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    You are at:Home»Forums»General Discussions»Blog Discussion»Exploring the Relationship between Strength & Speed

    Exploring the Relationship between Strength & Speed

    Posted In: Blog Discussion

        • Keymaster
          Mike Young on May 22, 2014 at 9:39 am #224194

          The relationship between strength and speed is often misunderstood and debates on whether increases in strength result in improvements in speed are of
          [See the full post at: Exploring the Relationship between Strength & Speed]

          ELITETRACK Founder

        • Participant
          [email protected] on May 22, 2014 at 1:49 pm #224198

          I think this is a great little piece assessing this. People too often are polarized as you mentioned. It’s always 1 extreme or the other and never the in-between or the finesse of situational specific training. I think it definitely makes sense where that max strength and power, accelerates you towards your top speed maybe faster for those who do lift maximally vs those who don’t. However there is that equation of genetics and randomness and the reality that those at the top may have already been capable of achieving that without the help of some S&C guys throwing big wheels on their back. Yet S&C has it’s time and place to improving the individuals performance also. Sometimes I think many of us in S&C are too quick to overstate our importance to “EVERY!” individual and not just towards the general large picture. We do have much to offer to an individual and a team, but unless your competing in powerlifting, we’re not always the big difference maker. Merely a piece of the overall equation.

        • Member
          [email protected] on May 22, 2014 at 6:52 pm #224199

          These articles/studies just keep coming out and I kind of wonder why. “Muscle power is not the best determinant of maximum running velocity” seems to be the consistent message coming through. Elasticity and stiffness/compliance are better measures of max velocity so we should be looking at that more.

        • Member
          [email protected] on May 22, 2014 at 6:55 pm #224200

          Perhaps the attached might be worth some discussion

        • Participant
          Uros Zivkovic on May 26, 2014 at 7:26 am #224361

          Mike, this is something that I have been thinking about for a very long time.

          From my own experience, increasing relative strength in exercises like the deadlift and squat I have found to be very effective for acceleration, but top speed aswell. When I do fly-in sprints I always progress faster when I incorporate strength training aswell.

          From what I have heard, the best way to increase top end speed is to train and increase RFD. I have also seen studies that say that strength training increases RFD by neuromuscular adaptions from it.

          But then I want to ask you, what do you think is the best way to train top end speed?

          Atleast for me, improving my relative strength will always have a great impact.

        • Participant
          Uros Zivkovic on May 27, 2014 at 8:17 pm #224448

          Just found this study that’s very related to this topic. The interesting thing is that they assesed acceleration (10m sprint time) aswell as their actual top speed(flying 10m sprint):

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23584316

        • Participant
          Uros Zivkovic on June 2, 2014 at 8:39 am #225280

          I’m back again with some new findings, take a look at this study that found leg strength was a better predictor of 100m performance than leg stiffnes:

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12094115

          The correlation between strength and 100m performance was r=0,74, so since the correlation between MRS and 100m performance is very high (r=0,90), this means that strength can have great impact on running velocity.

        • Participant
          Matt Norquist on June 3, 2014 at 6:59 pm #225284
          Uros Zivkovic wrote:

          I?m back again with some new findings, take a look at this study that found leg strength was a better predictor of 100m performance than leg stiffnes:

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12094115

          The correlation between strength and 100m performance was r=0,74, so since the correlation between MRS and 100m performance is very high (r=0,90), this means that strength can have great impact on running velocity.

          Interesting study – but is simply correlational vs. saying anything about an impact. You’d have to look at increases in strength and stiffness vs. change in 100m time to make any meaningful conclusions.

          • Participant
            Uros Zivkovic on June 4, 2014 at 2:20 pm #225321
            Matt Norquist wrote:

            <div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Uros Zivkovic wrote:</div>
            I?m back again with some new findings, take a look at this study that found leg strength was a better predictor of 100m performance than leg stiffnes:

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12094115

            The correlation between strength and 100m performance was r=0,74, so since the correlation between MRS and 100m performance is very high (r=0,90), this means that strength can have great impact on running velocity.

            Interesting study ? but is simply correlational vs. saying anything about an impact. You?d have to look at increases in strength and stiffness vs. change in 100m time to make any meaningful conclusions.

            Absolutely, but as far as I know there are no studies that have examined any distances longer than 40m. Nonetheless, I think there is more than enough evidence to support the idea that maximum strength should play an important part in an speed-power athletes training regimen.

            Take a look at this great article about this very topic:

            https://www.budoseek.net/articles/fitness/How_Strong_is_Strong_Enough.pdf

            It shows that maximum strength has a lot to do with peak power and even RFD, so it just makes even more sense to utilize maximum strength training.

          • Participant
            Matt Norquist on June 4, 2014 at 4:59 pm #225326

            Great find – very nice summary of research. In my own experience with trained athletes (those who train both on sprints and are proficient in both olympic lifts and squats) – I’ve seen stronger correlations with squat than with power clean – certainly only anecdotal – but I’ve seen a lot more sub 11.00 100m guys who have higher squats relative to cleans than cleans relative to squats. Athletes that come to mind for me:

            Eric Broadbent of this site: 400# squat, only 300 clean – 10.6
            John Strang used to be on here: 315 squat, very weak clean – 10.8ish
            Bryan Clay: 500+ squat, only 335 clean – 10.3
            Trey Hardee: Similar numbers to BC – Again those numbers are both strong, but that squat is a bigger number than the clean.
            Ashton Eaton: Don’t know what he squats, but I’ve heard 250# numbers on clean, which is not strong: 10.2
            Evan Scott used to be on here: 500+ squat, 330ish clean – 10.3
            Me (for fun) 315-320 clean, 375 squat – 11.6

          • Participant
            Uros Zivkovic on June 7, 2014 at 12:37 pm #225364

            I’ve had very similiar experiences myself, my top speed aswell as acceleration seem to increase fairly linearly with my squat strength. This is something I have noticed quite often with other athletes aswell and from what a lot of people have told me.

        • Participant
          Derrick Brito on June 19, 2014 at 3:50 pm #226063

          I think that might have something to do with technique. Someone who is good at cleans/snatches should show a good relationship between squat and pull numbers.

        • Participant
          Matt Norquist on June 20, 2014 at 12:35 pm #226065
          Derrick Brito wrote:

          I think that might have something to do with technique. Someone who is good at cleans/snatches should show a good relationship between squat and pull numbers.

          Elite lifters typically squat 130% or so of their clean numbers – With the exception of me (and I’d hazard I have the worst OLY technique of the lot) A lot of these faster guys are more like 150%. I surmise that it actually more to do with lever length, in that many faster sprinters tend to have shorter femurs relative to tibia, which is also advantageous to squat – but a little less advantageous for pulls.

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