuli that they serve the purposes they should serve with no adverse effects. Don’t worry about it, if you follow this system. I wouldn’t object to the distance range you are suggesting though.
Do you mean to long distance or short distance? If long distance…dependant on the genetic makeup having a fast twitch runner run long distance, they’d eventually become accustomed but only after fiber conversion and increased mitochondrial density…key is fiber conversion…which reduces their sprint output.
Thanks for pointing me the research lkh! My only concern is that with any conceptual ‘approach’ we tend to ‘lose sight of the forest for the trees’.
With stretching, along with incresing pain threshold, muscles should adapt and increse their length (number of sarcomeres in serioes, cause length of sacromere is universal and cannot be changed). Will this make you faster? What about rate of force production, timing, etc, etc.
A lot of factors play role here, not just number of sarcomeres in series (or deatached muscle length, which is, hmmm, hard to measure). But anyway, thanks for pointing me the research.
Sprint performance is related to muscle fascicle length in male 100-m sprinters.
* Kumagai K, * Abe T, * Brechue WF, * Ryushi T, * Takano S, * Mizuno M.Department of Exercise and Sport Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-03, Japan.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between muscle fascicle length and sprint running performance in 37 male 100-m sprinters. The sample was divided into two performance groups by the personal-best 100-m time: 10.00-10.90 s (S10; n = 22) and 11.00-11.70 s (S11; n = 15). Muscle thickness and fascicle pennation angle of the vastus lateralis and gastrocnemius medialis and lateralis muscles were measured by B-mode ultrasonography, and fascicle length was estimated. Standing height, body weight, and leg length were similar between groups. Muscle thickness was similar between groups for vastus lateralis and gastrocnemius medialis, but S10 had a significantly greater gastrocnemius lateralis muscle thickness. S10 also had a greater muscle thickness in the upper portion of the thigh, which, given similar limb lengths, demonstrates an altered “muscle shape.” Pennation angle was always less in S10 than in S11. In all muscles, S10 had significantly greater fascicle length than did S11, which significantly correlated with 100-m best performance (r values from -0.40 to -0.57). It is concluded that longer fascicle length is associated with greater sprinting performance.
I thought we were talking about tempo, as per Charlie’s definition. And what makes you believe you have a mito density increase only after long-distance runs?
Well with long distance more aerobic work there will be a much greater increase in mitochondrial density (due to the aerobic pathway)…but thats still trained of course to a certain extent in longer sprints!
Right…in regards to tempo yes I think after a while the athletes would become more accustomed…at the same time though the speed of the tempo run would increase (faster times) which makes it more difficult and sort of evens it out to an extent.
I find this very interesting and also relevent to my original post. However, I need to be clear. If we put 2 and 2 togeher, are the papers suggesting that higher rep ranges (above 15 reps) although they won’t improve your max strength (obvious- with few exceptions), they could make you faster (at some athletic movements like running) compared to lower reps with heavier weight?
Also; “…with the fastest sprinters having the longest fiber length (more sarcomeres stacked in series)…”
Is their a way to increase fiber length or the amount of fibres stacked in series?
http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=110701&fullArticle=true&tocId=58946
"…Seldom are muscle fibres as long as a muscle, but many muscles, such as the biceps in the human arm, are composed of relatively long fibres lying nearly parallel to each other. These parallel muscles are attached to tendons or apodemes only at their extreme ends. Since muscle fibres can contract about one-third of their resting length, this arrangement is suitable to an extensive and quick movement. The deltoid muscle in the human shoulder is said to be pennate: relatively short fibres attach diagonally onto a tendon that penetrates far into the muscle. The ankle muscles shown in Figure 4 are pennate muscles, but most of the hamstring muscles (at the back of the thigh) are parallel. The adductor muscles of the shells of clams are parallel, but most of the leg muscles of arthropods are pennate. A pennate muscle may contain many more and shorter fibres than a parallel muscle of equal mass. Therefore, the pennate muscle can exert a greater force but cannot shorten a great deal; the parallel-fibred muscle can exert only a relatively small force but can shorten significantly. The presence of pennate muscle in a given structure may have the same effect as a longer lever arm. In the slender legs of arthropods, with insufficient space for bulky muscles or long lever arms, many of the muscles are pennate…"
Before getting into pennation and stacked sarcomeres, these are the real numbers from the paper martn posted about the effect of training at 1-3 reps (max strength), body builders training at 6-12 reps and 60-70% max (the D’Antona paper I mentioned above), and controls. This is for MHC isoform:
MHC 1-3reps 1-3reps 6-12reps controls
Isoform after before
MHC slow 14% 18% 33% 48%
MHC 2A 67% 49% 42% 49%
MHC 2X 17% 33% 20% 4%
You can’t directly compare the numbers, as the muscles biopsied were different (triceps brachii vs vastus lateralis), but the difference in trend is dramatic. It’s quite clear that there was a significant shift of IIx => IIa in the 1-3 rep study, while there appears to be a shift from I => IIa => 2X in the 6-12 rep study.
There are a number of studies that have documented type II fiber transitions for different rep ranges. These include not just the 1-3 reps, but also training at 6-8 reps (females, to failure) and a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology specifically to enhance SSC by means of plyometrics. ALL of these studies used high intensity (max force) and ALL of these studies documented a transition of IIx => IIa, which is also what one gets for sprinting unless the intensity is pulled back for competition (what Charlie says about not more than 95% applies here). By comparison, the D’Antona study of bodybuilders used 6-12 reps @60-80% 1RM, which implies a buffer of 10-15%.
Regarding reps and sarcomeres, I have not seen any studies suggesting reps >15 for sprinters (not competitive bodybuilders), however 8-15 reps falls within the range for both sarcomere hypertrophy and sarcoplasmic. Note that the strength program for Maurice Green on this site used 10 reps for both bench and squats, and 15 reps for secondary exercises.
Published studies for leg morphology suggest that hypertrophy methods affect primarily the upper thigh, and not the lower thigh, and only partially the middle thigh. Thus hypertrophy methods in the sarcomere region, such as 8-10 reps/set (but with a buffer) would appear to be increasing the number of sarcomeres stacked more than the diameter of the fibers, which is what you seem to want as a sprinter.
lkh sorry but I didn’t get the “graphic” you inserted, the values you included from the study would they be ordered in:
1st column = isoform
2nd column = 1-3 reps before (control) values
3rd column = 1-3 reps after values
4th column = 6-12 reps before (control) values
5th column = 6-12 reps after values
just seeking clarification, and do you have the reference for the article, since this is highly interesting research. (i.e. fun bedtime reading)
Cheers
Alex