Ha, I know Carlos Moore very well… I hope he does well!!! Matter fact, here are some good shots of Carlos; this was taken inside a gym we both would work out in…
http://www.iballer.com/models/aa_malemodels/malemodels_MR/moore_carlos/index.htm
Are you suggesting that hill work can increase mass in the patella tendon?
And this is the first time I have heard some one suggesting more hill work for stiffness. (I’m not suggesting you are wrong, I just interested.)
When you say stiffness, I hope you are meaning ‘musculoskeletal stiffness’ and not tendon stiffness?
[QUOTE=Goose232;212482]Are you suggesting that hill work can increase mass in the patella tendon?
QUOTE]
It was his psoas major that was massive. His patella tendon showed a high degree of stiffness, but there was no mention of its size.
[quote="“robin1,post:60,topic:40404”]
I saw the video, and yes, I distinctly remember them showing the psoas major muscles across Asafas’ hips as being allmost double the cross-sectional mass of Japan’s top sprinter.
However, ‘Go Fast’ seems to imply that Asafas’ patella tendon also has impressive mass.
Quote from ‘Go-fast’;
“The Japanese docu observation of Asafa’s massive patella tendon could be coming from the hill runs and sled work.” (un-quote)
That’s why I am asking him for clarification that he meant as he implied.
As a side note question Robin, would you say that hills can increase the stiffness of patella tendon compared to the track?
And is it stiffness or compliance that we want from this tendon?, as we have heard opposing theories on these matters.
[quote="“Goose232,post:5,topic:40768”]
Sorry, I should have quoted Go-Fast’s original message.
Charlie suggested that Asafa’s large psoas major may be the result of hill sprints. As far as I know, Stephen Francis’ group do their hill sprints on concrete. The tendon stiffness is thus more likely a result of the large volume of training they do on grass.
Regarding psoas size, the study group compared Asafa to Asahara, a Japanese sprinter. Studies comparing psoas size in black and white individuals have shown that this muscle is substantially larger in blacks. The finding of this study group thus probably reflects a genetic/racial difference rather than the result of any particular type of training.
See, for example:
Anatomical differences in the psoas muscles in young black and white men
PATRICK HANSON a1 c1 , S. PETER MAGNUSSON a1 a2 , HENRIK SORENSEN a1 and ERIK B. SIMONSEN a1
a1 Department of Medical Anatomy C, Laboratory for Functional Anatomy and Biomechanics, The Panum Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
a2 Team Danmark Test Center/Sports Medicine Research Unit, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
The anatomy of the psoas major muscle (PMA) in young black and white men was studied during routine autopsies. The forensic autopsies included 44 fresh male cadavers (21 black, 23 white) with an age span of 14 to 25 y. The range for weight was 66–76 kg and for height 169–182 cm. The PMA was initially measured in its entire length before measuring the diameter and circumference at each segmental level (L1–S1). At each segmental level, the calculated anatomical cross-sectional area (ACSA) was more than 3 times greater in the black group compared with the white (P<0.001). The psoas minor muscle (PMI) was absent in 91% of the black subjects, but only in 13% of the white subjects. These data show that the PMA is markedly larger in black than white subjects. The marked race specific difference in the size of the PMA may have implications for hip flexor strength, spine function and race specific incidence in low back pathology, and warrants further investigation.
more than 3x greater??? wtf
[quote="“Goose232,post:5,topic:40768”]
From what KK posted, it appears that the short hills end in January (replaced by SE). But heavy sleds are done for SIX MONTHS and twice a week starting in January. So I’m guessing that Asafa’s development (including stiffness?) comes from the power emphasis from the sleds.
But another side to Franno’s training. If you look at splits side-by-side like they have at elitetrack, you see Bolt running .82s…and Asafa running .84s. As Charlie has said many times, the person with the highest MaxV usually wins the race. Is Asafa losing to Usain because Franno doesn’t do 60’s and doesn’t run at MaxV (so in a race, he doesn’t quite have what Usain has)?
Guess it’s time to bust out the heavy decline situps, huh?
The higher number of 100m competitions for Asafa should weight on the balance regarding the MaxV work done. Asafa has hit 0.83 on several occasions, one was done by IAAF during the WAF in 2008, 9.87 wind +0.4 and cold weather 14°. By contrast, 9.69 was done with 28° temp (data from official results). I’m not sure MaxV is Asafa’s problem. Actually Asafa wasn’t himself in Beijing final and lost to Bolt from the start. In Stockholm, they seem pretty even in the middle of the race, Bolt catching Asafa in the last 20m. As for Bruxelles, it seems that Bolt had a better top speed but i can’t say for sure because i wasn’t filming the race.
Excuse me because I have nothing to contribute, other than to say what a superb discussion this is. Thankyou to all serious contributors herein 
how much of acceleration and top speed development can we attach to the size and strength of the psoas major? Also there has been rumour of bolt using heavier sleds than arafa
Bare with me, because I believe the following to be relevent to ze question;
Russian weightlifting great; Vasiley Alexeyev, is the one that most impressed the Russian coaches in the famous 1960’s test, where athletes from different sports took part. They were suprised by how fast Vasiley Alexeyev was over 20 meters. My point is that although he was not as fast as olympic sprinters from 30meters on, he was faster than the other weighlifters. Could the following factor be a part of the reason?
