Farah doing low squats with 40kg- so where does his speed come from?

A couple things....

There’s a difference between being boney because you have no muscle mass and being shredded because you have 5% body fat. You don’t see runners with striations so most are probably around 8-9% body fat at the least.

Now about strength and mobility....To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose ....

ATG, low weight...great as a warmup and work on mobility. Most people lack the mobility to even go ATG without their hips turning under or their heels coming up. As a general strength exercise there’s no reason to go lower than just under parallel. That means the crease of your hips dips below the top of your knee. Now as your lifting progresses to more specific work it’s advisable to do lighter weights more explosively with limited motion. I’ve seen this also done with a tall box used as a reference point so the glutes just barely touch the box. Single leg variations are also good but most lifters can’t do a single leg exercise without pushing off with the other foot.

Alan

Splits Guy wrote:

I'm sorry you can't break 12.0, but I'm rather certain Mo Farah can easily

If he could easily, why did he run only 12.98 in this race? He looked like he was trying, and it wasn't like he was cruising to a win, he was a well beaten 3rd.

Wasn't the track wet and it was in the winter? So, he was out of shape but under strict instructions from Salazar not to tear a muscle, so he wasn't going all out. That is my bet. In August, he'd probably break 12, or at least in the second half of a 200.

You dont know the purpose of actually lifting through the joints angles that are used in his events? He isnt a football lineman where he has functional movement from a deeper stance. He is moving to and back out of a functional movement.

Come on you guys.......do some research about how runners should lift

Tron wrote:

YMMV wrote:

And now for something completely different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VTqFGiWKNo

what's the purpose of a maybe 20 degree bend for those "squats"?

Because that’s more than the greatest flexion the knee ever takes during running ground contact.

Anything further is training to squat deep and impress your br0s, not training to RUN.

Mo is a great runner, but I would not take any lifting advice from him. That video is painful to watch.

1/2 squats and 1/4 squats are great for running. I would say they have an even greater impact on your CNS because of the heavier weights you can use.

it’s called specificity wrote:

Tron wrote:

what's the purpose of a maybe 20 degree bend for those "squats"?

Because that’s more than the greatest flexion the knee ever takes during running ground contact.

Anything further is training to squat deep and impress your br0s, not training to RUN.

Sure it’s very very specific but disagree that a deeper squat doesn’t benefit running.

You’re basically saying any range of motion outside a flat surface running stride isn’t beneficial. Deeper squats strengthen the quad as a whole which keeps it in balance.

krispy's kut:

I remember first watching this a year ago (along with the other videos in his series) and thinking: no f-ing way this it how he lifts. Even at the low weights, it looked sloopy, rushed, insincere and with limited truly informational content.

I think this video was thrown together in an hour to check off the "lifting video" check box of this Mo-based promotional/marketing video series. I wouldn't take much of anything away from this video as how it relates to serious, world-class athletes. Maybe - just maybe - a rising freshman in high school that wants to do more work in the weight room can learn three elementary lifts from this video and will, hopefully (and quickly) move on to more informative, running-specific informational videos and lifts.

I consider discussions of BF% as made useless below 10% since there is no standardized, accurate measure.

That said, Mo is quite lean for a runner (most of whom tend to be skinnyfat uper bodies, even elites):

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/08/11/21/432C318000000578-4783170-image-a-58_1502482184991.jpg

Anybody got a link of him with slam ball?

Mo is disturbingly cut. Up to 2010 he wasn't cut ? but then again I've lost alot of body fat, Russian twists do this.

Gggggg wrote:

https://youtu.be/91TZh72MnZI

In this clip Farah does ass to grass squats of 6 reps with 40kg. He weights about 60 kg. This is pretty weak compare to his body weight. It’s 66% of his body weight. I can do the same sets with almost 90% of my body weight (and I’m pretty fit, probably around 10% body fat (Farah is probably around 3-5% ) Yet I’m nowhere near his speed. I can run 400m in around 70 seconds, and 100m in about 15. He can run 400 in sub 50, maybe even around 48. And 100m probably in sub 12

So where does his speed come from? Does speed has no relation to your squat capability? Or does Farah plays around in this clip and can actually squat way more?

You are wrong in many assumptions.

First he doesn't weight around 60 kg. He is much lighter than that. I'm exactly his height and I weight 60.5 kg (bmi 20) but I am fatty compared to him lol. I also saw him eye to eye in 2015 Cardiff half from about 2 meters distance and he is just a skeleton. He is around 52 kg at most.

Second the 40 kg squats were nowhere near his max for the sets he did. He did it very easily. It's obviously a weight that he choose for the video and most probably at least 5-10 kg lower than his max for this set.

So with correct input you get close to 1:1 ratio

Subway Surfers wrote:

Mo is disturbingly cut. Up to 2010 he wasn't cut ? but then again I've lost alot of body fat, Russian twists do this.

Must be the push ups and picking up the pace of his easy runs.

qw wrote:

You are wrong in many assumptions.

First he doesn't weight around 60 kg. He is much lighter than that. I'm exactly his height and I weight 60.5 kg (bmi 20) but I am fatty compared to him lol. I also saw him eye to eye in 2015 Cardiff half from about 2 meters distance and he is just a skeleton. He is around 52 kg at most.

Second the 40 kg squats were nowhere near his max for the sets he did. He did it very easily. It's obviously a weight that he choose for the video and most probably at least 5-10 kg lower than his max for this set.

So with correct input you get close to 1:1 ratio

While he's he is skinny. He can't be weigh less than 115 ibs. I use to be 115 ibs at 5'7 and looked like a skeleton. I was able to see my ribcage easy. I had no lats at that weight. Now he looks to be much more muscular than I was when I was around 115-120 ibs.

Ezekiel bread wrote:

Subway Surfers wrote:

Mo is disturbingly cut. Up to 2010 he wasn't cut ? but then again I've lost alot of body fat, Russian twists do this.

Must be the push ups and picking up the pace of his easy runs.

Russian twists and pushups make it really hard to hear the doorbell.