Sprintgeezer - Lifting question for Sprint Training

Sprint geezer I think may have left for good this time but I actually know the answer to this I believe.

The main reason the bench press was emphasized was its ability to widely stimulate the central nervous system without overly stressing the muscular systems primarily used for sprint work (ie the squat or deadlift might if overemphasized take away more from work on the track, though of course these exercises were done).

Ben Johnson would do heavy bench press a few days before or the day before a meet to wake up his system

No that was another troll. And he didn't die either.

Flo'da boy - wouldn't Olympic lifts be a better use of stimulating the CNS?

The "waking up" of the CNS a day before a meet is interesting. I have heard of coaches doing that the day of a meet. I think I remember reading the Ben Johnson would even do 100s the morning of a big meet.

I guess I am wondering how much I should emphasize Bench in relation to Olympic lifts?

I am not an expert on lifting, but yes i would say (from what I've read and logically) Olympic lifts are a greater stimulus, both muscularly and to CNS, and should certainly be emphasized in the building phases. The difficulty lies in balancing high intensity sprint training (especially later in the season) with these high intensity exercises, as they vie for the same physiological resources (which the bench does not to as great of an extent).

So Olympic lifts will be more relevant to sprint development, I'd say, but bench serves as a useful stimulus tool during more intense training on the track.

As for Ben Johnson doing 100s the day of a meet, I can't imagine him doing more than maye a shake up workout. There seem to be a lot of rumors about the workouts he did prior to his races (there was a rumor that Charlie himself debunked on his board that Johnson would do 600lb half squats the day before a meet, though he confirmed the use of the bench press)

First of all, that WAS Sprintgeezer that was outed. Several of us found him posting on a particular social media thread that was linked from LRC, and it became obvious that he was something like a teenage xc kid, and my guess is that he was basically regurgitating speedendurance,com stuff.

It is not a rumor that Charlie debunked the 600 pound squats the day before (I thought it was the day of a meet) thing. He did so several times.

Charlie's mantra on weights:

(1)Weights are supplementary

(2)Weights are general.

(3)Weights follow speed.

Ben DID do 2X600 in training, however, and that wasn't his max. In Charlie's system, there were two 3 week maximum strength phases (2X6 reps), separated by one week for unloading, with a 3 week taper following that. Charlie told me directly to do a max bench workout 5 days before race (not 1-2 days), and that was for indoors, but if you're using his system, your heavy weights sessions are going to be a few weeks before comp.

I doubt that anyone has objective data showing that Olympic weights are any better for sprinting than power lifts. But we do have objective data that weights combined with plyos (but not on the same day) are more effective than either alone.

I apologize if I misspoke, Johnson did do those lifts, I was referring to doing them the day before a meet

I also apologize, I confused power and Olympic lifts, although I feel Olympic lifts would translate well to the sprints, though they might be more taxing to the nervous system in some ways (they are more complex motions. I imagine that throwers would greatly benefit from them)

Evidence should be in the Justing Gatlin yo mama twitter thread IIRC.

bench can and is used for central nervous system firing a few days before an event or in general

But it also offers other benefits,

The shoulders and biceps and linked and the stronger they are the better the reflex acheived at the rear of the arm swing thus increasing velocity and achievable force of the legs.

Look side on at slo mo vids you will se the arms kinda unravel towards the bottom of the swing and anturally 'curl' as the arm goes behind the body this reflex actually then triggers the arms to return faster mechanically.

Plus if any of you sprint properally regulaly you will/should have fatigued biceps at the end of the session for this very reason

Bad Wigins wrote:

TAA wrote:

Sprintgeezer was a troll?!?!?!? My whole life is a lie =(

evidence please, coach d

But we do have objective data that weights combined with plyos (but not on the same day) are more effective than either alone.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6128878#ixzz3Jj1ZS9yb

Coach D - can you elaborate on this or show a link to the data?

