I remember reading somewhere (maybe the thread about the possibility of a 4 minute miler being able to bench 300 pounds) Herb Elliot lifted quite high quantities of weight with low reps. Apparently, this prevented bulking up but helped strength.
Does anyone have the specifics of his training? His running workouts would also be appreciated.
Larry Myers wrote a book, circa mid 70's, about Percy Cerutty, Herb's coach. In that book he stated that Percy had a basic 5 lift core of exercises. Dumbell swings, bench presses, deadlifts, cheat curls and straight legged situps. The dumbell swings were a type of warmup exercise, but Percy urged runners to work up to 40% of bodyweight if possible. Benches 100% of BW and deadlifts 200% of bodyweight.
Percy believed in low reps, not over 5 for the benches, deadlifts and cheat curls.
That said, I don't know what Herb actually lifted.
Is here anyone who knows something about training of Herb Elliot?
read percy's book. it tells all. murray halberg's book (if you can find an old timer who has it) also gives great insite into the training at portsea. i know of one story in the book specifically that talks about herb destroying pirie over 30 miles on a training run.
Training up and down some seriously high sand dunes comes to mind when I remember odd bits and pieces about Herb Elliot from way back.
I do recall when he was touring Europe with some running colleagues in a VW camper van after the 58 Commonwealth Games where he’d won the 880 and mile - one day, he got out of the van and ran 28 miles for the sheer pleasure of running, before going on the run in some invitation meets.
In those days, it was still ’illegal’ to accept money for racing and if found out, you were disqualified from running for being a ’professional’
How times have changed.
In Fred Wilt's "How They Train" it says that he'd usually run something like ten miles after work during the week and then on Friday night he and some of Cerutty's other athletes would pile into the car and head to Portsea. The whole weekend there was devoted to fitness and training.
In Wilt's book there are stories of four sessions in two days, some repeat work, some of the legendary sand dune climbs, a fourteen mile run around the golf course.
In his autobiography Elliott doesn't really contradict any of that but says there were lots of different things they'd do at Portsea. He actually downplayed the sand dune story saying that Cerutty had them do it because a reporter was coming looking for a story and Cerutty thought having his guys run up and down the sand dune would make a good one. I also can recall quotes from Elliott to the effect that Cerutty wasn't all that concerned with the spsecifics of his athletes' training and spent more time talking about philosophy and mental approach. I just read an interview with Alby Thomas in which he says the same thing.
Elliot came from a rowing background which gave him his great strength
A runner, especially an elite runner, could lift weights all day everyday and not gain an ounce of muscle because of the running they are doing. Running breaks down muscle tissue, protein is used to repair muscle tissue. Unless you are eating a shitton of protein you will not have the protein lying around to actual build much muscle mass. Also, elite runners tend to have the metabolism and genetics that lead to a reduced muscle mass when compared to the average population.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox...
Alan
Runningart2004 wrote:
A runner, especially an elite runner, could lift weights all day everyday and not gain an ounce of muscle because of the running they are doing. Running breaks down muscle tissue, protein is used to repair muscle tissue. Unless you are eating a shitton of protein you will not have the protein lying around to actual build much muscle mass. Also, elite runners tend to have the metabolism and genetics that lead to a reduced muscle mass when compared to the average population.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox...
Alan
We understand. You're an ectomorph, i.e., a wimp. It's ok, it is truly ok. Some great runners share this with you.
Actually, I personally know of an elite runner who had a horrible season because he put on about 7-9 lb because of lifting. I was training with the guy so I saw it happen and it wasn't as if he was pounding the weights 5x a week or lifting for hypertrophy.
Everyone's genetically different. Look at Adam Goucher. He's said before that he has to watch how much he lifts because he has a tendency to put on too much mass. Webb certainly has put on some weight due to strength training.
Everyone's different and to make sweeping generalizations like that are stupid.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox...
Actually, I personally know of an elite runner who had a horrible season because he put on about 7-9 lb because of lifting. I was training with the guy so I saw it happen and it wasn't as if he was pounding the weights 5x a week or lifting for hypertrophy.
Everyone's genetically different. Look at Adam Goucher. He's said before that he has to watch how much he lifts because he has a tendency to put on too much mass. Webb certainly has put on some weight due to strength training.
