As far as I’m aware, the purpose of weight training for a sprinter is to :
Teach the body to recruit more motor high threshold motor units
Provide a general stimulus to the CNS
Strengthen muscles, bones, connective tissues etc, thereby helping to improve performance and prevent injury
Increase the lean muscle mass of the sprinter, thereby giving him the confidence to take his shirt off after the race and strut in front of his adoring fans
Am I missing anything above?
Since the forces transmitted through each leg during a sprinting stride are equal to approximately 4 times bodyweight, surely this would provide sufficient stimulus to strengthen the muscles, bones and connective tissues.
The forces transmitted through the body during a plyometric exercise such as a depth jump is equal to approximately 6-8 times bodyweight. Surely this would obviate the need to lift weights, since no one could ever lift 6-8 x bodyweight.
An exercise such as a depth jump would also surely recruit more motor units than any exercises sprinters do in the weight room, and definitely provides a sufficient stimulus to the CNS.
This covers 3 out of the 4 main purposes of weight training for a sprinter as listed above.
So, if all the main purposes of weight training for a sprinter can be achieved by sprinting and plyometrics alone, why lift?
Am I missing something? If so, could someone please enlighten me?
The downside of lifting as I see it is an inevitable increase in muscle mass (even if the reps are kept low) and an increased time necessary to recover from one sprint training workout to the next due to muscle soreness. Sprinting and plyometrics alone will achieve all of the purposes of lifting apart from an increase in muscle mass. Now, why would a sprinter want to increase his muscle mass? It’s interesting that the 3 fastest Japanese sprinters of all time - Ito, Asahara and Suetsugu never included weight training in their program prior to running 10.00, 10.02 and 10.03 respectively. Asahara moved to Texas to be coached by Pfaff and started to incorporate lifting in his program. He is now visibly more muscular and no doubt much stronger in the weight room, yet he hasn’t come near his 10.02 run. He is also a lot less consistent. Has the inclusion of lifting into his program made him slower? Maybe, or maybe not. Has the inclusion of lifting in his program made him faster? Definitely not.
I agree many athletes do not improve from doing weights.
however, this does not take away from the importance of weights as a training aid.
The reason why many athletes do not benefit from weights, is that their power to bodyweight ratio may actually decrease or stagnate depite gaining muscle mass.
For myself, i would never have improved from 12.5 seconds for the 100m when 19 to 11.2 without weights. While my body weight increased from 70kg to 90kg, my full squat also improved from 80kg to 170kg. Hence, my power to weight did improve.
The same is true of great athletes like Ben johnson, despite his improvement in all aspects of his running including top speed technique. If you look at the data, his poundages per bodyweight did improve notably from 1984 to 1988 thus easily accounting for his weight increase from 73 to 79kg.
Of course, putting on weight without improving one’s power to weight in the specific muscles is a waste of time.
Nevertheless, if poundage increases offset body weight increase as part of an intelligent program that includes the necessary track work, then weight training remains a vital training aid.
The reason for lifting weights is to work the force velocity curve at a different point on the graph. The idea is that improvement at any point along the graph will have a positive effect at other points along the graph.
Why work at different points? Well, at different stages in a race, different characteristics are needed. In addition, if all we did was work at one end, stagnation would result after anywhere from 6 - 12 weeks. As you hit that plateau, you need another training element to cycle in. Weight training gives you another alternative. Note that it is not the only alternative and different programs make greater or lesser use of it, but I can’t see any reason to throw out an effective training modality.
I find weight training really good for injury prevention. Keeps your muscles, tendons, ligaments etc nice and strong plus allows greater stability through your core and increased coordination.
I dont think weights should dominate a sprinters program but they should be complimentary to it.