I'd love to meet that sprintgeezer turd face to face. I think he pretty much typifies the typical letsrun poster:

1.) less than average at being a runner

2.) thinks they are overtly (though mistakenly) knowledgeable

3.) complete and absolute @$$hole to everyone around them

Bench press is the single most important exercise. Big pecs is what the ladies lust after. Don't make no mistake, the bigger the chest, the more ladies will run after you.

Of course you also need the back to go with (deadlifts, pullups with weights, rows). And, I'd like to point out again, biceps/triceps. That's where it counts. Spaghetti armed runners will probably not understand though... ;)

flent wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

evidence please, coach d

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6051507&page=1

Where is the evidence that the 1500 guy that provoked Gatlin is sprintgeezer??? I don't see it, what I see is coach d saying that it is.

I didn't bother reading the Gatlin thread but Sprintgeezer seemed too in depth to be a troll (epsoecially if you look back at his contributions to the cancer guy thread). I still think he just left because of the race baiting

Hellzabruin wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

evidence please, coach d

Me too, coach d. Where/when was he outed? If this is true he was an incredible troll because some of his background sounded very convincing. Or did he just lift it from Jimson Lee's bio?

I don't think so.

It surprised me to see some teenage kid showing up on the Gatlin thread with the name "sprintgeezer," but he did. I generally supported the guy on here, but there were some things that didn't add up:

There was the comment that one of the other sprinters made about SG talking about not extending the legs like Kim Collins...and running 12 second 100s. This goes contrary to what Bolt, Greene, etc. do with leg mechanics, and also contrary to the research Dr. Peter Weyand presented earlier this year which comes down to extending and pushing force down. Most of us who are sprinters have tried this kind of thing he was saying and found out it doesn't work for us....but thinking about it, a distance runner not used to sprint position and extending might see it the other way.

The (over)emphasis on weights, particularly heavy weights, in the training that he wrote. You will find on places like elitetrack and charliefrancis a number of inexperienced sprinters overpromoting weights and underpromooting SE and overdistance. They want to do sets of 3 weights but not 300s. What really happens with beginners and those who have not built up sprint capacity (i.e. fitness to do higher volume) is that weights are the way forward because you can't get in enough speed volume (your body breaks down). But as you build of sprint capacity, you get to the point where increasing weights takes CNS resources from the track, and that's the point where people like Mike Young talk about being "strong enough". You would expect somebody who was in the 10.5 and under range to understand this, but it appears that he didn't. These days, you will see guys like Bolt and Powell doing less weights, but a lot of sleds and steep hills (see Glenn Mills about that). Once again, someone from a distance perspective might not understand the limitations of weights, because they can't go fast enough to see the conflict. As you get faster in sprints, it becomes exponentially harder to improve, and that's where the crowding out factor comes into play.

Much of the verbage posted could be found in places like speedendurance, but in some of the more technical training details, there was sometimes a lack of understanding, I'd say.

Personally, I don't see this as a big issue. The guy has disappeared.

Ben is 51 and SG is over 50. Do you think that he would necessarily understand the latest concepts in sprint training, but might be biased towards

an old school model.

I was on that indoor track at York in 89, and there were lots of guys lifting off

to one side. A less bulky Ben was there. There was a straightaway beside the

banked 200 track where guys would do short sprints, but no one was doing

300 overdistance.

It's hard to believe that a 16 year old kid, would show some of the mature

depth evident in SG's responses.

DC Area Runner wrote:

flent wrote:http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6051507&page=1

Where is the evidence that the 1500 guy that provoked Gatlin is sprintgeezer??? I don't see it, what I see is coach d saying that it is.

There is no evidence. If there was any it has long since been deleted. There are no comments from any sprintgeezers.

But even if there were, that wouldn't really prove anything. It could be a fake SG. A teenage runner who browses LR might do that.

It's also hard to imagine a teenager spending all that time and effort to post mostly serious things under false pretenses. Where's the joke? There's no fun in trolling like that.