tamfb
April 17, 2009, 3:14pm
38
RJ, it doesnt matter because it all boils down to results… How has the single leg lifts, no tempo or speed gone for you over the past 4yrs. Cant get any simplier then that…
Do what works for you!
Man, I’m ready to tear my hair out. You’re missing the point.
I’m going to try and condense this whole thing down as simply as I can.
All neural adaptations relevant to sprinting are gained through plyos and sprinting. Physical adaptations are gained through a combination of strength work, plyos, and sprints. The only real purpose weights need to serve in relation to sprinting is increasing muscle and tendon mass in relevant locations.
And as I’ve repeatedly said, single leg lifts allow for heavier loading of each leg individually. To demonstrate this once and for, I’m going to use the good morning as an example.
When you do a good morning you’re lifting roughly 40% of your body weight in addition to the bar weight. I weigh roughly 200 lbs and can GM 180 lbs for sets of 8.
Doing the math, that’s 260 lbs that both of my legs are lifting for each rep. (80 + 180)
That means that each leg is lifting 130 lbs and the spinal erectors are lifting the full 260.
When I do single leg GMs I can use 120 lbs for 8 reps. 120 lbs of bar weight plus 80 lbs of bodyweight equals 200 lbs. This means, each leg is now under 200 lbs of stress, even though the back is also only under 200 lbs.
So, breaking it down…
Though the back receives less of a training effect, the legs receive a much higher training effect. This distribution of stress between the back and legs is roughly how it is during sprinting. So, as you can see, using single leg lifts can actually load the legs better than during bilateral lifts, and since sprinting is a unilateral sport, the back does not need to be equally strong.