I’m wondering what the difference is when traning women (11.5 @ 100m electronic) when you consider plyos vs. weights???
I’m wondering if the plyo’s wouldn’t be a better choice when trying to increase the orgainisms strength as opposed to increasing the strength in the weightroom? The reason I wonder is because when women add muscle they tend not to be able to have the kind of force application that goes along with this muscle that a man does. I know that this is obvious. But what I’m getting at is would/could not the proper use of plyo’s help in the force development without the addition of muscle mass comparatively to weight training? So the use of speed + plyos be more effective than speed + weight training???
Taking a look at Torrence compared to Carlette Giddry (bad spelling).
You don’t have to get muscle mass with weights, if you don’t want to and I’d go with speed + weights especially for women. If the right training is there, they’ll get stronger anyway…
The chances for an injury from a plyos programme are greater for women vs. men (e.g., ACL).
If you have/want to use a plyos programme -of course, you can- make sure they land in the right way!
I’m wondering if the breadth exposure of the CNS demand on the body of weights (3 x 6-10 RM squats) would be more than that of plyos (30-40 max effort w/ full recovery). CNS exposure of plyos and weights will take away from the speed training which is first and foremost in the program.
For the specific example -and for any similar situation, for that matter- I wouldn’t know and couldn’t answer! I mean, how could you judge if one is more CNS-taxing than the other?
As for the second part of your post, that’s why Charlie and others have suggested that both plyos and weights should be performed after the track sessions with whatever is left; the latter becomes increasingly important as performance level increases. I also understand that not everybody agrees with this in practice -personal choice, I guess…
I agree that the speed comes first in the training session. I’m just wondering that if you were wanting to increase the organisms strength would a woman see more benefit from a plyo program or a weight training program? It’s all about increasing the organism strength. I’m just thinking about doing it without any gain in muscle mass for women.
I might repeat my self here, sorry, but I think you can achieve this by weight training and without significant increases in muscle mass -BB style, if this is what you mean. And I’d prefer this approach vs. plyos for women at least initially -you can be the judge of this, I suppose.
I think whether an athlete should do plyo/weight because they are a woman/man is an individual situation, and, not a cross the board gender situation.
You have to find out what the benefit/cost of each modality will have on that individual. For example if she has little background in weightlifting but is naturally strong, you might want to focus her strength on plyometrics. On the other hand, if she is prone to ankle and knee injuries she might want to stay away from plyometrics, especially the high intensity single leg ones.
The whole reason for this discussion is because I will have a female athlete at the end of July who is running 11.5 this season and has a PB of 11.36. In my opinion she already has a good amount of muscle mass in place. The last thing I’m wanting to do is make her gain more. I’m well read on the subject of strength and conditioning so I don’t really want to get into reps of 6 or more and if you go into reps of 5 or less the CNS demand is really quite high. So…comments/questions. Anybody…???
It seems to me and after reading your first and subsequent posts that you prefer plyos vs. weights for reasons you’ve explained; nothing wrong with this, after all you know the athlete better than us!
I still believe though that it’s difficult to judge which of the two will be more CNS taxing and if 30-40% plyos -as you’ve suggested- are less taxing, what’s the purpose of those, or at least in comparison with the weights?
You can keep the reps low, as you rightly suggesting, but in order to avoid any “extra” CNS stress, the load can be kept low, too; after all it’s a CP, I suppose and maintenance phase should fit better at the moment…
Lastly, reps COULD touch numbers of 5-6 in women, as they may respond differently vs. men -depends on the individual, of course.
Start with what you feel is more appropriate and see how it goes; ask her opinion, too and what she thinks from her experiences and her season’s background…
[QUOTE=Nikoluski]It seems to me and after reading your first and subsequent posts that you prefer plyos vs. weights for reasons you’ve explained; nothing wrong with this, after all you know the athlete better than us!
I still believe though that it’s difficult to judge which of the two will be more CNS taxing and if 30-40% plyos -as you’ve suggested- are less taxing, what’s the purpose of those, or at least in comparison with the weights?
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m simply ASKING. I don’t know (can only guess - slightly educated) about the plyo vs. weights debate. My only reasoning is that the time under tension at a significant load is highly demanding on the CNS compared to that of plyos provided that both are maximal efforts with full recoveries.
You can keep the reps low, as you rightly suggesting, but in order to avoid any “extra” CNS stress, the load can be kept low, too; after all it’s a CP, I suppose and maintenance phase should fit better at the moment…
Lastly, reps COULD touch numbers of 5-6 in women, as they may respond differently vs. men -depends on the individual, of course.
Typically in women you find that a maximum effort for repetitions (RM) is closer to their 1RM than men.
Start with what you feel is more appropriate and see how it goes; ask her opinion, too and what she thinks from her experiences and her season’s background…
Thanks for the continued input.
Charlie, what have your experiences (direct/indirect) been with this topic???
