Weights for speed

[system]

@star61

I would disagree with this statement. There are other questions that need to be answered, such as ‘how close to 5RM are the 5 x 5 sets’? And how many track athletes do you know that can do 5 reps with 2 x bodyweight? An 180lb. athlete who can do 5 reps at 2 x bodyweight as part of a 5 x 5, at the intensities discussed above, would have a 1RM of around 435-440lbs. Do you know many 180 sprinters, other than elite, that bench that much? I doubt CF was limiting his response to the very few athletes on this board that can perform at that level.

While I may be wrong and CF may correct me, I think you may be underestimating the CNS load that a demanding benchpress workout can provide, even in the 1-1.5 x bodyweight range, especially if we’re talking about warmup plus 25 reps twice a week. Its not that you can’t recover, but you may be dipping too deeply into the CNS pool, which would still have detrimental effects on the sprint side of things.

Clearly, I meant 1.8-2.0bw for 1rm, not for a full 5x5 workout. Even so, you are getting minimal fatigue and the rest between workouts is the exact SAME as CF’s! CF has lifting MWF (so 48hrs recovery) and this one simply has the 2/3 the work (2 5x5 workouts versus 3 or whatever). The workloads are distributed over a longer time frame AND you still have the same amount of rest.

I don’t care how common or not common it is for a 180lb sprinter or anyone else to have a 1.8-2.0x bw bench press. The fact is, you are not getting significant amounts of fatigue from it to the point where you need more than 48hrs to recover from. You are going to have next to no issues doing it the say after speed. Plenty of programs have high intensity work, in some form, DAILY. Literally daily for months on end. The key is how the work is distributed, as Charlie has said numerous times. Let me guess, you think Charlie never has multiple hard days in a row? So when someone goes up to Toronto, they aren’t sprinting 3 days in a row… And the GPP template doesn’t have 6 days a row of lifting?

Sorry, but you just clearly missed the whole point of my post.

And yeah, if someone is doing 1.0x bw for 5x5, they are not generating significant fatigue. Just like a 12.0 second sprinter isn’t causing enough fatigue to need 10 days of rest after a PR.

If you are too fatigued from 2 5x5 workouts at the low loads you are talking about AND having 48 hours until your next high intensity stimulus to be able to sprint effectively, you should take up another sport.