Hi,
Is is better to do sprinting and plyometrics before or after lower body workouts? Or would you get better results doing them on separate days? Should you avoid sprinting or running after upper body workouts?
Always do speed work before lifting, even if lifting is your primary pursuit. There’s too great a risk that the fatigue caused by lifting could result in injury during the subsequent speed work, which puts rather violent forces through the muscles.
For those who are new to the forum, there was a rumor started several years ago that Ben Johnson lifted weights before spinting, in particular just before his 9.79 run in '88. That rumor is completely flase. I thought I’d save Charlie from the trouble of refuting this story for the millionth time.
Plyos are a little trickier. Depending on the intensity of the plyo work, you can do some before speed work to potentiate the stretch-shortening cycle and get the propriocetors firing. I did some of this work with Charlie recently. If the plyos are high intensity (e.g., depth jumps) leave them for after the speed work for the same reasons as the weights. I would do them on the same day as the speed work (to the extent you have any energy left after sprinting). It’s better to do your CNS work on the same day, so that you can recover the next day.
If you’re too tired after the speed work, just reduce or drop the plyos and weights for that day. It all depends on how much fuel you have in the gas tank on a given day, which will fluctuate from one high intensity workout to another for a variety of reasons.
Don’t worry about reducing the plyos and weights. If you’re tired from the sprinting, then by definition you’ve already gotten plenty of high intensity work for the day. If you keep pushing at that point, you’re just going to overtrain.
Regarding the upper body work, I would suggest working the whole body at once. If you’re lifting to support speed training you won’t be able to tolerate a more extensive split routine that is typical in bodybuiling circles.
What i´ve noticed is that, after weights, free movements like run, jump, etc, etc, became much faster than usual, it´s funny, it´s like you´re like Superman.
Try this, after your weights, do that stand vertical jump, pulling your feet against the ass very fast, like sprinters use to do before races.
But as Flash said, risks of an injurie became present too.
perceived effort makes movements seem faster after weights, but your actually slower. the russians performed studies that proved this. all this depends on the intensity and volume of the lifting of course.
Well, i´m not sure about this, at least for me.
I´m gonna test this and post here the results.
Thanks Flash. I guess its always better to do plyos before any heavy lifting to stay fresh. Flying, Ive have tried doing plyos and sprinting an hour after weight training and I felt much faster, actually. But if studies showed otherwise, then I better follow it, just to be on the safe side.
Thanks!
And i´m with you on this, at the end of the day, studies bring the results not just a simple exception. 
Just a quick point - I have always thought that resistance training carried out before sprinting increased speed due to the pretentiation effect. I had heard about this from a few people, and so I thought I wold give it a go. I set up my own experiment, using blocks over 30, with electronic timing gates. A did a start, and found my time. Then I did a set of four starts using a resistance harness, then did another start without it. My 30m time from the blocks was about 0.05 quicker. To me, it seems that it is beneficial to do some sort of resistance work before speed work, but obviously not to a massivly fatiguing effect, and not all the time. Any thoughts?
A few sets of resistance work can stimulate the CNS.
Just a quick point - I have always thought that resistance training carried out before sprinting increased speed due to the pretentiation effect. I had heard about this from a few people, and so I thought I wold give it a go. I set up my own experiment, using blocks over 30, with electronic timing gates. A did a start, and found my time. Then I did a set of four starts using a resistance harness, then did another start without it. My 30m time from the blocks was about 0.05 quicker. To me, it seems that it is beneficial to do some sort of resistance work before speed work, but obviously not to a massivly fatiguing effect, and not all the time. Any thoughts?
You are on the right track. It all depends on intensity, frequency, and volume as to the effect you get. With your own study, make sure you are thoroughly warmed up for your pre run, as sometimes the pre run will warm you up for a faster post run, even though you might not have actually been faster. Hope that makes sense.