Jonathan Edwards - 235kg half squat?

coach d wrote:

That should show you how important a big squat really is.

The fact that people are wasting so much bandwidth about something which is just normal general prep for a good sprinter or LJ really shows how weak distance runners are.

Yes, we are. And being novices, we potentially have a lot to gain from a small investment.

A lot of middle distance (not long distance) coaches, from Cerutty to Coe and beyond, have suggested that a good strength 'standard' is to deadlift or squat 2x bodyweight. Beyond that, you start getting into diminishing returns and fair questions arise about where you should be spending your time and energy.

All the sprinters you mention are beyond that level.

Almost all distance runners are way BELOW it. Even if they haven't a clue how to squat, you tend to find they can deadlift 0.75 to 1.25x bodyweight without training. My own recurring point is that if they can double their strength in a year, without screwing up their distance training too much, they will probably be better runners.

What would you rather we wasted our precious limited bandwidth on, BTW? ;-)

d--

A couple of things...obviously Greene didn't really care about his squats, because even I still do over 4 plates. So it is likely that he could have done more.

I have personally squatted alongside Johnson, and saw him do 5 plates for reps, parallel.

I have no reason to doubt that he could have done 6 plates--also, I have no reason to doubt that Greene could have done 6 plates had he cared to do so.

But here's the rub: Johnson was faster than Greene--yes, I know, their 9.79's are the same, and 6.39 (getting a flyer) beats 6.41, but Johnson was much quicker, especially over the first couple of steps. If he could have gotten it together, he would have maxxed out, I think, at around 9.72-9.74, which is in another league than Greene.

Powell could bench 300 given just a bit of practice. As you know, weights go up dramatically with practice. If he could do 2 plates tomorrow (likely), with no practice, he could do 3 plates in 2-3 months, with practice. Easily, IMHO.

I think that big squats are really important to footballers, which is more about power and strength, and less about speed.

I don't necessarily agree that a huge squat is irrelevant to 100m time. You have to do SOMETHING to get the stimulus needed for adaptation--some do box jumps and other dynamic movements, some do squats. Box jumps and dynamic movements are better for many reasons, IMHO, than squats--but squats CAN give you some of what you need, especially at the start and early acceleration phases. You may not need to DO squats to get what squats can give you, but doing them IS one way to get it.

As you and I both know, sprinting and "running" are 2 totally different things. No, these "runners" will never get it, same as sprinters will never understand how it is possible to do the basic conditioning of an elite distance runner. Whatever, if we can get them doing parallel squats, the distance women will have better butts.

If you know what I mean...

Actually, thinking about it some, I would never recommend parallel squats to middle-distance or distance runners, unless it was with bodyweight or very small dumbbells/kettles, and probably not even then.

And certainly I would never recommend huge squats to them, since the only benefit I ever perceived, both in myself and others, was in the first 25m from the blocks.

Instead I'd recommend dynamic exercises, using as much ROM as possible without injuring joints, and stretching/plyos.

And for marathoners, nothing--just run. You're getting plenty of stimulus over the hour or two you're running! (pretty sure I'll get roasted over that one--after all, what do I know about marathon training?!)

Sprintgeezer wrote:

And for marathoners, nothing--just run. You're getting plenty of stimulus over the hour or two you're running! (pretty sure I'll get roasted over that one--after all, what do I know about marathon training?!)

Not a "roast," just an observation: Steve Spence did squats, and he ran internationally for the USA. The squats did not seem to hurt him, at least.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

And certainly I would never recommend huge squats to them, since the only benefit I ever perceived, both in myself and others, was in the first 25m from the blocks.

what that 25m benefit really means is a great ability to change pace quickly and easily, no? That would be very useful wouldn't it?

Sprintgeezer wrote:But here's the rub: Johnson was faster than Greene--yes, I know, their 9.79's are the same, and 6.39 (getting a flyer) beats 6.41, but Johnson was much quicker, especially over the first couple of steps. If he could have gotten it together, he would have maxxed out, I think, at around 9.72-9.74, which is in another league than Greene

moron

find stats before you post crap

mo clocked

6.33

en-route to his limping 9.82 win

if he'd been fit without wrapping, he couda gone that day

9.66

BASIC

mo was HIGHER league to ben

mo ran into a wind & injured

ben ran with wind

Did he do all of this along with his 400 dollar hair cut? Was it before or after he cheated on his cancer stricken wife?

