So far this summer I have been following advice and working out with weihts, I am pretty pleased because I am geting stronger, but weihed myself and I now weigh 152lbs, about a 5lb increase. Is this something I should be concerned about as mike believes weight gain is bad?
First you must be sure if these additional 5lb is just muscle or maybe you got some fat as well, maybe 2lb is fat, it’s not easy to know unless you new your fat levels before and you would check now as well. Anyway, it depends through wich training routine you’ve got some weight, through multijoint exercises or mainly “beach” routine. If mainly through “beach”, mostly isolated exercises then it won’t help much.
If you’ve got some weight through multijoint exercises which are more specific to sprinting then I don’t see something wrong. But there is always a limit when too much is too much. Anyway now you must build your powerhouse without much increase in bodyweight, avoiding hypertrophy routine. Build your power house as much as you can, as much as you need without increase in bodyweight, if you’ll get additional 2lb naturally then again I don’t see something bad. Don’t stay too long on strenght development, use periods of explosive and reactive strenght meanwhile maintaining your max strenght levels. If you’ll get 2xyour bodyweight in full squat exercise without increase in body weight then it would be a solid foundation. For you would be 1.52×2=around 304lb full squat. Then look at tests for explosive strenght like for example vertical high jump, standing long jump. Whith a right training they should be better. Then check from time to time how are you doing at more specific tests to sprinting, which have plyometric effect. Standing triple jump, hopping and of course sprinting for short distance. Just examples