In my opinion, and this is something that I know Charlie has stated since day 1, you’re asking for trouble when you ignore sprint work.
sprinting is such a highly coordinated/skilled ability. For this reason, it is imperative that it is a constant in the program so that any improvements in muscle size and strength are harmoniously transmuted into faster sprinting.
Yes, and the absence of sprinting leaves a greater amount of current adaptive reserves for the weight work. This is why strength, in the bench press for example, always goes up when a sprinter is sidelined with a leg issue.
First off there’s no such thing as non-functional. It’s all functional it just depends on whether the function being trained is relevant to the training objective.
For the sprinter, the function of weights during an injury period is the same as it is during any other time- a means of general organism strength. The caveat is that the lack of sprint work leaves more capacity for weights during injured status.