Power vs max strength training - Shaun Pickering

Expert Discussion Strength Training
41

Charlie,

My points argue the relative importance of upper body to sprinting. Also, i don’t have to do detailed studies of every single sprinter to offer generalisations made from my observations and from paying attention to what I hear, read and inquire about.

Yes, some comments are generalisations that do not always stand up. However, i will again declare that of the 20-30 people I have personally known that have run under 11 seconds regularly, only one got less than 2.90m. He got 2.88. Having said that, probably 5-8 of the sub-11.0 runners I know did get around 2.90+ which would make my claim a slight exageration. Sorry for not being precise. Of course, there is no direct correlation between standing long and 100m. As I have said on several occasions, it is only a test which illustrates one component of the 100m race (leg power).

However, I still believe that certain upper body exercises have little relevance to sprinting. Hence, I will provide another way of explaining my point through Olympic lifting on the basis that upper body strength, notably bench press or military press, should have similar relevance as sprinting. After all, extending one’s arms overhead does have some correlation with the jerk.

I used to train with an Olympic Games silver medalist in the 1984 OG (200kg clean and jerk). I can tell you that he could barely bench 125KG. Of course, there are other Olympic lifters who are extremely strong up top. However, i believe my point stands. Your legs are by far the most important mucles in the drive of the bar above your head. That is why people with relatively weak upper bodies will still lift huge weghts. If upper body is an essential factor, then the guy would never had lifted 200kg. I knew many lifters who were national champions with relatively weak upper bodes in terms of pressing ability.

Of course, a reasonable amount of upper body strength is important for sprinting, especially acceleration. I have said this already. I too do lots of upper body weights and callisthenics and want to look reasonable and so on. I am just expressing ‘my’ belief that some exercises, such as bench, are overrated.

Another way to look at the debate is through the greatest track athlete in Olympic history in terms of gold medals, Carl Lewis. He did run 9.86 and has top speed comparable to anyone.
I have heard many stories that he does weights, he does not do them, he has benched 140kg, he is weak up top. You don’t know what to believe. Nevertheless, I believe it is safe to assume from his physical development that his leg power is exceptional as evident from his lower body development, and that his upper body strength would be matched by many ordinary club athletes including myself. I don’t know this but I make an assumption that I am prepared to live with.

I also know what Linford Christie (9.87) could lift lift for upper body weights from friends who trained with him. I assume from what i have been told that my bench of 167.5kg (ass on bench and little bouncing) is at least on a par with him, yet I can only dream of hopping five high hurdles on either leg as he did before my eyes.

Clearly, leg power is by far the most important strength characteristic of a sprinter.

Again, I would be interested to know what ben Johnson lifted for various exercises when he was a 10.25 runner.

Sloth, thanks for pointing out my struggle to comprehend differences between size and strength. Well I have to say i do not have any confusion. I do not believe that someone can improve their strength without improving their size. I am sorry that this generalisation may disagree with some scientific articles. I will argue that lifting bigger weights at a similar weight is more likley to be explained by reduced bodyfat, as long as technique and skill for lifting that weight remained consistent. Take Ben for example, an experinced lifter. He improved his strength considerably between 1984 and 1988 and his weight increased from 73 kg to 79 kg. He also looked much bigger. So again, I repeat my belief that I wasted my time on getting stronger up top when I should have devoted more energy to my lower body strength. In other words, I believe that I would have run faster weighing 5kg less if I had paid less attention to upper body. Perhaps a 130kg bench would have been sufficient instead of 167.5. It may have been only half a second but it would still be significant. Fair point?

42

CoolColJ,

Yes, you are right. My pull was the best part of my lifting. When I was 20 (80kg at 186cm), I could deadlift 225 and only squat 130. The imbalance between my back and leg strength has only partially improved. The funny thing was that though I only had a 130kg squat, i could actually power (and full) clean 120 and jerk 140kg from a rack. I must have reasonable skill levels at that point.

Even now in my old age (41), my back strength is far superior to my leg strength despite 20 years of training all muscles as part of a balanced program in terms of strength development. No doubt, everybody has leverage advantages or disadvantages.

