I notice must people on the forum recommend the weighted pants over the vest. I have not seen weight pants in track catalogs or on websites. Where can I find one?
Charlie addressed this specifically. Avoid weighted pants, vests, etc. Making the athlete heavier will cause the hip height to drop, which is the exact opposite of what you want. Regarding weight pants, there’s no need to specifically load the hip flexors. They don’t work against resistance during the sprint action, the limiting factor is ground contact. The key to the hip flexors is to maintain optimal length and tissue texture. In other words, proper massage and stretching will do more for your hip flexors than loading them. Furthermore, if you load the hips, the knee will come up toward the chest when it is lifted, rather than forward, which will screw up you sprint mechanics even more.
In general, I’m not a fan of resisted sprinting. I think it’s part of the whole technotronic gadget approach that has caused sprint training methods to regress over the last 10-15 years. However, if you want to use some resistance, use an Isorobic unit or a weighted sled.
Search the archives.
whats does everyone think about using weight vests for squat jumps? or any type of jumps?
TJ,
Weight vests are more applicable to drills and jumps. But I would still be cautious when it comes to plyometrics since the purpose is to reduce ground contact to a minimum, which extra weight will work against. However, weight vests might be useful for contrast training, e.g., one jump with light weight (<10% bodyweight) followed by 3-4 unweighted jumps.