The key, again taken from Charlie, is that the athlete should work towards their strengths.
Hence those who are less predisposed to excel in the weight room, by definition, have less room to improve via a weights emphasis and more room to improve at what they are predisposed to excel at- running, throwing, jumping. Doesn’t necessarily mean that these athletes should bag weight training, only that it makes sense to identify where they are able to generate the greatest outputs and take advantage of that form of training.
Alternatively, those who are more predisposed to excel in the weight room, by definition, have more room to improve via weights and that the weight training will play more a role in their speed development due to the greater output they are able to generate via weights; HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean that the weights are taken to the human performance limits because the end goal is still speed. So in this case, the weights should play more of a role, in comparison to those who aren’t as well suited for as much weights, until any further push in this area ceases to lead to faster sprinting.
Both cases also lead towards the benefits of L-S and S-L due to the greater capacity for CNS intensive work that is typically associated by those who get more out of weights.
The output factor is what I find interesting. By definition, the activities in which the athlete is able to generate the highest output, CNS wise, are the activities that make sense to predominate the training load volume.
In the case of those who are well selected for the sprints, this activity will always be on the track.
In the case of other athletes whose speed requirements do not extend as far as those of a 100m sprinter, ergo those who spend most of their time in early acceleration, there’s more of a case for more weights; hence the emphasis many American football coaches place on the weights.
One must be careful not to veer away from individualization or forget what actual characterizes competition activity, however.
In the case of American football, it is a mistake to prioritize weights across the board due to the wildly different positional demands and because the competition is characterized by movements, even those of the down line that are more strength oriented, that extend far beyond the scope of the general strength exercises (powerlifts and Olympic lifts) that are so over volumized in most programs.
I should note that the fellow who visited us not only mentioned that we were the only program, of the 26 that he visited, that performed true speed work; but also, that we were the only program, of the 26, that differentiated the training of players, in and out of the weight room, by position.