I have supplemented road cycling with my football (soccer) for years (intervals on the road bike (stomps) did more for my endurance than running tempo’s ever did).
Cycling hits the hip flexors in a big way, especially using clipless pedals & ‘pulling back’ on the pedal stroke, hence what you said, ‘Cycling (bicycles) may improve (very slightly) the speed of your first step’.
Right…
But if your first step is quicker, second step is quicker then why can’t the extra leg speed in the first 2 steps pour over into steps 13 14 etc???.. You have generated the speed in the first 2 steps, surely if extra speed has been enhanced there, it carries over into steps 13 & 14 also?. Its there in the hip flexors, you’ve developed it, the CNS has remembered it.
If you have influenced the speed in the first 2 steps, surely that would influence power/speed throughout the race. Your banging out the same “greater” leg speed you produced in steps 1 & 2.
I have to disagree. The block clearance is to do more with the concentric power of the muscles.
After just a few strides, the eccentric tension in muscles (governed mainly by velocity x lever length) and the SSC efficiency of the tendons (hip hieght especially), the posture of the spine (spinal awareness more so than back strength), the ability for the muscles to relax quickly and save energy, and other things, are are important than how much concentric tension you can generate to overcome inertia.
Your allmost saying that if some one can record a high vertical jump or broad jump, then they would also be a fast sprinter.
A shot putter holds the record for the longest standing long jump (broad jump.) Same shot putter could hang with sprinters in the first 10m of a race. Middleweight weightlifters of medal standard, would beat the short Tyson Gay out of the blocks (with block practice.)
Allen Iverson’s first step on basketball court was probably every bit as fast as an olympic sprinters first step from a standing position.
Many Running Backs in the N.F.L could hang with sprinters of same leg length for the first 30meters.
Marcus Adam also told me that he and John Regis (bob sled & 200m), could not beat the N.F.L players to the 30m line on the training track in Florida. The football players were not shorter in hieght or leg length.
Anyway… where are all these fast starters, come the finish line in a 100m race?
Yes, many people have tried the ol’ clippers on bike pedals to involve hamstrings (pull-up) and hip flexors (pull-up) on the pedal revolution.
Don’t tell me you brought one of those special training bikes where each pedal turns independantly of the other, so that you have involve hamstrings and hip flexors more to get full revolution.
It’s still no where near the muscle lengths and tendon elasticity (and other things) that are needed AFTER block clearance in a sprint.
I personally don’t think it is worth doing ‘general training’. When I do an exercise, I have to know that it is contributing to a spacific and worth while goal. Not just ‘fitness for fitness sake.’
(And not just becuase it raises work capcity and enhances recovery.)
That’s because we don’t have an infinate capacity to recover from all possible work.
So whatever training a sprinter does, he better be sure that the exercises and nutrition program are contributing to what helps 100m sprint times.
I don’t believe weight training can lower 100m sprint times, in an allready well trained athlete. (Or allmost any fitness enthusiast who is getting power that is more spacific. From elsewhere in the preperation.)
Even the explosive weights exercises such as powercleans and hip snatches and push jerks. Triple extension good mornings. Jump squats. Box jumps. Bycicle sprints.
Tuck jumps. Deadlifts. Hyper extensions with 2 x 20kg discs held over your back. Calf raises. Hanging leg raises. Powerclean from the hang, from the blocks, of a podium, squats with bands. Even depth jumps. All of them are useless at improoving the Max V of a sprinter. They only improove the frist 2 strides, where by the momentum pays of for a few more strides, but even though they will keep on accelerating further, the influance on acceleration becomes other things, rather than the quick block clearance.
Goose, Would you happen to know if/why cycling (considerable distances) would be deprimental or have negative side effects with regards to tendon strength, elasticity & sprint times?.
What I mean is…
I can put the bike away in the garage for 3 months & train specifically with just weights, plyo’s & sprint training & get considerably fast. 3 months passes, the bike comes out of the garage & I’m now on the bike, still doing weights, plyo’s & sprint training & I’m suddenly slower.