Increases in strength primarily result from two mechanisms:
(Functional) Hypertrophy (FH)
Neural adaptations
Increased motor unit recruitment
Decreased inhibition
In order to induce FH a threshold of TUT must be reached. Since plyometrics involves only brief (<0.2s) periods of TUT FH will be minimal . Also plyometrics in addition to sprinting (a mode of plyometrics!) will lead to an increase in tendon compliance that will ultimately interfere with the transmission of force (read decreased running speed). Heavy lifting will have the inverse effect - increase tendon stiffness.
BTW I think you overestimate the forces that are generated during drop jumping.
Zatsiorsky in “Science & practice of strength training” cites the example of how an athlete can increase vertical jump substantially by increasing his squat from 100kg to 200kg, but see no vertical jump improvement while increasing squat max from 200kg to 300kg b/c he already has sufficient max strength. What does the athlete lack? Limit strength or rate of force development (quickness)? As for upper body weight training for sprinters and jumpers, it’s overrated. The extra strength is usually negated by the added body weight…
Originally posted by spartacus
For myself, i would never have improved from 12.5 seconds for the 100m when 19 to 11.2 without weights. While my body weight increased from 70kg to 90kg, my full squat also improved from 80kg to 170kg. Hence, my power to weight did improve.
Your strength to weight ratio increased, but that doesn’t mean your power output went up as much.
There is no correlation between moving something heavy slowly and something else faster in a shorter time frame.
But the potential is there, you just haven’t realised it that’s all
Weight training is one of the best ways to improve performance in sprinting. However, all weight training is not the same. Often times we see an athlete that puts on a few pounds and gets great result from it. This does not mean it will work for you. The bigest determining factor is supplements. If you have the right supps, a 10lb increase in body weight may allow you to bench over twice your body weight. However, its very unlikely for the average sprinter taking only his multi vit.
David W, you say that ‘plyometrics in addition to sprinting will lead to an increase in tendon compliance that will ultimately interfere with the transmission of force (read decreased running speed)’.
Where can I find research that supports this?
It was the late, great Dr Mel Siff who said that depth jumps can produce up to 6-8 x bodyweight forces. This was one of the reasons he gave in support of weight training for youngsters i.e the forces produced in the normal running and jumping that kids do is far greater than the forces produced in heavy lifting. Dr Siff spent his whole life reading research, so he’s unlikely to be wrong about this.
Sdblue, I agree that upper body weight training for sprinters does not result in a faster arm swing, just as it doesn’t result in a faster jab in boxing. Again, increased hypertrophy (even if functional) will offset any gains in performance. Unlike the legs, which apply force to the ground, the arms only have to overcome the resistance of air.
I believe that the former Japanese 400m champion, Takano, coached Ito (10.00), and Asahara (10.02) and currently coaches Suetsugu (10.03). I’ve read that lifting played no role at all in the programs of these sprinters. These are the 3 top Japanese sprinters of all time. There must be a good reason why Takano chose not to incorporate lifting into these sprinters’ programs. Surely they would have access to weights if they wanted to use them. I’d really like to know the reasons why coach Takano doesn’t use lifting.
Would anyone else like to comment on the purpose of weight training for sprinters? I’d really like Charlie, Dcw and Sharmer to give their thoughts on this.
Thanks.
So weight training increases tendon stiffness?
Do the tendons not need to stretch during sprinting? I thought it was the other way round as the faster the animmal, the more the tendon stretches. The muscles hold almost isommetricaly whilst the tendon stretches. The tendons then “unstretch”, pulling the other limb through very quickly as certain muscles relax and have most length change during relaxed phases rather than tensed phases. This explains the “cyclic” nature of sprinting. After all, it would be impossible for the muscles do do all that work and movement themselves. But David W sais we need tendon “stiffness”, and I know he’s very educated with a 6.92 electronic 60 meter time with no sprint training the previous two years. That I won’t sneeze at!
But what about Bob Hayes who before he joined the Dallas Cowboys didn’t lift weights. (Like when he ran 8.7 sec relay split.) What about Kenderis and Carl Lewis who don’t give a fine **** for the weights. Then again, big Ben did. More discussion is needed.
