How do you guys feel about foot strength, calf strength, and force absorption?
I have been doing a lot of barefoot tempo in an attempt to improve my foot strength and I feel it has helped me somewhat. However, my calves are pretty weak - I can only do about 15 single leg, unweighted calf raises before serious fatigue sets in, while I have read here that people are doing multiple sets of 20, 50, or 100? Does a lack of foot or calf strength seriously affect the performance of a sprinter? Could your hips be generating more power than your lower leg can handle, effectively applying the brakes?
How would you advance your squat if you felt your were significantly weak in terms of general strength? What kind of reps and sets would you use to raise general strength in the SPP?
When a sprinter has good acceleration (3.95e 30m blocks) and poor relative top speed (3.0 fly30), where does that signify weakness?
Is it better to include a higher volume or higher frequency of speed work? Or is it an individual thing?
Has anybody experienced with planned overtraining? If you are anticipating a break/vacation/absence, do you find that planning a very hard week before a longer than usual break?
I am kinda playing around with the so called “planned overtraining” method using the bp, the last two weeks i have been bench pressing 4 times per week using very low volume and i have just completed my 8th session today and probably wont touch a weight till tue or wed of next week. I wouldnt use this method if ur primary sport is track and field. when using this method you will be stronger once you return to ur nomral training program.
Don’t bother trying to get your calves to grow if your goal is sprint performance. Big calves are a hindrance not a benefit. Barefoot work should be enough for strength.
Progressive overload.
Stronger than you are fast/reactive. Might be a little more quad dominant than posterior chain.
I am not worried about the size of the calves, but their strength and ability to transfer the forces generated to the ground. Is there a way to determine when calf strength is sufficient?
Would squating heavy day after day lead to stagnation? Should I look to vary the sets/reps while still working above a certain threshold (say 80% or 1RM)?
That is what I also thought but I feel that I am relatively weak (325lb squat @ 185lbs) and also tall (6’3") lending to poorer acceleration.
Thought so.
What about when you know the sprinter is going to have a significant period away from any training (except perhaps some tempo)? Would you schedule more work, maybe at submax to avoid injury, but more breadth that normal to make up for the loss of training time in the future?
As is said above, if you are doing the barefoot work and your training in conjunction with all of the Mach drills, general plyos, sprinting etc. those training elements will almost certainly strengthen your calves to more than sufficient levels.
The body can become stale if you are not providing some variability in the loads it’s exposed to. Unless one is in a maintenance phase or flat loading for a short time, you should vary your percentages over time.
Taller people are going to have difficulty, generally, in an acceleration phase due to poorer leverage than the leverage that shorter sprinters possess. This is another reason why Powell and Bolt are so exceptional(besides the times themselves that they can perform). It is likely that strength improvements, for you, over time will make a significant impact on your acceleration capacity.
I am saying that I am suprised by by 30m blocks time considering my relative weakness in the squat as well as my long levers. And why, considering these factors, my accel would be better than my top speed (relatively).
In essence, what I am asking is that what would someone with these characteristics - mediocre squat, long levers, good accel, poor relative max v and hip height, young training age - have strengths and weaknesses in that would allow him to perform in this way?
Very tough to say since so many variables determine the final outcome. Possible explainations might include: 1)you might be somehow genetically predisposed to performing at a higher level in one aspect of speed and not necessarily the other 2)whatever has contributed to the current development you possess as an athlete, whether or not it was planned training to achieve such or not, has essentially put you in position to perform at that level in one aspect of speed but not to the same degree as another. The activities carried out as a kid and then into early adulthood have obviously gotten you where you are today.
Perhaps the max. velocity is there to get out of you but your current program or the ones you conducted in the past did not allow the m.v. to develop at the same rate as your accelerative ability?
Incidentally, did you test both the block 30 and fly 30under the same conditions/timing protocols to ensure the comparison to be made is an accurate one?
Maybe some time simply maintaining acceleration ability(lowered volumes) with more time/effort spent in the training of the m.v. component for a short 3-4 week phase?
Yes I agree that significantly more time has been spent developing acceleration, I was just wondering if there was anything obvious in this description, besides lack of focus in a specific area of speed.
Just from that info. alone nothing sticks out for me except, possibly, the poor hip height unless you are stating that as simply being symptomatic of your problems. It could possibly be a red flag if you have never truly focussed on achieving and maintaining good hip height though clearly, there is more to doing this well then simply being aware of it as a focal point(power output) but that can still be a major issue. If so then no, nothing truly sticks out. It could, in part, be a technical issue of hip height, incorrect/lacking arm action to unweight the support leg upon ground contact, etc.
In truth, probably not enough info from which to make an accurate evaluation.
