Bench Press and sprinting

thirtyfoot · 02-05-2007 5:30pm #1

I recently saw an interview with Asafa Powell (world record holder for the 100m with 9.77secs) and there is a shot of him in the interview failing to bench press 100kg, his spotter had to bail him out. I also remember hearing that when in Melbourne last year he was struggling to complete reps at 90kg. He weighs 88kgs. What do people think regarding the relevance of BP to sprinting or does it depend on the athlete? I would expect the WR holder to bp much more than this but its probably that Powell is so lean and is a floater as opposed to a car crash sprinter like Ben Johnson.
Anyone any thoughts?

tribulus · 02-05-2007 5:42pm

I don't know anything about the mechanics of sprinting but how big a part do pecs play in it?

I thought sprinters merely benched as it was a good way to add some upper body size?

t-ha · 02-05-2007 5:50pm

I would find that very odd to be honest. It's not that I think the bench press is neccessarily that important for sprinting, but just that at 88kg he is a pretty built guy + as a sprinter I would have expected him to have a fast-twitch dominance in his muscle fibre make-up, basically making it easier for him to lift heavy weights.

tribulus · 02-05-2007 5:53pm

Crap form!

Ah no I would also expect sprinters do have semi-decent benches, i.e repping out at only a bit over bodyweight. I don't know why, I guess it's because they're so explosive like t-ha said.

Having said that they probably don't put much effort into being fast at benching when they need to run fast!

Pherekydes · 02-05-2007 6:31pm

tribulus wrote:

I don't know anything about the mechanics of sprinting but how big a part do pecs play in it?

I thought sprinters merely benched as it was a good way to add some upper body size?

I'd imagine that the delts play a bigger part than pecs. The BP is a useful exercise for the delts, the triceps and the pecs. On the 2nd point, I don't think there are many world class sprinters who want to be bigger just for the sake of it.

cowzerp · 02-05-2007 6:46pm

Bench pressing tells you nothing about a sprinter and is not an exercise that sprinters need to be good at-it would do no harm but not much good either-read nothing into this as, if you gave me 100kg and i'd never tried it before it could cause a big shock to his body-this happenned me one time with 60kg-i was told it was 40, went to do set and was not prepared for 60kg-only for spotter would of dropped it as it was a shock-this was in a different gym and it looked like 40kg an all-:o

tribulus · 02-05-2007 6:47pm

Like I said I've no idea why they bench!

Anyone?

Laslo · 02-05-2007 7:49pm

You don't have to bench heavy to look big in fairness. You can happily do high intensity rep-outs at 80kg and bulk right up.

Hanley · 03-05-2007 12:12am

Tingle wrote:

I recently saw an interview with Asafa Powell (world record holder for the 100m with 9.77secs) and there is a shot of him in the interview failing to bench press 100kg, his spotter had to bail him out. I also remember hearing that when in Melbourne last year he was struggling to complete reps at 90kg. He weighs 88kgs. What do people think regarding the relevance of BP to sprinting or does it depend on the athlete? I would expect the WR holder to bp much more than this but its probably that Powell is so lean and is a floater as opposed to a car crash sprinter like Ben Johnson.
Anyone any thoughts?

The world record holder can barely bench his own bodyweight.

What does this tell us?

Being unable to rep with jsut over your bodyweight is completly unimportant and irrelanvant when it comes to sprinting.

You answered your own question really.

t-ha · 03-05-2007 9:12am

Hanley wrote:

The world record holder can barely bench his own bodyweight.

What does this tell us?

Being unable to rep with jsut over your bodyweight is completly unimportant and irrelanvant when it comes to sprinting.

You answered your own question really.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion though myself, just because the evidence he can barely bench BW isn't for sure. I mean we've got a shot of him during an interview & a story the OP heard once as evidence. He could've been on the 4th drop of a drop set for all we know, or just done 25 reps before that shot was taken. I'd need more concrete info before I'd judge it & like I say I'd be surprised if it was true, not because I think the bench press is an integral part of sprint-training, but just that an elite level sprinter should have fast-twitch muscle fibres coming out his eye-balls and a CNS to match!

rubadub · 03-05-2007 10:21am

Colin jackson was on a program a few months ago, they were comparing a veggie diet to a meat eating one, talking of creatine etc. His fitness was measured by pushups. He could still run at competitive times, he did about 55 pushups. I can do 75 in the same fashion as he could (fast and not going particularly deep). I thought that was odd, I am not superfit and could probably only BP my bodyweight too, couldnt run for a bus!

