I was going to say the same thing twhite said. Bolt does weights real early in the AM, albeit seemingly relatively light, and the track in the late afternoon. I’ve never tried.
Trey Hardee also lifts in the AM.
I was going to say the same thing twhite said. Bolt does weights real early in the AM, albeit seemingly relatively light, and the track in the late afternoon. I’ve never tried.
Trey Hardee also lifts in the AM.
Bolt does this, Gay does that -what’s the relevance to Silencer23 posting the question, if anyone knows anything about him? I don’t get it… Anyway, things are not exactly written on paper for non-professional guys (well, they are not for anyone…). So, if lifestyle forces someone to miss weights altogether after sprinting, then you have to do something about it. If the gap is appropriate between morning and evening sessions, morning weights is an option. As already posted by Silencer23 this poses an energy resources question and being aware of this is important! Ultimately though whether this format and/or the details of the morning session suit the athlete will be evident on the track. Feel free to try it, if you have to and if it fits your overall plan of the season (e.g., SPP goals in order to reap benefits later), but not for the sake of just doing double sessions, of course.
Silencer23, if there is no other way for you to do this then that’s fine. Optimally you should do your speed first, but if you have 8-9 hours in between, and you’re eating immediately after weights and keeping hydrated, then you should still be able to do quality speed work in the pm. If you’re finding it is having a negative impact on your speed work but you still feel like you need to do weights in the am, change them up (do less).
I’d like to know though, can you sprint in the am and do weights in the pm? Can you sprint AND then do weights right after your speed work?
What stimulus effect do you think you are getting exactly, and are the resources you are “stealing” from your evening session going to hurt your performance in the evening? Speed is very, very delicate. If you’re lifting heavy in the morning, then there is a good chance you are not going to run your fastest in the evening.
Sady, 30 reps per exercise? Are you a marathoner or a sprinter? Whether you lift lower or upper body in the morning, the effect will be the same on the speed in the evening.
what do you and others classify as morning? There is a hell of a difference between training at 6am and getting up at 7am then training at 11am.
Herb great to see you on here again. Its been a good while. Not to Hijack the thread but I have a question with regards to weights after speed. Im currently in the last week (week 7) of my GPP on a S-to-L programme. With training after work, time can be quite restricted. Is there anything wrong with missing the odd weights session in the SPP? If it becomes a problem can EMS on a partiular setting be used in replacement (if so…what setting/programme). Or do you take the approach that a missed session here or there wont be harmful? Thanks in advance.
The advantage of CF approach is that you know how tired you are from the sprinting and can adjust the weight load accordingly. The John Smith approach obviously works (Marion as well as Ato, Mo, Jet, etc) but the weights are normally in the hypertrophy range with JS. If you lift hard, then sprint hard, it is very easy for your CNS to get cooked.
If you’ve seen Bolt’s weight program, you know how he could get way with it.
JasonUK, in one of his DVDs Charlie says that during SPP (and MxS in the gym) and because plans can change for various reasons, it’s better to have in mind an appropriate target and key sessions towards this target that you need to execute rather than a specific timing these should be performed (e.g., after each track session). I hope it helps.
For me a missed session is missed and can’t be made up for. I haven’t used EMS but I believe in one of Charlie’s books or DVDs, maybe the Vancouver seminar he talks about when and where it fits in (I think GPP). It isn’t a replacement for weights by any means. It’s a passive way to work the muscles (bypasses the CNS as far as I know).
There is nothing wrong with missing a weights session here and there. What you don’t want is to miss too many and then have to re-adapt to the stimulus. That is the beauty of Vertical Integration: it removes a lot of that phase to phase adaptation “down time” that is characteristic of classical periodization.
6am starts mostly. I do my tempo based work as part of my Outdoor fitness group training i run.
My track work is not till later - busy with clients before then. wake up at 5am, weights done by 9am, at the track around 9:30am.
Weights is only Bench presses - On Outdoor fitness days it’s body weight legs, push ups, dips etc.
Sprints coach, The 3rd athlete I coached that won a national title moved to the same coach that the last athlete I coached to win a national title did, 20 years apart. Relevance not much.
A question was asked and I simply answered. By morning I mean finishing before 7.00am, the reason for a split session with a total daily time frame of 1.5 hours was simply because the athletes had to work. I presume you must have tried the split sessions to come to the conclusion that “” the effect will be the same on the speed in the evening". I beg to differ. What I found was the resting am heart rate was lower and more consistant. Cheers.
how would lifting after sprinting be any different than sprinting after lifting? In a sense that: why lift less than your best-- becasue you’re tired from sprinting… Is it just to wear yourself out?
If your not improving in the gym, nor are you even maintaining,… then you are simply wearing yourself out.
Sady, I apologize. I misread your post as being 30reps per set instead of 30 reps total. Please forgive my snarkiness. I should know better than to post after midnight. 
All is good Herb. It has been said I type in brail but I do it for a reason only I understand. Good to see you are back
While sprinting may be the most important thing for the Elite, is it safe to always put raw engine improvements (MaxS) on low priority and do them after speed?
I mean, in a drag race, the driver can practice the run all he wants but he still has engine limits.
I have been fighting with the weights for years, and could never really produce good results in the gym when done after speed because it just fried me.
Of course “I shouldn’t look for strength gains” when sprint-training, but then how did Ben get that insane squat ? Was that not a part of his success ? His running style displays enormous levels strength, more than any other.
So if in SPP1 you’re fried with speed, and in SPP2 you’re concerned about endurance and form, and in season you are, well, in season, when do you get the big squat or clean ?
My MaxS therefore stalled and my speed stayed the same. Of course there are a million reasons for this, but a lot of football players who don’t do much raw work in the form of speed training still run well due to insane lifting numbers with a bit of sprints in practice.
If a strength deficit may be the limiting factor in the non-elite sprinter, and strength is the fundamental physical quality on which sprinting relies, could SPP1 Indoor prep be the time to really “hammer” the weights ?
Just throwing another point to the discussion
Regarding biomotor qualities, 100m-200m are events requiring endurance of speed-strength. The best sprinters have different ratios of these biomotor qualities and yet are running the similar times on the track.
Is you Squat results a limiting factor in your sprint results? I’m not sure. Squatting heavy helped Ben to run fast and running fast help him to squat heavy. Everyday i see chicks lifting the same numbers as the sub10sec guys in coached, but who uses the best out of the basic strength and who had the best plan regarding the weight training evolution through the career? It’s better to be fried in the gym than on the track, however, you should look at the volume you are doing on the track it’s maybe too large for you.
Well put.
Far too many believe they need big squats n benches like Ben. What about the no’s the other sub 10 guys ran.
Just a little case study regarding strength and weights. My progression is as follows:
Year 1:
bodyweight 195lbs
Squat:335lbs
standing 30m:4s
flying 30m: 2.93s
Year 2:
bodyweight:195lbs
Squat: 395lbs
Standing 30m:3.93s
flying 30m: 2.93s
Year 3:
Bodyweight:185lbs
Squat: 435lbs
Standing 30m:3.82s
flying 30m: 2.88s
I always found my squat to have a huge impact on my acceleration but none on my speed.
Double post
at what point in your season did you time the flying 30s? i remember reading somewhere that ones body has an overshoot of muscle fibres converting to the super fast twitch when heavy weightlifting is tapered?