Building your legs won’t slow you down.
A tenth of a second is meaningless with hand timing.
Those telling you that working your hams and glutes to get faster are right, but your quads are still very important when it comes to sprinting, mostly during the start and acceleration phase.
I don’t know what you are doing to focus on quads, but for your lower body you should be focusing on squats. Squatting will take care of strengthening both your quads and posterior chain.
[quote]StonesAreFun wrote:
I think I read somewhere (and it makes sense) that maximal lower body strength is highly positively correlated with decreased sprint times. [/quote]
I'd like to see the article where this is written, because it's wrong. Ask yourself this: if an athlete is predominantly fast-twitch in his lower body, what will he be good at? Sprinting and low-rep/heavy weight squatting (oversimplification but you get the point).
Hey, look, there’s even a study on it! Yay Google.
EDIT: As for advice - hamstrings, hamstrings, and more hamstrings with glutes thrown in. You can’t sprint fast with weak hams, so if you gained weight elsewhere and din’t keep up your ham strength, it’s certainly possible you could lose a tenth on your time.
Take an olympic barbell to football field. 25 on each side. Sprint up-field 100 yds, rest, sprint back, 20 squats. Repeat 3 times. Good luck.
there’s a reason pro oly lifters are some of the fastest short distance sprinters.
Of course just pumping iron slows legs down after some mass is aquired. You have to adjust muscles for an atheltic function, otherwise you just have potential and general strength.
That said, big, muscular thighs and great technique along with talent/genes is without question the ideal foundation for eltite runners.
For hobby athletes, complementing the training with occasional running and stretching should suffice.
[quote]Rugby_Owns wrote:
there’s a reason pro oly lifters are some of the fastest short distance sprinters. [/quote]
Speedskater are.
doubleh,
Do you know how to read? That’s exactly what I said. INCREASED maximal lower body strength (that means you can lift more weight) results in DECREASED sprint times (that means your faster).
Its a damn 1/10 of a second…Hand-Timed. Go get it laser timed buddy boy. I doubt youll be running in the 4.5-4.6’s. 1/10 of a second can be a bad start or you brought your body up to high in the beggining. It can also be coaches error since it was hand timed…Thats why laser is the only way to go.
[quote]GuiYoM wrote:
Rugby_Owns wrote:
there’s a reason pro oly lifters are some of the fastest short distance sprinters.
Speedskater are.[/quote]
Apparently you can’t fucking read and don’t know the implications of the word SOME.
[quote]tnt2005 wrote:
Today we were timed in the 40 I could do that in 4.5 then I built my hamstrings and took it down to 4.45. Now that I’ve worked my hole leg and focused on the quads since you can see it, it has gone up to 4.6 my first step seems slower. Does building your legs actually slow you down?[/quote]
No.
[quote]blazindave wrote:
tnt2005 wrote:
Today we were timed in the 40 I could do that in 4.5 then I built my hamstrings and took it down to 4.45. Now that I’ve worked my hole leg and focused on the quads since you can see it, it has gone up to 4.6 my first step seems slower. Does building your legs actually slow you down?
Yes. More weight will obviously slow you down.[/quote]
Decrease in relative body strength will slow you down.
Take an individual who is 130lbs and squats 130lbs. Build him up to 175lbs and a 400 lb squat HIGHLY doubtful he gets slower.
Yes but then make him 300 lbs, and squat a grand. Gaurantee he’s slower.
And by the way Guiyom what the hell are you doing in your Avatar ?
Or why are you doing it I should ask.
Looks like he is testing VO2 Max and max heart rate.
[quote]StonesAreFun wrote:
doubleh,
Do you know how to read? That’s exactly what I said. INCREASED maximal lower body strength (that means you can lift more weight) results in DECREASED sprint times (that means your faster). [/quote]
Ha, apparently not. I read a bit too quick, I suppose, in my haste to point out that a lot of other posters seemed to think that, yes, bigger legs would slow you down.
My apologies.
Would huge arms make someone a good puncher ? They might help, but at they some time it isnt necessary to have 22 inch arms to be a heavy weight boxer. Get my drift ?
Extensor Dominant Movement (ie. glute and hamstrings) = Blazing Speed
I work the crap out of my legs, but I haven’t done the 40 since high school (and that was 13 years ago). The other day at the gym I had a guy ask me to play football for them because it looked like I had the strong legs for it. I think having muscular legs, more especially glutes and hams, will help with short and explosive sprints. For endurance runs, it can be rough; my quads give out quickly.
[quote]tnt2005 wrote:
Today we were timed in the 40 I could do that in 4.5 then I built my hamstrings and took it down to 4.45. Now that I’ve worked my hole leg and focused on the quads since you can see it, it has gone up to 4.6 my first step seems slower. Does building your legs actually slow you down?[/quote]
Joe DeFranco has a specific weights/running programme for his athletes, i’m sure this would be better than what you’re doing at the moment, as look at his athletes now!