I mean, really, accusing the man of using PEDs is just throwing the poor guy under the bus.

Ventolin is wrong about many things, including that Greene was faster than Johnson.

I don't need to offer any evidence, I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm just stating what I know.

And yes, I know there is plenty of evidence to the contrary--I stated some of it. In case anybody's wondering, more can be found here:

http://run-down.com/statistics/100m_top_splits.php

I know all of it, and have been through it many times.

And yet, Johnson is still quicker and faster over 100m than Greene, although not by much.

What people don't really know is that Johnson never exhibited his potential at 100m...far from it, unlike Greene's full career. At the time of his 9.79, believe it or not, he was not in top form. Also, he continued trying to work on many things in his sprinting. What you saw in the 9.79 was drugs, and drugs alone--very little sprinting. Even his start, as great as people think it was, needed work. If Johnson had had a better cast around him, and had gotten his act together amid all the turmoil, and had some longitudinal progression in his training, he would easily have gone low 9.7x corrected, and low 9.6x with wind. As it is, with all the errors and crap, he could have gone 9.76 in Seoul, rather easily. His "training" was all over the place. If there had been more sprinting mixed in with the drugs, well...let's just say that I've seen lots of things and lots of sprinters in my time, and I saw him do things of which nobody else has been capable, before or after. There was so much there, and only a small fraction of it manifested, even in the 9.79.

The only guy who is equal in absurdity is Bolt. As amazing as other runners have been, and even though I've never seen Bolt in person, he's the only one who matches up (except for maybe Hayes, whom I never trained or ran with).

Greene certainly was great as far as he went--although his running was completely different than Ben's, he used Johnson the phenomenon as a model.

There is only one original, and best, Ben Johnson. I respect Greene's accomplishments, but he was a pale shadow of the original 10 years earlier.

Greene isn't even in the discussion. So many guys have been better than Greene, both before and after, including guys who never actually ran 9.8--like Lewis, Fredericks, Hayes, Bailey.

Greene is like a caricature more than an athlete--he's like a mascot, or a character at a theme park. He's viewed by many I know as having been a great chumpion. Nice try, Greene.

I'm no particular Johnson fanboy--he was dumber than a bag of hammers--but this I know: he was most certainly quicker and faster over 100m than Greene.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

Actually, thinking about it some, I would never recommend parallel squats to middle-distance or distance runners, unless it was with bodyweight or very small dumbbells/kettles, and probably not even then.

And certainly I would never recommend huge squats to them, since the only benefit I ever perceived, both in myself and others, was in the first 25m from the blocks.

Instead I'd recommend dynamic exercises, using as much ROM as possible without injuring joints, and stretching/plyos.

IMHO it all depends on their capabilities and where they want to be. If you want to improve your basic speed, you need to improve strength somehow.

Seb Coe was a talented but unexceptional skinny XC runner when he went up to college; six years of circuits and weights under George Gandy later he was splitting 46 relay legs.

I spent my best years assuming my basic speed (55-56 for 400 at college) was unimprovable. I'm pretty sure that with a systematic plan to improve my strength, I could have brought it down quite a bit and that would have opened the door to running much better 800s and 1500s than I did. I say this with some confidence because just a little half-assed weight training (and almost zero speedwork at sub-1500 pace in season) has brought my over-40s 400m time down from 60.5 to 57.1. Squats (ass to grass) improving from 60% bodyweight to 110% bodyweight in the same time cannot be a coincidence.

One important point: our "heavy" squats are your lightest imaginable warmup lifts ;-)

Most of the good middle distance runners do SOMETHING for strength and power. This might involve drills and bounding, and it almost always involves hills. Whether to use barbells or not is probably more a matter of culture and convenience; in Kenya you run up a hill, but if you're a suburban working runner with a gym membership, or you're a cross country runner at Barry Ross's high school, why not use the tools you have?