43

To add to the debate, I too have to say that my best strength gains have never been achieved by training heavy (90-100%). In fact, when I have trained heavy consistently I go backwards. Hence, while I note that each individual will respond differently in terms of intensity, i would never train anyone consistenly at 90-100% intensity. My athlete, who squats, 6 reps on 125kg at 67kg bodyweight, mostly trains around 3 sets of 6 reps on 110kg fresh or 3 sets of 6 reps on 100kg after running, and only once every 3-4 weeks will he go all out. For myself, I have always got my best results from training around 60-70% in terms of my maximum, using short rests (2-3 minutes) between sets. I only use heavy lifts, a maximal set of 6-10 reps, to determine my training intensity.

According to the Yessis Review, 90% intensity with weights is the equivalent of 3-4 reps at best. This is extremely heavy. My experience is that I can get around 4 reps on 90%, around 10 reps on 80% and 20 reps on 70%. When my best bench was 160kg, 9 reps on 130, and 20 reps on 110kg. Also, Ted Arcidi, 2 weeks before he benched 700 pounds did 20 reps on around 495 pounds.

Again, consistent with the debate, there is no exact way to train with weights in terms of intensity. I quote the following.

Wilf Paish, ‘Development of Strength’, Modern Athlete and Coach, Vol. 34, No. 1, Jan. 1996, p. 25.
25)There is no best system for development of strength.
“There are many systems…that can be used to break down the cellular proteins”.
“It is not the system but the biomechanical/physiological adaption to the stimulus (strength training systems) that produces the gains in strength”.
Once the response has been triggered off a further increase in the intensity of stimulus will not create a greater response. Hence there is not a single system that will offer an open sesame or secret metho for success.
Response is mainly genetic and physiological response is brought about during recovery process. Brought about by interaction of specific amino acids (proteins) and the growth hormone.

Merv Kemp, ‘Developing leg power’, Modern Athlete and Coach, Vol. 35, No. 2, April 1997, pp. 6-10.
9)According to Hare, best workout 4-6 sets by 6-10 repetitions at 60-70%.
This promotes maximum strength through hypertrophy developments, and, because of the sub-maximal nature of the load, allow at the same time for a quick executions of the reps.
Baker supports 90% for Olympic lifts, 70-80% for hang Olympic lifts, and 60% for squats for highest power outputs.
10)Parallel and deep squats produce marked higher levels of muscular activity than do half or quarter squats.
Among Eastern bloc sport scientists there is popular view that squats do not produce the competition specific loads in most track and field events and even in Olympic lifting. Also problems of injuries to lower back and knee joints.
Load on spine reduced if trunk is held erect as in front squats.
Other training emphasise both heavy and light loads in one sessions. By training both maximum strength and speed-strength simultaneously, contrasting load method would appear to be an efficient method of training for explosive power.

Michael Yessis, Fitness and Sports Review USA, Vol. 27, No. 4, Aug 1992.
Weights should be light to medium for a steady increase in growth of muscle fibres and strength. Too heavy, decreases volume and in preparation period leads to incomplete muscle development. Too much weight changes the way the exercise is executed.

I would think that this evidence supports what Colin has had to say about intensity. However, I can also get other articles which support heavier training, for example the Bulgarian weight lifting program.

I prefer to side with the above articles from my own observations but am careful not to define ‘a perfect’ training method as each individual has mental and physical differences why he or she may be suited to different training intensities. A good coach will allow for individual considerations although this may be difficult in a large group situation.

44

Spartacus:
You prefer to side with the weightlifting coaches you list. I prefer to side with the sprint coaches, John Smith and Trevor Graham (the coaches of the other sub 9.80 sprinters), who, like me, prefer general lifting including upper body work.
No matter what method you prefer, the key is to balance the work provided by each element with every other element.
BTW, if med weights for high reps develop cross section, might this explain your increase in weight?

45

(No matter what method you prefer, the key is to balance the work provided by each element with every other element).

I agree.

46

What does BTW, mean?

