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?
Good to see you here PJ, thanks !
You say basically that fast, weak sprinters do not exist - Even those who supposedly squat 100lbs can probably do 400+ with a few weeks of work, Correct ?
Then again, these 10.0-10.2 skinny guys usually run their first sub 10 under 20 years old, and they ran a 10.6 in their first junior high meet… So while it’s true that they did not squat to get to those times, they also didn’t train a whole lot on the track to run mid 10.
The other non “15 year old freaks” like Ben,Gatlin and Greene actually used the weights to manually become faster and unlock their potential (I assume)
So should those who do not run 10.2 at 16 pay attention to the strength side of the equation a bit more than those who are speed dominant or is there a universal rule ?
Should the natural skinny speedster train and develop in the same way of the force dominant sprinter ?
Thanks, feels good to get rid of the doubts I’ve collected over the past couple years
I will definitely experiment with volumes to make sure I don’t fry myself but I hate to do little, it feels not “professional” and I end up screwing myself.
Would you call 350m decent volume in SPP MaxS sessions ?
The drag racer has two variables when building his/her motor, horsepower and torque. High torque motors have different gear ratios to high horsepower motors. Building torque (heavy squats) requires a different focus (gears) when sprinting. I suggest Ben was high torque and Charlie managed to use it to the max.
This is not in my words: a copy and paste.
Here’s a simple way to visualize torque: Imagine holding a 1-pound weight straight out, with your arm parallel to the ground. My arm measures about two feet from shoulder to wrist. If I hold a 1-pound weight straight out, the torque my shoulder experiences is roughly 2 foot-pounds (2 feet times 1 pound). If I were to hold a 10 pound weight in my hand, then the torque on my shoulder would be roughly 20 foot-pounds (2 feet times 10 pounds).
Now think of this turning force applied to a wheel, such as if a lever was attached to the center of an automobile wheel. The more force you apply on that lever, the more torque you apply to the wheel, the more readily the wheel turns, and the faster the car starts moving. See where I’m going with this? Torque is a measure of the ability of an engine to do work. It’s a component of, but not the same as, the (horse) power of the engine, which is the rate at which work can be done.
i don’t think there has ever been a 60m guy or even a 100m guy with scrawny legs (hips) proportionate to his body. That said, it doesn’t really matter what he actually can squat, because his 60m times are a testament to his strength! That is the true test! Not the squat!
I can tell when a strong muscle guy is starting to get tired, or tries too hard when running, it looks like he is trying to Bench Press his way through to the end…
I know a lot of Fairly strong dudes - Not one of them can run sub 12sec 100m…
IN regards to what Sady was saying before - Diesel cars generally have High Torque, Lower Horsepower. Might not go fast - but put a trailer on with a heavy boat, and it’s barely slowed down.
Put the same Trailer on a Low Torque, high horsepower high speed car - it has a hard time
Double posting