Everyone's different and to make sweeping generalizations like that are stupid.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox...
There is an outline of Herb's training here
http://z12.invisionfree.com/Hunter_Reports/index.php?showtopic=432
You have to scroll to the bottom of the page
from the 11/10/58 Sports Illustrated with Elliott on the cover (and about 7 pages of story, including a full page with results of every race he'd run to date... will a miler ever see that kind of coverage again?)
"catching his breath after the chill morning's 14 mile gallop down a sandy road, round the rolling Portsea golf course and along the broad beach, the leggy clerk revives suddenly. He kicks off his trunks and moldy track shoes, and plunges into the frigid waters of thr Bass Strait. The others follow dazedly... then he leads them, clothing in hand, in a naked single file through a forest of looming, unruly sand dunes. At the largest dune, he grunts at the 60 degree slope, then alone churns up the grueling 80 feet. (On another day, more refreshed, he had mounted the dune a record 42 times in succession.)
shower, collapse onto bunks... "but within a half hour, as if someone had turned on the juice, the clerk is up again. Refueled on raw carrots, cabbage, brown bread, cheese and milk, he cuts...to a grove marked "muscle tougheners", and begins hefting barbells and heavy slabs of rail."
For four days during the work week, resting only on Friday, he had lifted weights and run 10 miles every day through Melbourne's abundant parks. Now he would run some 50 miles over the weekend, before hacking off his brief beard and returning to the adding machines of the finance dept, Shell Chemical.
oh, and go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjDYulhbfps&feature=related
great leadin (@7:57) to his segment in The Supermilers... Eliott running through those sand dunes, at first just a spec in the distance, what a setting... just great stuff.
Percy talks abouts strength training in one of his books 'Athletics. How to become a champion.' chapter 11.
Percy talks about the 'two well-defined classes, viz. the body-conditioners and the weightlifters.'
The body-conditioners (or body-builders) were more concerned with "size and muscular definition than strength proper."
"It has been found that working with heavy weights and many repetitions, especially until very 'hot', grow big. The weights used are are not as heavy as those customarily used by the 'lifters' and the reps tend to be more extensive. Such men tend to be big and strong, but seldom the strongest."
"The practising 'lifter', however, approaches his problem in a different manner. firstly, his problem is to gain greater strength without any appreciable gain in size or body-weight,"
"So the lifter, to achieve his ends, viz. strenght without any appreciable gain in bulk, has evolved a different technique to that of the 'body-builder'. He works with maximum weights, and this alone ensures his 'reps' are reduced to a minimum, often only two or three."
"This approach necessarily reduces the time he can apply himself to his exertions. His training is then intensive, just as the body builder tends to train extensively."
"The intensive system is known to alter the nature of the muscle fibre - and to strengthen it - rather than get added strength from increased size of muscle. Some of the results are startling i might add."
--------------------------------------------------------------
and some random selections:
"I immediately set the veriest novice on his body-weight for the dead-lift, and what he can move 6 times but not 10 times becomes his starting weight for any exercise other than the dead-lift."
"And they increase the weight to be moved as soon as they can handle the exercise weight 10 times on most days. Three 'reps' of ten of the determined weight for each exercise will soon develop any runner to a strength quite sufficient to his needs as a runner. He will be said to have approached that strength when he hoists his won body-weight above his head by any means he cares to adopt."
"Summed up,the whole purpose of weight-conditioning, as any form of conditioning such as running the sand-hill, is to acquire enhanced 'power' in order that we can do a thing more powerfully, faster, better."
'and the feats of my most recent youthful athlete, Herb Elliot who after 4 months of very hard conditioning moved from a mile best of 4:20 to 4:00.4, at the age of 10 days over his 19th birthday as well as a 149.2 880y - a best-ever by an Australian."
"It may also be doubtful if the marathon runner of the future and his times will ge the results of the future by running alone."
