How much does heavy squatting improve 100m time?

Ah, no. Certainly not just .25. From the IAAF Usain Bolt page he improved from 10.03 in 2007 to 9.58 in 2009, .45 seconds. In the 200, which he primarily ran before he began running the 100m, he improved from 21.73 in 2001 to 19.19 in 2009, 2.54 seconds. I imagine the improvements for both distances were much more if you go back to when Bolt first started training.

WALK IT OUT WALK IT OUT wrote:

gotta go to parallel if you want to work the glutes (the main muscles you want to improve strength in for sprinting/running). your a** should be sore AF/wrecked the next day if you are a novice jumping into a new program & do the squats with correct form. half-squats are quad-dominant.

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This comment makes me think I've never done a correct squat in my life. Even body weight squats I can't get a good glute workout.

Weights do nothing wrote:

Strength is beneficial to mid to long distance runners because their ground contact times are longer and they have time to exert force. Usain Bolt has an average contact time of 0.08-0.07. Heavy squatting will do absolutely nothing to help your muscles to produce force in such a short time. Plyometrics and Olympic lifts are the only things that might make a difference. But even then the results will be negligible.

You either have speed or you don't. It's all about how many fast twitch muscle fibres you have, not how much weight you can squat.

This is absolute, total, unmitigated BULLSHlT.

First of all, contact time is much greater in the 100m during the first few steps, and force application is key. This is why hugely muscled guys (not sprinters) can be surprisingly quick over the first 3-5 steps. Squats help that very much, if you do them right.

Second, magnitude of force production, and also how quickly it can be produced, depend on all the fast-twitch firing, which depends on recruitment. Fast-twitch are not only recruited during fast movements, they are also recruited under the heaviest load. IIRC, the fastest-twitch are the last ones recruited, therefore you can stimulate them with very heavy squats, without incurring the risk of injury that fast movement entails, which is the other way to recruit them.

They are therefore an excellent training movement for the sprints.

Whether or not heavy squatting will actually improve your time will depend on lots of things, like whether you are a natural sprinter or not, your level of training, your age, how long you have been sprinting, your sprinting technique, just how heavy your weights are, etc.

Training in the fashion of powerlifter, where the emphasis is on max effort, is inadvisable for a sprinter. Lifting and sprinting have nothing to do with each other. Even when lifting involves the same muscles used in sprinting, it calls upon different skills, skills that do not "transfer" over to sprinting. For this reason, resistance training is only of benefit to sprinters to the extent that it optimizes the strength of the muscle fibers themselves, i.e. hypertrophy. To the extent that emphasis of weight training is on reinforcing lifting skills or what the charlatans of the training world call "CNS" training, the training is worthless.

"To the extent that emphasis of weight training is on reinforcing lifting skills or what the charlatans of the training world call "CNS" training, the training is worthless."

This is also incorrect.

The thing about controlled movements like powerlifting movements (as opposed to explosive Olympic-style lifts) is that they allow you the luxury of time.

One thing you can do with that time is to realize what is happening, realize where you're at, and change it. I'm talking about switching gears.

Many people have noticed this effect, maybe not you. The effect is that you are in the middle of a lift, a set, or a workout, and you are doing what you do. You then realize that you have fallen into a lull, in terms of EFFORT, even though you might feel like you are maxxed--and then you SWITCH GEARS.

This has happened to me personally when I have taken a break from, and then returned to, heavy weights. I could be in the middle of a movement and then think to myself WTF! and then WAKE UP and all of a sudden it is easier.

When you are well-trained with heavy weights, this never happens, because you have trained yourself to be at that next level in terms of effort--and I'm talking CNS effort, I'm talking awareness, I'm not just talking about what feels like muscular effort or fatigue.

This is why you see heavy weight guys all jacked-up, because they are THERE. I can't explain it to you any better than that.

That ability to be THERE most certainly helps in sprinting, especially during the first 4 or 5 steps of acceleration, and even farther out, to middle acceleration.

The issue of "getting stronger" is as much an issue of HOW as WHAT. Sure, you can make your actual muscles capable of greater output and power, and that is the WHAT--but the HOW refers to HOW you actually ACHIEVE that greater output and power.

You have to be able to do it, and that is all "CNS", for lack of a better term. You have to get to the point where you mentally black out, where you see red, where the outside environment completely disappears, where you are completely within yourself, your effort, your rage, your DRIVE.

The best sprinters will tell you that this happens when they run their best. It's not something you should have to try to achieve, it's something that needs to just happen, and that you will be surprised at when looking back at what happened. If I've blacked out during a 100m, I know I have done well. All sprinters who perform to the best of their ability will tell you this.

And doing very heavy weights in a controlled movement like powerlifting movements is a very good way to get into this zone, to get this zen, to learn how to channel yourself and shift gears into the blackout.

I pulled 3 x 405 once. It was like you described in terms of the intensity. It's like my mind shut off, but electricity was running through me. Like 5 seconds of pure rage. I couldn't see normally during or for a minute after. There is the feeling of having no control of it. It's hard to trust it. I don't think many people have been there. I've been there that one time lifting and a few times on the bike. Never while running. I think you have to reach a very high level of fitness to possibly go there.

^^yes^^

I improved my 100 by almost 2.5 seconds through training

hip thrusts are more important to gain speed according to folks on testosterone nation.

Any component you use in training, is simply a tool. Whether you're using the tool correctly, is another issue.

Yes, squatting in various ranges of motion and loads can improve speed and power performance. It is not the end-all be-all, but it is a useful tool. Just have an understanding of when and why you're doing something.