Question- Does anyone know the squat as a percentage of body weight an elite sprinter and, or an elite middle distance runner has or should have?
Question- Does anyone know the squat as a percentage of body weight an elite sprinter and, or an elite middle distance runner has or should have?
There is no number that you can put on that, if you are thinking that someone's squat is in direct correlation their speed. How much do you think Kiprop squats? 100 pounds? It doesn't matter. Everybody seems to think that elite sprinters can squat 500+ lbs. but that ain't happening. A lot of world class sprinters don't even squat, and some don't even lift. Carl Lewis never even lifted until late in his career. If I had to guess, your average world class sprinter who lifts probably does reps at 315-405 lbs. Elite MD guys who lift can probably put up 175-250 pounds for reps.
I'll put it this way. Ben Johnson on steroids squatted 2X6X600, and that wasn't his peak capability according to Charlie Francis.
Mo Greene's PR is 435 as a triple.
They ran the same time.
There is no such thing as a target squat level for an elite sprint or a mid-d. Squats primarily help in the first 10 meters and they primarily help novices who do not have the sprint work capacity (how many sprints you can do in a workout before slowing down). As you get faster, the power requirements on the track go up exponentially, and the recovery requirements also go up. You get to the point where further improvements in the gym can only occur with CNS resources taken away from the track.
Weights are not primary for either sprinters or middle distance. They only need to be "good enough". You'll find out what good enough is, because that's the point where getting strong in the gym doesn't make you faster in sprints.
I used to squat. Got up to 455 and only could run 2:08. Haven't seen a weight room in a year now and I'm back to running 2:00. Weights can be extremely counter productive.
I'll put it this way. Ben Johnson on steroids squatted 2X6X600, and that wasn't his peak capability according to Charlie Francis.
Not disagreeing with your points but this is an obvious embellishment.
How can weights be counterproductive?
Rupp and Farah do squats for power at ~1.5x bodyweight... that's direct from the guy who does their lifting regimen, I'll try to find the article where he gave that number.
Lifting for power is usually 3-5 sets of 5-10 done at 80% 1RM as fast as possible (I think), so assuming Rupp for example is around 140 pounds, that gives 210 for squats when lifting for power, and a 1RM around 260-265.