"However, no athlete can really claim to be strong who is unable to heave his body-weight overhead, or curl in loose style some 80-90% of his body-weight. Those who can do no more than 50% of their body-weight overhead must be written off as amongst mankind's physical weaklings, Runnign alone is unlikely to imporve their sorry lot." (tough)
"That my teachings may be rather for the exclusive few who would aim high i do not deny. As i dislike watering down my methods to suit the level of the weaker and more numerous ones, i never expect my views to be really popular. That which appeals ot the many can never be exclusive. Championship and world class is rather exclusive still. Personally, i like it that way"
-------------------------------------------------------------
Percy also has a chapter later on titled 'Gymnastics and extra exercises a must' and also this chapter "Resistance exercises using the body: the bar-bell and the dumb-bell as added resistance." with some specifics.
1. The Snatch. To warm up.
2. The rowing motion. For arms, shoulders and abdominals.
3. The press. For pushing muscles, standing(military), bench press or best of all with heavy dumb-bells, exercising each arm alternatively.
4. Curls. Front and Reverse.
5. The dead-lift. With erect, straight back.
6. One handed swings.
The boys are also fond of pull downs where the equipment is available.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Bit tired now but i will continue if people are interested.
cheers
if you can please continue!really interesting stuff!
sure p155 'on mistakes'
"It is said the darkest hour (in human experience)is just before the dawn.
It is grateful if you have blundered: proved to been ignorant: made a mistake. It is only through such expereinces that greatness can be achieved.
When you experience frustration: dicouragement: even a feeling of futility and hopelessness - it is then that you should take heart: reist the temptation to abandon your objectives: to give up striving and trying.
It is a commonplace human experience in human experience that - when we are about to abandon hope: when we are on the point of quitting - the miraculous occurs: we break through: we achieve (and which seemed only yesterday - the impossible) the goals we dreamed of: but we must never have ceased believing and working towards these goals."
---------------------------------------------------------------
as i take it these are additional exercises from ch15, i'll summarise ("" sentences are verbatim)
-The press up. He emphasises the body being rigid and doing this exercise 6-60 times.
-Leg lifts. Lie prostrate with arms by the side and palms down for support. Lift thelegs off the ground and overhead till they touch the floor.
-"Chinning the bar. the athlete seizes any bar, bough of tree or door lintle, lets the body hang supine and then proceeds to pull it to chin level with the bar or just above it. Six to twenty, mostly arms and fingers."
-Situps. From a prone position, feet under something and proceed to come up until head is between the knees. For harder versions weights can be held or the exercise done on an incline board. 6-100 depending whether in easy medium or hardest forms.
then he talks about work with heavy resistance.
"It needs to be understodd that i am one who holds certain and definite opinions about the upon the use of heavy resistance. They are:
1. No one can be 'really' strong without the use of heavy reisistances.
2. Few repetitions with very heavy weights, 'not' many repetitions with relatively light weights.
3. There is little to be gained by doing unusual exercises, freakish exercises or jumping movements with light weights.
4. I do not believe in deep knee bends or full squats for athletes. They will make the legs powerful, it is true, but enlargen the thigh muscles abnormally and do not seem to make for added running speeds and have adversely affected the knees of some athletes. for the legs i much prefer using the body as resistance (hello Arthur), hard and repetitive efforts up steep sand hills, steep hills, many flights of stairs etc. It is not so important that the legs are made unusually or abnormally strong as the stunt strongman, but that 'all the organism' be made strong, including the heart. Hard resistance running will do this, better and simply. It is the upper body, abdominals and back muscles that are usually deficient in power in athletes, and the exercises are to strengthen them in particular."
-------------------------------------------------------------
there is still more and i'm happy to type it as it helps me learn it better.
sim
i cant lift my body weight. lol.. probably about 70% of it. probably more if i did hardcore weights and pushups for 2 weeks i reckon i could do it.
pushups help but aren't specific. The lat pull down machine is a good lead up or if you are lucky some gyms have assisted chin up machines which help lift you a certain proportion.
What we use if stuck is a modified version where the bar/tree branch etc is lower so that you can put your feet forward and pull up with a straight body on an incline instead and as you get stronger you just do it more and more vertically until you can leave the ground.
Hope your backyard has lots of trees with low branches.
not that slow wrote:
i cant lift my body weight. lol.. probably about 70% of it. probably more if i did hardcore weights and pushups for 2 weeks i reckon i could do it.
Just try to do a couple and keep a log. Try to adding a rep or two every workout. Work up to a couple sets of several reps per set. You will be surprised at the progress in the beginning, so it will help to encourage you.
Good luck.