The explosion isn’t there as much? What does the bike do to my body?. Why is it my power, strength, elasticity etc just “dissolve” from having just jumped on the bike still doing the same training prior & putting up the same numbers in the gym, same volume of plyo’s?.
The funny thing is, your barbell squat numbers might go up a little during the bike phase, whilst your sprinting speed gets a little ‘flat’.
One test I did showed that and exercise can make one thing go up, and another thing go down. I did 70 reps of deep knee bend jump squats, with dumbells. (needed a few short pauses in middle of set.)
The next day I jumped a little higher but ran a little slower than usuall. (As I was pretty much expecting.)
Long distance work on the bike may deplete the muscles of a lot of fuel. Some have taken a month to fully restore glycogen levels.
Also, the muscle lengths in cycling may change the sarcomere lengths in the muscle. The ‘muscle pull’ is different on a bike. Certain fibers change from parralel to cross-bridged and visa versa, depening on many things. Length tension relationship, required speed of tension build up, volme of reps, etc
The hamstrings can loose their length from a lot of cycling. A common complaint among cyclists.
Spinal posture can change slightly. On a bike, you use spinal flexion. Sprinting is mainly hip hyper extension (the exact opposite.)
I think I could add a little more, but I’m round a mates house, and he’s trying to watch television, and he can only hear me type. Will get back to this thread…
While your generally right, I wouldnt agree with that improved jumps wouldnt equal improved sprints times. Better jumps = better elasticity, which will = faster sprinting, although most the faster sprinting will be for acceleration.
As well, If I gave an already trained sprinter, a magic 150 pound bonus to their deep squat, with nothing else, no negatives, their sprint times would most definitely improve. How much would depend on how strong they were before it and what their weaknesses are, but times will drop.
I understand length tension relationships, tension build up, considerably higher volume of reps, depleted glycogen levels etc from hitting the bike.
But what I recall the most was the “bouncy”, “elastic” feeling disappearing (to some extent), not all gone BUT leg frequency went up. There is a line, cross it & its going to go one way or the other. But I have to cater for endurance, greater latic threshold levels etc…
I also included jump rope into my schedule just to try & bring it all back into the same realm as prior to hitting the bike again. I can never quit cycling though, not just for training purposes but more of a getaway tool & getting away from everything.
i would think biking is a lot like squatting. muscles in legs get stronger but the tendons do not. The gct is totally unaffected. Therefore improved sprint speed is completely non correlational.
When Dwain Chambers added 50kg (110 Ibs?)to his back squat, it did not improove his sprint times (as he mentioned himself, and it correlates to my observation.)
Then again, he had added a significant amount of bodyweight during that stage (as he also said etc.).
Also, I’ve only ever seen him do half squat / allmost parralel squat.
You are suggesting however, if u add 150 Ibs to some ones FULL squat, without them adding bodyweight…
And though the influance within accell phase might possibly last a little longer, I’m still not convinced it would improove top-end speed.
Charles Poliquin has said that deep squats caused an improovement in 60m sprint times. I’m a little weary of some of what he sais though.
Deep squats can slightly improove/maintain hip and ankle mobility.
I also read they are less likely to tighten hip flexors than parallel squats. So if some one HAS to do squats, then deep squats.
A study by Russian scientists, to determine which plyometric exercises correlate to sprinting, revealed:
That only horizontal single leg hops for distance, had a significant correlation to sprint times. The other plyometric exercises did not correlate significantly to sprint times.
Also in sprinting, the power of the forward swing leg is bigger factor on speed of support leg. Not just the strength of the support leg muscles and tendons.
And so horizontal hops train most of the elements. The ground contact force is higher in horizontal hops than sprinting. Therefor, why would you need jumping for hieght? (Box jumps, depth jumps, drop jumps.)
Also, the psoas above swing leg is doing its job of whipping swing thigh forwards, during the horizontal hops. It’s surely a better drill/exercise, for running than depth jumps.
Forward med ball swing hops. On 1 leg. Great for strength.
