The claims above are utterly false. Muscle strength and hypertrophy are well understood to be targetable in isolation. Perhaps you are thinking of spot fat reduction.
Do you lift? Have you ever trained anybody that lifts?
Can, should, and are....are very different words.
Squats and Cleans still work the upper body to some extent and also REQUIRE upper body strength to some extent.
Alan
Yes, I lift and am familiar with the subject matter, as are you. The three sentences in the post to which I replied, as written, are false.
If you are implying that squats to some extent also train the upper body, that’s not the same thing. There’s a reason why one is advised to no skip leg day. Working on biceps alone will larger only develop the arms. Targeted muscle development is a thing. I’m sure you know that, Alan.
You have all missed the answer. It is obvious if you listen to the NBC analysts for distance races . The sprinters have strong upper bodies because they “go to the arms” for the entire race, not just the final 100m.
The main explanation for this is that sprints obviously require a very powerful lower body.
But when you train your lower body, you end up putting muscle on your entire body. It is a complete misconception that you only put on muscle in a particular area by training that body part.
You could do nothing but squats and your arms would get bigger.
Huge upper bodies on sprinters are mostly the incidental result of building a strong lower body.
Maybe this is why Vashti Cunningham and other high jumpers have such big upper bodirs- all that squatting.
Why aren't long/triple jumper's arms as built as sprinters then?
Explosiveness seems to be just as important in the horizontal jumps?
Good question. Mass is penalized in that the potential energy required to ascend in a gravitational field must be stored as elastic potential energy within the large muscles of the lower body.
The oversimplified cartoonish version of this would have you write an equation like:
mgh = 1/2 k x^2 where:
m is the mass of the sprinter
g is the acceleration of gravity
h is the height jumped
k is the ‘spring constant’ of the muscles
x is the amount the muscles are compressed
If you solve the above for m, h and m are inversely proportional.
Two ways you can increase the amount of elastic PE - increase the muscle length (and distance that it can be stretched) and increase the stiffness of the muscle through strength training.
Therefore this suggests to me that eccentric phase of exercise would be most valuable to concentrate on for these athletes.
An optimization must be done that balances the development of strength against the increases of mass that can come with it.
Yes, but let's word it correctly - "... not as a prerequisite to running fast, but as a byproduct of doing the weight work required to develop the other muscles that are important for sprinting fast."
There, fixed it for you. Otherwise, you completely nailed it and of course that is what you communicated, you just should have worded it more explicitly.
Harry Aikines-Aryeetey competes both as a bodybuilder and a sprinter, but will never get on a podium with his 10.08 100m PB. But he looks impressive.
Why aren't long/triple jumper's arms as built as sprinters then?
Explosiveness seems to be just as important in the horizontal jumps?
Good question. Mass is penalized in that the potential energy required to ascend in a gravitational field must be stored as elastic potential energy within the large muscles of the lower body.
The oversimplified cartoonish version of this would have you write an equation like:
mgh = 1/2 k x^2 where:
m is the mass of the sprinter
g is the acceleration of gravity
h is the height jumped
k is the ‘spring constant’ of the muscles
x is the amount the muscles are compressed
If you solve the above for m, h and m are inversely proportional.
Two ways you can increase the amount of elastic PE - increase the muscle length (and distance that it can be stretched) and increase the stiffness of the muscle through strength training.
Therefore this suggests to me that eccentric phase of exercise would be most valuable to concentrate on for these athletes.
An optimization must be done that balances the development of strength against the increases of mass that can come with it.
Interesting attempt at quantification, but it’s not clear to me that the height h is that much more important in long or triple jumps compared to sprinting. All three are working off and against friction and against air resistance to achieve their top speed as quickly as they can. The main difference is that sprinters have to maintain the speed for the second half unlike the jumpers.
It’s not clear what you’re trying to say about friction - you do know that we ultimately use it for propulsion, right? See any national anthem at a hockey game gone wrong as a demonstration of what happens when trying to walk in a low friction environment.
Both the triple jump and long jump are ultimately dependent on a portion where ascending to a height above ground is solely what will determine the horizontal distance that they travel.
Fluid resistance is present to be sure, but only as a correction term. You can easily compute this and see for yourself. The rule of thumb is that you devote about 8% of your energy budget to overcoming air resistance when running at 10 m/s. If this was the dominant term, you’d see people who are short and slender dominating jumping as they would experience significantly less drag than taller and broader people because the energy lost is directly proportional to cross sectional area. We don’t really see that.
Each meter your center of mass ascends requires 750J of potential energy for a 75 kg athlete. Yes, air resistance plays a role, but once you’ve jumped, the most important thing is maintaining your speed while jumping high.
It’s not clear what you’re trying to say about friction - you do know that we ultimately use it for propulsion, right? See any national anthem at a hockey game gone wrong as a demonstration of what happens when trying to walk in a low friction environment.
Both the triple jump and long jump are ultimately dependent on a portion where ascending to a height above ground is solely what will determine the horizontal distance that they travel.
“working off and against friction” just means using friction in accordance with Newton’s third law.
Yes, there is an important height component in the horizontal jumps, but the 40m run up to achieve top speed is also important in both jumps and sprints. Your analysis seemed to reduce it all to just height, hence my comment.
I don’t think you understood the point. I was responding to a question about jumps and why those athletes are not muscled in the same way as sprinters. My answer was that jumping is negatively impacted by the jumper’s mass. They must rely on their ability to store elastic energy in their muscles to ‘pay’ for the increase of gravitational potential energy.