Charlie, if you are asking me whether “med weights for high reps develop cross section, might this explain your increase in weight?”, you are probaly right. I am not an expert and the literature suggests that reps over 7-8 reps does favour hyperthrophy and so on.

However, again i have another possible explanation. I think David W once said that you can build size from various methods, a point which I agree.

I think a lot of assumptions are made about differences between size and strength may be explained by differences between weightlifters and bodybuilders.

For instance, in Melbourne, a guy who trains at my club benches 170kg at 75kg bodyweight. He is the Austrlaian champ in the IPF, which is constanly tested for drugs. Another guy, in other federation, benches around 210kg at 75kg. He is huge because he is a bodybuilder. The point I am making is that size differences may also be explained by the latter’s emphasis upon exercises for total upper body development rather than the repetitions used for a particular exercise. In other words, if a guy just does bench, he will never look as big as a guy who does bench, flies, upright rows, bicep curls, tricep extensions and so on.

Again, this is the point I was trying to suggest with my debate about upper body. It is a bit like Olympic lifters who have to make weight. They often don’t look as impressive as bodybuilders. But the muscle they have is totally geared towards lifting that weight overhead at a lighter bodyweight.

Just look at the leg development of most top Olympic lifters. They indeed have impressive leg musculature which would look freaky if they dieted like bodybuilders.

Hence, there may be physiological differences from training at low reps (1-4) compared to (6-10), but I would argue that any difference for strength or size are less than believed.

47

I agree, it depends on the person, some people just blow up no matter what they do. And some will never add much muscle mass even when their strength levels continue to rise.

I for one can’t seem to stop my legs and hips getting bigger, and the way I train them is hardly what you call hypertrophy orientated taining :slight_smile:

48

BTW= by the way
Of course this is all possible. My feeling with athletes I worked with was that special endurance work seemed to keep them small and light for the kind of weights they could move, but, though I know the results and the overall work they did, like everyone, I’m left to speculate as to cause and effect.

49

Spartacus said:
“I do not believe that someone can improve their strength without improving their size.”

What do others think? I believe this is a fallacy, and shows directly that the problem spartacus has with upper body weights is due to his lack of understanding of strength training/power training vs hypertrophy training.

I definitely agree that weights of above 90% are hard to maintain and continually gain strength on. The reason is because you are not supposed to do >90% continuously.

Each element in the training regimen goes through cycles of intensity and volume, and each conflicting element is appropriately adjusted so to keep a constant overall training load on the organism.

The example with the olympic games weightlifter is an interesting one - the real thing that you would find is that his sport does not require super strong shoulder girdle musculature working in a horizontal plane. His sport requires a vertical plane. I would be surprised if he was not doing 120kg + on his barbell shoulder press.

Sprinting on the other hand puts tremendous demands on the horizontal plane shoulder girdle muscles. It would make sense to increase the strength of all those muscles - WITHOUT increasing size, so the overall power-weight ratio increases. If you cannot do that, I agree, you are wasting your time.

What are everyones thoughts? I am just rambling … :slight_smile:

50

well I read this about a US olylifter…

At camp, I got to talk to Jason Gump, who placed 2nd at Nationals this year in the 94s. I asked how his press compared to his push press and jerk. His bests respectively are 154lbs, 308, and 418. I think this is due to his entire focus being on the OL, and I would bet that if he specialized on the press, he would break into the 200+ range very quickly on it.

http://www.fdzine.com/benn/2003nat/Gump190.mov

strong legs, and not strong shoulders/arms it seems :slight_smile:

51

Fair play guys - I’ve really enjoyed this thread over the past few days.

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Danier Baker published a very interesting series of studies on muscle power in rugby league football players in the May 2001 issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning research. One of the conclusions he came to after testing the maximal strength of college rugby players and professional rugby players in the jump squat and bench press (or bench throw as they termed it due to the explosive nature). He came to the conclusion that stronger athletes produce their maximum amount of power at a lower percentage of their 1 rep max (46-49% of the 1RM) compared to the weaker athletes who produced their greatest power at 64-69 % of their 1RM.