Paula Radcliffe's breakthrough came when her therapist figured out she was literally physically weaker than all her rivals, and got her doing low rep squats among other stuff.

What ALL distance runners really need is plenty of work to maintain full dynamic mobility and health in all the muscles, as you observe. Our training program is basically one long overuse injury that needs to be managed.

Just my 2p worth ;-)

coach d wrote:

Maurice Greene squatted parallel 435 pounds.

Ben Johnson squatted parallel 6 reps X 600 pounds and not to his max capability.

They sprinted the same time.

Asafa Powell doesn't squat at all and apparently can't bench 300 either.

He broke both Mo's and Ben's records.

J-mee Samuels benched 360 and squatted 540 in HIGH SCHOOL according to what he posted on trackshark. Show me his Olympic medals and WRs.

That should show you how important a big squat really is.

Yes and no. If Bob improves his squat by 50%, Bob will almost certainly run faster once he does sprint-specific training, but Bob may well be beaten by someone who can squat far less than he can. Some sprinters, such as Ben Johnson, have structures well-suited to producing impressive gym lifts. Others, such as Carl Lewis, were at the opposite end of the spectrum (for powerlifting, you want short levers [limbs], among other things). Still, improving strength in the quads, hams, glutes, etc. of a given athlete will lead to faster sprinting in said athlete.

To the extent that I know anything about middle-distance and distance, I agree with everything you just said.

I didn't say that middle-distance runners shouldn't do squats, just that I'd never recommend they do PARALLEL squats--I'd put them at half-squats, because I don't think there's any need to develop the musculature, and risk the injury potential, that comes with parallel squats.

Robbo, I'm surprised that in college you didn't have "a systemic plan to improve your strength"--were you a distance guy? Even if you were, that is somewhat surprising to me.

AlSal to San Diego 2012 wrote:

Johnathan is a suspected dope head.

Doubtful. You want to see a dopehead, look at Simpkins. Gets with Kersee, improves like mad, wins OCs, disappears. LOL

There's a point the Mike Young makes, that for lower performance sprinters (and by extension middle distance runners) an improvement in squat will result in an improvement in performance. But for a sprinter to continue to improve in the weight room requires continually greater commitment of CNS resources, and once the sprinter gets to the point that the weight room affects workload/recovery times for track workouts, the weight program results in lower, not greater sprint performance. This also applies to middle distance athletes during interval phases.

So the way I see it, BIG squats are not positive for performance. Only if you have Ben's (or Bolt's?) "supplement" program...

But distance people might want to have a look at this:

http://www.elitetrack.com/articles/read/4683/

Pretty strong case for HEAVY weights for DISTANCE people (and the explosive training to failure is also interesting for sprinters). We're going to try this in our D1 program after XC season.

idiot

you know nothing about elite sprinting

moron

off course you do

you know nothing

that old link offers nothing

some of those splits are in 9.85/9.86 race, which means nothing when talking 9.6/9.7

nonsense

what part of your peabrain doesn't comprehend what 6.33 split into a 0.2 wind in '01 translates to for the full 100m if uninjured ???

drivel

he was 27y in seoul, then considered peak-age for a 100m guy

that was as good as he coud ever have been expected to run

drivel

if he hadn't slowed down he wouda gone 9.75/9.76 which i wouda bet any money on wouda remained career peak

so ?

where does that guarantee he wouda gone faster than 9.75/9.76 ??

drivel

any college sprinter on steroids going 9.75/9.76 ???

it was perfect for him in seoul

drivel

if you followed the sport back then, no one expected anything more than a coupla 100ths faster than his 9.83 from rome - that already looked virtual limit for contemporary sprinting

his 9.75/9.76 with 1.1 converts to 9.80/9.81 basic

that is highly likely to be as fast he's ever get

you have no clue about sprinting/ too stoopid to offer an accurate assessment

drivel

he coudn't have gone any quicker initial 60m

he'd have gone 9.75/9.76 if flat-out in last part of race

there was not going to be anything "easy" about it

drivel

what do you know about his training

no one ever ran 9.7 without immense work

drivel

he was peak form & gave everything to at least 70 - 80m

idiot

you clearly don't understand tyson running 9.69 off a pathetic start with a groing injury which needed surgery soon after

nonsense

mo never mentioned ben as being a model

you don't need anyone to tell an elite sprinter the aim is for :

great start/great pick-up & minimal speed decay last 40m

that is principle for 100y+

your numbskull clearly doesn't comprehend how good he was in '01 if not for carrying that injury

with that he still ran 9.82 !!!