“Weight swing switches”. Great indoor exercise for sprinting fitness. Partial backwards med ball throw action without letting go of ball, imediately switching to forwards and down throwing action, to return to start position. That is, ball held in two hands between knees/shins. Quater squat position. But doing it very quickly for 25 to 45 reps continously. With no pauses between movements. Only count the upward movement as a rep.
This trains cardio system and even allows you to move in to anterior pelvic tilt at top position. A plyometric effect, because your feet come off the floor a few inches, as your feet slide backwards, when med ball travels backwards overhead. Feet land behind your center of mass. So you have too imediately return to down swing. As you swing ball forwards and down, feet pick up and slide forwards. knees bend and hips drop, and you land in to quater squat. You imediately explode back up in to reverse med ball swing action.
The entire posterior chain and much of the anterior chain, is getting a plyometric effect from the above exercise.
When not enough time to get in a track / outdoor session, the above exercise is excallent.
Related to biking:
I did 35 reps of kettlebell jerks. Right hand. Repeated on left hand. I then did another 30 reps, as side press pushes with ketllebell.
So; Two high rep sets on each arm. Segment within a training session. Those two exercises are all about the knee extensors and plantar flexors. )2 days later, I was on my bike…
… And THAT hill, felt like nothing. It was so easy getting to the top of that hill. (it had never been difficult, but now it was piss easy. I was laughing three quaters of the way up.)
I tell you, if I coached a national level B-M-X, mountain bike or sprint racer team…
High rep single arm kettlebell jerks, and single arm side press jerk, would be in the program.
But not more than twice a week, and possibly not more than once every 5 days. (Muscles may recover in a day, but neural pattern for that exercise can take longer to recover, especially if volume was performed.)
Still, you are mixing slow twitch volume, with track sprinting. I’ve done much of the same, but tried to keep some of the bike work as speed reps and hills. When I squatted, the squats allways went up during a biking phase.
Your running work, probably helped your biking?
Some Tri-athlon participants have said that running helps cycling but cycling doesn’t help running.
I really would love to see a “Tri-athlon” Sprint test…
100m running sprint.
200m free-style swim (half hour later.)
500m bike sprint (lap chaser).
And they get to rest and change before each event.
I wonder what athletes would win it, but it would be great for those who’ve had experiance with track sprints, bike and sprint swim.
Would that person be more special than Usain Bolt?
This is where cycling has excelled for me. The hip flexors/psoas major take a whipping, in fact, there is probably not a more effective exercise, if any, than cycling that utilizes them muscles.
I very rarely run long distances outside of the distance work I do playing a soccer game. Although I can vouch that doing repeated hill sprints (considerable length) did more for my VO2 than cycling did. Way back when, I would say my legs gave out (strength endurance) before my lungs but neither are issues now. I have lowered the volume (miles) somewhat. Its about time & effort, not so much distance.
To an extent, I think they go hand in hand. If you take a non runner who has been biking a fair while, they will certainly see the benefit from biking taking up running for the first time. Tri-athletes I think will find it hard to translate as there already so well conditioned.
Someone that comes to my mind would be Gregory Bauge. Fastest cyclist on the planet, sub 11sec 100m (No sprint training) & swims in training.
Gregory Bauge said today in an interview with L’Equipe that he will retire after the 2012 Olympics to take up the 100 metre sprint in Athletics. He has the genes, but can he stay between the white lines?
Goose, have you ever heard or anyone tell you that strength training (reps) not (holds) has a degenerative effect on the tendons???.
Goose, have you ever heard or anyone tell you that strength training (reps) not (holds) has a degenerative effect on the tendons???. I had a good source on this one but that remains with me.
The idea of plyometric training is to develop elastic strength and provide a good training stimulus. Same idea goes for strength training on the whole.
High vertical jumps, long broad jumps, and generally good performance in jump tests ARE correletated to sprinting.
You can find fast guys out there who cant put up that much in the squat rack, but how many fast guys can you find that have shitty verts?
Practically every fast sprinter will have a pretty good vert at the very least, and approaching the top level, you’ll see some pretty exceptional verts as well.