It isn’t a simple conclusion to say this should carry over to where the athlete should train for power development, but I think a solid case can be made for stronger atheletes training for power at a lower percentage than the 60% recommended by say Louie Simmons.

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If you check the logs over on Dave Tate’s site, you’ll see that they do use less than 60% for their dynamic day.

Shaf

54

I can see that the Aussie guys are arguing that high intensity weights are not as good for strength development, ie anything over 90%.

However, didnt Ben mostly work around his 6RM which would suggest around 85%? I know that its different when you are in a maintenance phase but in a strength phase dont people generally work between 4-6 reps which would all be under 90%?

Furthermore, wouldnt you treat weights like your sprinting in that any PB lifts ie for 3RM would then necessitate a drop in the intensity for a few days to recover from?

I noticed that working at a 5rm range for a month increased my bench from 110 to 120kgs, but I would hardly call myself a “trained” bench presser :stuck_out_tongue:

Looking to lift twice my bw in bench and 2.5 times for a deep squat, I think the easier approach will be to loose bodyweight :wink:

55

what does everyone else think about this?
someone like me gets PB’s nearly everytime i step into the weightroom as i am a late bloomer and matured later than everyone else.
i do not believe i should drop intensity to recover at all.

does this theory vary with training age? i have a training age of over 1.

also, does this theory work with the track as well? (i have a similar situation as i get PB’s in a regular routine…)

56

Charlie ~ You’d said, …" My feeling with athletes I worked with was that special endurance work seemed to keep them small and light for the kind of weights they could move, but, though I know the results and the overall work they did, like everyone, I’m left to speculate as to cause and effect…"

This might help explain why S.E. work seemed to keep them small. (While it pertains to cardio for bodybuilders, the principles can be adapted to the needs of sprinters):
http://www.ast-ss.com/articles/article.asp?AID=97

In summary, high-intensity, very brief ‘cardio’ sessions jack-up one’s metabolism far more than low-intensity, longer duration cardio. Jacking up your metabolism causes you to burn more calories over the course of the day that you indulge in such a ‘cardio’ session… moreso than low intensity cardio would.

57

A very brief cardio session is not really what is described in the article from a track perspective (pedalling as hard as possible etc) This is work to be done in conjunction with body building- where speed is irrelevant.
Employing this type of intense cardio with special endurance spells trouble.

58

Thanks. Could it be though that S.E. (as practiced by sprinters) has inherent in it, the ability to increase metabolism over the course of the hours post training, and in so doing, enhance one’s ability to stay lean? (I believe that I’d once asked the creator of that site if he thought that that would be so, and he seemed to think so).

59

It seems a little bit of a, to me, false dichotomy has arisen with respect to one’s max strength and how much this helps. One thing Louie Simmons says over and over is that you must increase strength without losing speed. Now, this is in a context of PL specifically; he’s talking about bar speed in the target lift. As it pertains to sprinting:

Seems to me you do want to continue to increase strength without, of course, slowing down. Is there a point of strength at which you are putting too much into that and should cap it and focus on other attributes? It seems that there would be such a point, but would you reach that point without training for max strength specifically? In other words, say a 300 Kg squat was somehow deeemed to be the point at which a given athlete has gotten what he can out of strength itself. Are you ever likely to hit that point without keying on 1RM strength(and that lift) specifically? I doubt it. So maybe we should get strong and then worry about what’s too much, while keeping in mind the concept that strength itself is not the goal.

I think I had a point there, but I’m not sure now :smiley:

60

I also wanted to reply to sloth’s assesment of Col’s methodology. IIRC, Col said that the fact that his lifts were increasing, without apparently losing speed, shows that his method is valid. Whereas sloth says that Col is still too new to training to be able to tell.

The very fact that his lifts are going up without losing speed or him getting hurt shows that his training protocol does work. For him. At this time. Which is all he was saying. Sloth’s saying he’s still essentially on beginner gains doesn’t really address the issue, IMO. Is there something else he could/should be doing, sloth? If so, can we see that?