My soccer club sent me to a top orthopedic specialist in the UK. He said the biggest problem an athlete encounters when punching/striking/throwing/running etc, at the end of the movement they have no power. This is because their own tendons throughout the whole arm/leg ROM are pulling back with far more force then they can generate with the muscles. Hes noted in some people that putting emphasis on strength training a muscle had negative impacts on the tendons & anyone putting emphasis on muscles than tendons are going the wrong way.
If where led to believe Bolt, Powell & Gay don’t do lower body weights for reps, where is there tendon strength at. If there tendon strength is greater than other competitors surely they have got a massive advantage. This Dr also gave me the “roundabout” %'s in everybody of tendon use vs muscle use to propel a runner forwards. Quite startling.
Off the top of my head I can think of 5 exercises which activate the Gluteus Maximus more than deadlifts. What does this say about squats?. Look at the analysis.
The study looked at eight different muscle sites calf, two quadriceps, two hamstrings, glutes, lower back and abs. Seven weightlifters took part in the study and where randomly assigned to either perform an olympic squat (full squat high bar position) or conventional deadlift first (3 reps of their 6 repetition maximum (R.M.)). After a five minuite rest they perfromed the protocol on the other exercise.
All squats had to be hip past the knees which is pretty deep, well past the 90 degree angle of knee flexion considered by some as “parallel”.
The glutes in the squat do not fire untill right at the very bottom of a deep ass squat.
Variations of the deadlift (namely stiff legged deadlifts have been shown to have up to 2x higher levels of activation in all hamstring musculature).
you guys should show this to tyson, asafa or bolt. Im sure they’ll be taking your graphs into consideration when setting up their “lifting programs” lolz…
But that is the great thing about training. So many options & beliefs to choose from.
I prefer snatch grip deads from podium & weighted hip thrusts myself, some people swear by squats & oly’s, I don’t. The key for me is core/tendon work anyway & staying ripped.
the weights are just some general work. Why isnt the focus on how to organize your top speed work, and the best way to improve your top speed, accel., speed endurance? instead i see a lot of threads talking so much about strength vs. threads about speed.
