allyson felix: leg press 700lbs, dead lift 245?!

She's not litte, and she's not much of a girl.

245 DL really isn't very impressive

nor is 700lb leg press, especially if on one of those slanted machines. I could do that as a 135 lb high schooler.

I can do 720 lb for 8 reps and 3 sets on the leg press and I deadlifted 290 after a month (I don't do it anymore because I think it gave me back problems). To give you more of an idea, I do bench 8 reps 3 sets at 165 and squat same # reps and sets at 265 without a belt. I'm a guy and weigh 175 and I have pretty bad running prs, although on the soccer pitch I'm usually the fastest. The leg press is at an angle so divide it by two and keep in mind you also don't have the weight on your back. It wouldn't surprise me if a world class female could do one rep at 700 for leg press.

ya, not as impressive as you think. especially the DL

This is a girl, boys.

I'm a 6'2 190 pound man.

Her lifts are impressive for her size. If she was my size she would outlift me.

In comparison I've dead lifted over 400, but I do not recommend it (compressed disc).

Leg press is a partly worthless exercise for most sprinters. You'd get more out of weighted squats and lunges, and step ups. The leg press was too easy-

When I was competitive in the 200 and 400, I found that for several weeks after intensive weight training my speed was slower than I wanted. Weights are great for building a strength base for sprinters, but you aren't going to get fast with it alone.

If you look at most weight lifters, they are slow, overly aggressive huge people. Don't get me wrong they are big and can lift huge amounts of weight, but they've trained their body to lift weight- and thats all it does. Muscle size does not translate at all into coordination, top end speed, or explosiveness and performance on a track.

Most boxers, MMA fighters are smaller than weight lifters, but much stronger. Most sprinters are also much small than weight lifters, but much faster. Muscle size does not translate at all into speed.

She's a lovely and admirable person

She from the 'Hood.

You guys are full of shit. Thats a ton of weight for dead lifts. Most people on this site couldn't even dead lift half that weight.

Are you kidding? I'm sorry, but 245 is just an average number that a female weightlifter could lift. I mean sure she's strong, but it's not some crazy amount. If you told me she can bench 245 then yes I'd be very impressed.

not a regular wrote:

Leg press is a partly worthless exercise for most sprinters. You'd get more out of weighted squats and lunges, and step ups. The leg press was too easy- .

Leg press is not too easy, you just add more weight to the machine.

if you can't even deadlift 300 there's no way you're true squatting 265 for 3x8.

and in response to the op, 245 is good but not great, I mean she is an elite athlete for goodness sake.

casual commentary wrote:

if you can't even deadlift 300 there's no way you're true squatting 265 for 3x8.

Like I said, I only tried it for a month. About once a week. So that's four or five times. I never seriously tried to get a big number and gave it up because I thought it was too risky for my back. I do squats down to 90 degrees (thighs parallel) feet flat. I adjust the squat rack to make sure I do.

I posted my squat and bench because I'm not really that great of a lifter or runner (52 and 2:02), yet I can do reps of what she's did. I've been lifting since my freshman year of high school and it's over a decade later so you could say that I should be lifting heavier weights.

I never deadlifted, but in high school as a 17yo who weighed only 125lbs (at 5'10" too) I could legpress 850lbs, and I was the "skinny distance guy" (who just happened to be able to out legpress most of the football team).

If I recall the article correctly, it was talking mostly about the merits of dead lift for sprinters. If it's the article I'm thinking about, the leg press number was intended for a strength comparison for people who hadn't dead lifted (it mentioned her dead lift more than doubling while working with that coach, I doubt she could only leg press less than 350 before that) and I wouldn't read anything into it. For the haters, dead lift 245 for someone with her build is freakish, she's a 5'6" 125 female with really long legs, quite possibly the worst dead lifting frame I've ever heard of. That's why she's a sub-11/sub-22/sub-50 runner.

90 degrees on a squat is not parallel unless you're talking bottom of thighs parallel to the floor. A legit squat depth (for lifting # purposes) is TOP of the thighs parallel, which requires a knee angle well past 90deg. Granted, most sprinters do not squat that deep.

A 245 deadlift (2xBW) should not be surprising for an elite female athlete in a power discipline. Long legs are not as big a drawback for deadlifting as they are for squating, especially if you have correspondingly long arms. Deadlifting is perfectly fine for your back if you do it correctly. In fact, many strength coaches would argue that leg press is worse for your back since most lifters unconsciously round their lumbar spine at the bottom of the lift, and of course, leg press is next to useless for sprinters.

who cares, she's faster than you.

end of thread.

bearpowered.com - this is the guy who trained who dl in high school