It is not necessary to provide a detailed analysis for a conceptual question. That is why physicists love springs and inclined planes. That is why it’s fine for me to ‘reduce it all to just height’ in your words.
I don’t think you understood the point. I was responding to a question about jumps and why those athletes are not muscled in the same way as sprinters. My answer was that jumping is negatively impacted by the jumper’s mass. They must rely on their ability to store elastic energy in their muscles to ‘pay’ for the increase of gravitational potential energy.
It is not necessary to provide a detailed analysis for a conceptual question. That is why physicists love springs and inclined planes. That is why it’s fine for me to ‘reduce it all to just height’ in your words.
long story short, air resistance and "fricition" are irrelevant for jumpers, all that matters in jumping is low mass with ability to produce high upward momentum.
Sprinters are all about acceleration, they need massive upper bodies to produce that acceleration. Once they have reached their top speed it's the legs that work the most, but since sprinting is such a short event and their ground contact time is short, they don't need massive legs.
I don’t think you understood the point. I was responding to a question about jumps and why those athletes are not muscled in the same way as sprinters. My answer was that jumping is negatively impacted by the jumper’s mass. They must rely on their ability to store elastic energy in their muscles to ‘pay’ for the increase of gravitational potential energy.
It is not necessary to provide a detailed analysis for a conceptual question. That is why physicists love springs and inclined planes. That is why it’s fine for me to ‘reduce it all to just height’ in your words.
long story short, air resistance and "fricition" are irrelevant for jumpers, all that matters in jumping is low mass with ability to produce high upward momentum.
Sprinters are all about acceleration, they need massive upper bodies to produce that acceleration. Once they have reached their top speed it's the legs that work the most, but since sprinting is such a short event and their ground contact time is short, they don't need massive legs.
It's the shorter sprinters like Su Bintiang who have more ground contact as a result of their shorter stride who need big legs to compensate.
I'm an older guy and I started Olympic weightlifting. My arms and upper body in general have gotten bigger. I could see snatches and cleans getting a sprinter pretty ripped. And you could potentially do these most days of the week.
I'm an older guy and I started Olympic weightlifting. My arms and upper body in general have gotten bigger. I could see snatches and cleans getting a sprinter pretty ripped. And you could potentially do these most days of the week.
Of course, that is expected and the result of that lifting regimen, but doesn’t imply that a sprinter needs that or can’t avoid that. Take a look at most Tour de France riders or even sprint specialists that have tree trunk quads but relatively slender upper bodies, which is expected for a leg-dominant sport. You’d think an ideal sprinter’s upper body would be in between that of a cyclist and a swimmer because swimming is somewhat more upper-dominant, however the typical elite sprinter looks more upper-buffed than the typical elite swimmer.
I'm an older guy and I started Olympic weightlifting. My arms and upper body in general have gotten bigger. I could see snatches and cleans getting a sprinter pretty ripped. And you could potentially do these most days of the week.
Of course, that is expected and the result of that lifting regimen, but doesn’t imply that a sprinter needs that or can’t avoid that. Take a look at most Tour de France riders or even sprint specialists that have tree trunk quads but relatively slender upper bodies, which is expected for a leg-dominant sport. You’d think an ideal sprinter’s upper body would be in between that of a cyclist and a swimmer because swimming is somewhat more upper-dominant, however the typical elite sprinter looks more upper-buffed than the typical elite swimmer.
Of course, that is expected and the result of that lifting regimen, but doesn’t imply that a sprinter needs that or can’t avoid that. Take a look at most Tour de France riders or even sprint specialists that have tree trunk quads but relatively slender upper bodies, which is expected for a leg-dominant sport. You’d think an ideal sprinter’s upper body would be in between that of a cyclist and a swimmer because swimming is somewhat more upper-dominant, however the typical elite sprinter looks more upper-buffed than the typical elite swimmer.
Read my comment above, i explained it clearly
I did, thanks for your input. I couldn’t find myself agreeing with most of your sentences, no offense intended.
Some more food for thought at the study described in the article below for cyclists. One thing that stood out to me was that the sprinters had 5.3% wider thighs on average but 7.4% wider arms, though it’s unclear if that difference had statistical significance. All cyclists need to develop their quads and they do so, but it is unclear if the larger disparity in arms is simply a byproduct of their weight training or if sprint training by itself needs that and induces that to optimize them for their sport. #3 below suggests that body type differences within an event don’t matter, presumably because specialized training for the event is all that matters, which would also explain why an Andre Degrasse body type can be on a competitive footing with a Noah Lyles body type.
“3) No significant correlation was seen between any anthropometric parameter and performance in an individual event.
4) Cyclists in the sprint group were heavier (76.2 ± 7.4 vs. 70.0 ± 4.7 kg, P<0.01) and stronger (258 ± 44.4 vs. 216 ± 30.5 Nm, P<0.01), and had larger chest (98.2 ± 6.2 vs. 92.4 ± 2.9 cm, P<0.01), arm (33.0±2.2 vs. 30.7± 1.6 cm, P<0.01), thigh (57.5 ± 3.4 vs. 54.3 ± 2.5 cm, P<0.01) and calf girths (37.8±1.7 vs. 36.2±1.9 cm, P<0.05) than cyclists in the endurance group.”
In 1989, an anthropometric analysis was conducted on 35 elite male Australian track cyclists having a mean age of 22.6 years and who had been competing on average for 9 years. The relationship of a…
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