Regarding peak power generated by elastic recoil of a tendon, there is an optimum ideal tension within a given tendon for a specific force applied , ie. too elastic or too stiff results in weaker limb power.
However, regarding sprinting, I wonder if the tension of certain tendons is greater than would be necessary for peak limb power, eg. a longer achilles tendon (effectively increased elasticity) has been correlated with higher vertical jump, and greater sprinting speed in athletes.
during my track season thisp ast year i stopped weight training during the season. Bad call by me. I was extremely inconsistent. One day I would run a 12.0 and hten 3 days later I would run a 11.4. Now when My season ended I got up on weights, did my own little thing, found the CFTS program, bought it, adopted hte whole program and now I am running consistantly in the 11’s. I have ran 3 meet’s so far and in those three meet’s I have ran 11.4, 11.6(ran a day after the 11.4 in Junior Olympic qualifying meet), and 11.5. I have never ran those times 3 in a row consistently before. I don’t know if weight training was part of this but I am not complaining.
Originally posted by Fabio
during my track season thisp ast year i stopped weight training during the season. Bad call by me. I was extremely inconsistent. One day I would run a 12.0 and hten 3 days later I would run a 11.4. Now when My season ended I got up on weights, did my own little thing, found the CFTS program, bought it, adopted hte whole program and now I am running consistantly in the 11’s. I have ran 3 meet’s so far and in those three meet’s I have ran 11.4, 11.6(ran a day after the 11.4 in Junior Olympic qualifying meet), and 11.5. I have never ran those times 3 in a row consistently before. I don’t know if weight training was part of this but I am not complaining.
That’s why I stated
"and Consistency try running fast time week in- out w/ out strength…
David W,
What about the stuff about plyometrics causing an increase in tendon compliance (and ultimately a decrease in running speed through I assume longer contact time?) and decreased force transmssion, can you provide some evidence to support that?
To my mind quickmick brings up a valid question. Over the years there have been many oustanding sprinters who haven’t done much, if any training with weights. In fact prior to the 1970’s such training was rarely undertaken, yet many of these guys would still be world-class today give advances in track surfaces and to a lesser degree running spikes.
According to Charlie, the East Germans did very little in the way of weigth training. Obadele Thompson didn’t touch a weight until he started traing with Dan Pfaff, and hasn’t really improved in the interim. Carl Lewis was did little to no weights until 1996, and even then stopped in April. Going back little further the San Jose State sprinters under Bud Winter didn’t use weights, and Jesse Owens’ coach specifically forbid him from touching them; these guys would still be at the top of the sprint world today.
As for 400m runners there may be as many world class MALES not using weights as there are using them at this point. It appears that in many cases the added mass from hypertrophy isn’t worth the slight increase in power for this race. That may be were Takano is coming from with his methods.
As for jumps work/plyometrics causing a slackening of the tendons, I just don’t buy it David, and I would like to see some documentation to support such a claim. In my experience, the opposite of what you are saying has been the case.
It would seem to me that the methods that a coach chooses to utilize need to suit both himself and his athlete. Weights are simply a general component which form the basis for more specific form of training.
btw, quickmick , it would be great if you could share little more of your knowledge of what the Japanese sprinters ARE doing in the way of training.
I like weights my body responds really well to them pyshique and strength wise. Right now I’m not using them becuase I don’t have access but I plan to when I get back to college. I think from personal experiance the biggest problem from adding weights to a program is having the additional recovery methods avaible to deal with them. Weights can make your body really tight(at least they can make my body really tight)so when I plan to add weights when I go back to school I plan to stretch even more and mabye order some of those GO drinks and get some ZMA(I might even get those supplements sooner). But basically if your going to add weights you need to stretch more and make sure you have proper recovery methods. Also I think It’s a good idea to add weights gradually and not to cut back on the speed work.Increase the volume of the weights slowly and at your own pace to preserve the high quality of your speedwork.
