Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I here alot of the time that Oly lifters having brillant sprint times up to 40m and that they would beat elite sprinters…But are oly lifters actually that fast beyond 15m…all i ever here is rumours ..a oyl lifter i know off has pretty impressive vertical 38” but he is not that fast at all ...up to 15m he is pretty good….....

There have been tests where they have timed better in 30m runs that olympic sprinters and have jumped higher than the high jumpers(not the super heavy weights). IS THIS TRUE??
anybody ever work with olympic lifters ..can olylifter beat elite sprinters in the 30m??

No, especially not for men. But it’s not categorical of course. I can imagine a scenario where someone would try to train both for weightlifting and the 60m and eventually progress to a level of being extremely fast during the first 30 meters or so. Without sprint training, there’s probably no chance at all though.

Today, during the European indoor championships there was actually a Swedish woman (Lena Berntsson) in the 60m final who competes in both weightlifting and sprinting. She was actually leading at the 40m mark in the final, although ended up fifth with 7.26 (same as her PB). She will also compete in the upcoming European Championships in weightlifting this year.

But then again, I think there was also a guy in the men’s 60m preliminaries who used to do race walking (with decent time in the 20k), with a PB of 6.71 in the 60m.

Tests of Olympic sprinters versus Olympic weightlifters for their 30m and vertical? Never happened. I think Verko or one of those other Rooskis talk a lot about it, but provide 0 evidence or names.

Here is an article on vertical jumps of different athletes. This is about the Korean’s mainly.

The 77k gold medalist from Beijing is discussed having a one meter vert.

http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=070000&biid=2009011433668

davan - 08 March 2009 05:11 PM

Tests of Olympic sprinters versus Olympic weightlifters for their 30m and vertical? Never happened. I think Verko or one of those other Rooskis talk a lot about it, but provide 0 evidence or names.

We actually discussed this quite a bit on here about a year ago. I think Mort actually emailed Yessis I believe. If I recall correctly the tests were done but it wasn’t organized and there was never any landmark paper as is cited all over the net.

I had never heard of Lena before this thread so I looked her up. She doesn’t look like a workhorse but is clearly very powerful.

There have been several bobsledders who have successfully competed at bobsled and Olympic weightlifting and even more throwers who have done so.

No american sprinter was tested period. Name one sprinter as nobody tested Bob Hayes or Tommie Smith.

Does it matter what she lifts? Damn…

Mike Young - 09 March 2009 11:41 AM

davan - 08 March 2009 05:11 PM

Tests of Olympic sprinters versus Olympic weightlifters for their 30m and vertical? Never happened. I think Verko or one of those other Rooskis talk a lot about it, but provide 0 evidence or names.

We actually discussed this quite a bit on here about a year ago. I think Mort actually emailed Yessis I believe. If I recall correctly the tests were done but it wasn’t organized and there was never any landmark paper as is cited all over the net.

yes.  here is what was posted on the forum:

————————————————————————-
Dr. Yessis,

I often hear about the study (done by you, I believe) that compared short
sprint times of weightlifter and sprinters. It showed that weightlifters
had better starting speed than olympic sprinter. Where can I find this
study? Thanks!

======================================== ==========================
don’t recall if I mentioned a study or wrote up what I learned in the
Soviet weightlifing literature. The information should read that world
class weightlifters can out do world class sprinters for the first 5-10
meters. Also, some had better absolute vericals but especially in relation
to their size as for example Alexeyev. This does not apply to all
weightlifters, only the better ones

Michael Yessis, Ph.D
Professor Emeritus, CSUF
President, Sports Training, Inc.
————————————————————————

lorien - 08 March 2009 05:01 PM

But then again, I think there was also a guy in the men’s 60m preliminaries who used to do race walking (with decent time in the 20k), with a PB of 6.71 in the 60m.

I just re-read this and found this to be more interesting than the OL & 60m combo. Do you know what the guys name is?

Mike Young - 09 March 2009 11:28 PM

lorien - 08 March 2009 05:01 PM

But then again, I think there was also a guy in the men’s 60m preliminaries who used to do race walking (with decent time in the 20k), with a PB of 6.71 in the 60m.

I just re-read this and found this to be more interesting than the OL & 60m combo. Do you know what the guys name is?

I remember the TV presenters making a fuss about the guy; they said that with his PB in the 20k he would have ranked 4th in the Finnish 2008 list over 20k. Thus I got the impression he used to be a race walker before he started sprinting. But it seems he was a sprinter all along, only with the curios thing of having tried race walking in 2006. However, according to the IAAF biographical information it appears he only did it once.

Here’s the biographical data according to the IAAF for Aslan Ismail (TUR).

That’s INSANE! Thanks for looking that up. I’ll bet he had more speed reserve than anyone else in the 20k race walk!