moron

how can anyone but a complete idiot state 9.84/9.86 guys are better than a 9.79 one ???

moron

4 big golds over 100m & wr makes him all-time great

moron

work out what a 6.33 split indicates for 100m

mo's splits in his 9.80 (+0.2) in '99 gold :

Maurice Greene 0.132

1.86 2.89 3.81 4.69 5.55 6.39 7.24 8.09 8.94 9.80

in his 9.79wr (+0.1) of '99, he split :

6.40

in his 9.82 (-0.2), he split :

6.33 !!!

he therefore split 0.06 & 0.07s faster at 60m in '82 than in his 9.80 & 9.79wr races

http://speedendurance.com/2008/08/22/usain-bolt-100m-10-meter-splits-and-speed-endurance/

i'll let the intelligent guys estimate what that woud mean he wouda/couda run for 100m instead of 9.82 if his injury hadn't flared up

( i'll give you a helping hand :

a guy who runs last 40m as good as his initial 60m can expect

~ 100m = 2*60m - 3.00

try that with mo's : 6.39/9.80 , 6.40/9.79 & then apply to 6.33 ??? )

Ventolin is such an old deluded pr**k

He ruins every thread with his arrogant and hypothetical "opinions" which he peddles as facts. And he claims to know more about every event than everyone else.

He should be banned or at least sectioned!

Coach D....there has been research showing maximal strength training and/or explosive strength training improves running economy for well over a decade. Most runners are simply slow to accept it.

The problem is as usual the masses inability to comprehend and overability to generalize and exaggerate.

Improvements in maximal strength training and/or explosive strength training does not mean train for absolute improvement it does not mean train like a powerlifter or that a huge squat will automatically equal a faster runner.

The goal should be relative improvement balanced with more important running training. That balance is the issue and the hard part to determine. Especially with athletes who tend to overdo things and the masses in general who tend to operate on black and white only. For a competitive athlete playing with a new toy in strength training the urge will be to maximize his efforts there but that will cost him in his true pursuit (running in this case). It helps to have an unbiased eye to tell you to slow the hell down.

Back to the original thread's purpose.....

Somewhere along the way, many Strength & Conditioning Coaches became proponents of the half-squat vs the full-squat as the half-squat is more specific to athletic demands. Test this yourself: try a standing broad jump or a standing high jump first dropping down into a full squat then second dropping down into a half squat. In the half squat you will be more powerful. I argue that both are important, one for general strength (the full squat) and one for specific strength (the half squat). S&C Coaches and the S&C culture in general tends to focus more on specific training because that is where all the cool stuff is and how they keep their jobs. Reading about bland general strength training is boring, but an effective and necessary piece of the total strength and conditioning puzzle.

I'm reminded of a story I read about a strength coach having trouble with his basketball athletes. No matter how much plyos and specific jump training he did his athletes could not improve in the vertical jump. A strength coach friend suggested reverting back to basic squats to improve basic strength. All of a sudden the athletes started to improve in the vertical jump again. Does this mean that plyos and specific jump training doesn't improve the vertical jump vs basic squats!!???....NO! It just means that sometimes training isn't black and white and that both specific and general modes of training are needed for improvement the question is about when, why, and how.

Alan

SMJO wrote:

Ventolin is such an old deluded pr**k

He ruins every thread with his arrogant and hypothetical "opinions" which he peddles as facts. And he claims to know more about every event than everyone else.

He should be banned or at least sectioned!

Honestly, I just "voop" right over any of his posts. You're not obliged to read every post in a thread, and his tend to be pretty obvious.