Vasiley alexeyev did 1000 knee lifts in waist deep water, every morning. He considered it as work capacity training. (But consider that it must have greatly strengthened his psoas major muscles).
Could that be the reason he was faster over the 20 meter sprints than practically al other eigtlifters, or was it only because his rate of force development in posterior chain was higher. (after all, he was pretty mean in the snatch lift and clean and jerk.) But then so were a lot of the other weightlifters. But none of the other weightlifters did 1000 knee lifts per day as their morning work out.
Now, i’m not pretending Vasiley alexeyev could hold a candle to an olympic sprinter when it came to max v. For starters, he looked anything but a sprinter, his gut was massive.
But for some reason he was faster than the other weighlifters who had comparable rate of force development (they were all very powerfull.)
What would be the best way (and more practical) of developing the psoas? Could anything possibly beat sprints at developing psoas? If so, then I’d add such an exercise to the program. So long as it doesn’t come with the problems that sit ups do, such as low back pain in the middle of the set.
Now “Rj24” has suggested decline sit ups. he sais ‘heavy’ but I’m not sure that ‘heavy’ is the way to go with the psoas?
I’m still thinking hill sprints is probably the number one way to develope them.
[quote="“robin1”]
How can the PMI be missing in so many individuals? That is very interesting to me. Does the missing PMI allow for a larger PMA and therefore we cannot do much to increase size and strength of PMA?
if were attributing the psoas major as a factor in acceleration, and the development of this muscle can be done with hill sprints. In what way is the his flexor being used. Are we saying its the drive forward bringing the knee up high which works the muscle or the drive down from a high position?
A-J, the psoas works in generating hip flexion, so it’s working when we’re driving the leg up. As for why hip flexion is so important, that’s a bit tougher to answer.
One line of reasoning is that strong psoas muscles, combined with equally strong abdominals, could facilitate better/more efficient front side mechanics. With strong hip flexors and abs, the trail leg will not trail behind the body as much, and this point leads to two more sub-points.
Sub-point one is that stopping excess backside mechanics will put one in better position to run at top speed. If we look at the greatest sprint performers of this era (Bolt, Powell, Gatlin), the one thing that really stands out is amazing front side mechanics.
And sub-point two is that eliminating the backside mechanics will mean the legs are cycling over a smaller ROM. Since that’s the case, there will be more air time in each stride where the muscles aren’t contracting. During this extended air time, the body will have slightly more time to regenerate ATP and therefore running efficiency will be improved and endurance will rise (ie. you’ll be able to sustain higher speeds for longer periods of time).
The other line of reasoning is that during acceleration a powerful hip flexion will lead to a powerful hip extension of the opposite leg. There’s a thing called the inverse-extension reflex, and it makes it so when one leg is forcefully extended, the other other leg is forcefully flexed and vice versa. In this way, a more powerful hip flexion during either top speed or acceleration would lead to a stronger reflex-potentiated hip extension of the opposite leg.
And Goose, pretty much regardless of what muscle group is being trained, heavier weights and intermediate reps (think bodybuilding) are the best at generating hypertrophy. Therefore sets of 8-12 of weighted decline situps would probably be the fastest way of enlarging and strengthening the psoas.
Obviously, Asafa has not been at his best at major championships, and what comes to mind here is the work Charlie did 2 years ago about the number of races Asafa needs to get to a peak performance. But when I look through the IAAF list for 2007-2008 I see 14 and 16 races, whith maybe only 8 before WC/OG.
Asafa eventually gets there, but compare with Bolt in s-l with Glen Mills openly talking about speed from day one. Yes, Bolt ran 4 200s at the end of his s-l to get ready for Beijing, but he was already on top before he ran those 200s.
Now that I see the actual training, the whole situation starts to make sense. I can’t help wondering if the real problem of not getting to his best for major championships is that, without any MaxV work in training, the whole progression simply takes too long.
The following exercises will develop psoas muscles and other hip flexor muscles.
Step-ups.
Cable hip flex machine
Sit-ups
Hill runs
Hanging leg raises touching hands with the foot.
Multi hip machine
Hurdle walk overs.
Weighted pants (doing high knees)
High knees for strength endurance
Tendon compliance and be developed with ballistic stretching.
Short duration static stretching.
PNF stretching.
Grass sprints.
Plyometrics (low volume).
Tendon stiffness
Large volume of strength training
Resistance work
Plyometrics (high volume)
Sprinting on hard surfaces.
you mean physically there?
What about the lack of “total” triple extension that Asafa shows while at top speed, while Bolt is the usual triple extender.
edit: I misexpresed, I mean hip rom.
No, I meant the comments that Franno made in the seminar that KK reported (including the comment about no Max Velocity training at all), and the training phases (at least through January) listed.