What could Ben Johnson BP, I seem to remember he could squat big amounts.

Money Shot · 03-05-2007 10:26am

If he doesn't bench regularly, but only does it occassionally as part of a circuit at certain times of the year, I don't think you can expect much more from him. As someone said, it's doubtful bench pressing forms an integral part of his training. I'm sure if he concentrated on bench pressing for some reason, he could build it up quite quickly, similarly with Jonah Lomu.

I remember seeing Johnny Vaughan ask Jonah Lomu what was the most he has ever benched, on the big Breakfast, years ago. I was very surprised when he said 115kg, although he did also say that he wasn't big into doing weights in his training, and he rarely bench presses.

I'm sure we've all seen big guys in the gym bench very little because they haven't benched in a long time, just back from injury, or just don't do a lot of weights.

depadz · 03-05-2007 3:02pm

rubadub wrote:

Colin jackson was on a program a few months ago, they were comparing a veggie diet to a meat eating one, talking of creatine etc.

do you recall what the upshot of their comparison was?

Pherekydes · 03-05-2007 3:29pm

The experiments were all about sports' nutrition.

One experiment was for Jacko to turn veggie and see how his performance was affected. It took a downturn and he noticed muscle mass loss himself.

They did the opposite with some female veggie Judo players. They took up a meat-eating diet, and after a number of weeks on the new diet found their strength and aggression levels had increased noticeably.

A third experiment was with pairs of identical twins. They split them into two teams, and to one team they gave them a high protein, low CHO diet and the others got the high CHO diet. They worked them relentlessly for a day, with cycling, hiking, rowing and other such high energy expenditure stuff. There was a marked difference in performance between the teams.

A fourth experiment was with groups of fire-fighters. I'm talking about the types that fight wildfires in the States. Long, arduous hours, traipsing up and down hillsides all day long. They gave one team a bag of food and told them to eat every 90 minutes, the eat-little-and-often method. The others got a lunch break and ate till they burst (The typical Irish method

). They wore energy measuring devices, to monitor the work output. Needless to say, the former out-performed the latter by up to 25%, if my memory serves me correctly.

See here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/best/

slemons · 03-05-2007 4:16pm

colin jackson ive seen bench 140kg easily enough. He was in the same gym as me one day. i nearly wet myself!!

ben johnson apparently benched about 190kg for 5 reps only a week before soeul

asafa doesnt bench much at all

Different strokes for different folks i suppose. Different body types and levers, different coaches, differnt programming, different goals.

If anyone thinks that a big bench is going to help them get fast then they're off the mark but having a big bench doesnt necessarily make you slow either.

The main reasons for a sprinter benching is because its a good means of strenghting the triceps and arms (acceleration in sprinting is actually led by the arms not the legs) and the bench exercises more motor units than most upper body exercises. Most efficent CNS taxer for upperbody. Johnson was also ridicuously strong on the lat pull machine as you can see from the end of the soeul race video. His back is gigantic, wing like...

To extract one small variable in asafa's program and say x y or z about it is incomplete without knowing absolutely everything about the entire program.

For example : charlie francis posts almost all of his training template online and 1000s try to follow it. They mostly all break down regardless of whether they're good enough or not or pro's or not etc. Mainly due to the lack of the worlds best massage therapist attending to them every day as charlie had for his athletes. Only a small issue, but crippling all the same... The opposite could be true for asafa - it could be his 20th set on the bench on that day.

Or it could be deliberate mis-information?

depadz · 03-05-2007 4:52pm

Slow coach wrote:

/...

They did the opposite with some female veggie Judo players. They took up a meat-eating diet, and after a number of weeks on the new diet found their strength and aggression levels had increased noticeably...\

thanks for that.
the article actually says the veggie experiment was inconclusive. And the CJ results are (as it says) anecdotal.

interesting though.

rubadub · 03-05-2007 5:44pm

fwedrest wrote:

do you recall what the upshot of their comparison was?

I think he dropped from 55 pushups to about 50. Some of the others were a bit biased, i.e. the veggies were adamant that their veggie diet was fine so were more prone to be saying the meat made no difference, and probably vice versa a bit too, though the meat eaters turning veggie were not "fighting for a cause".

colin jackson ive seen bench 140kg easily enough.

That is interesting. They were saying he didnt eat much carbs since all he needed was explosive strength for 10 seconds at a time. I would have thought anybody who could bench 140kg could knock out way more than 50 pushups.

justsomebloke · 03-05-2007 7:25pm

I have to say if I could say I was the fastest man on the planet I wouldn't give a sh1t what I could Bench Press

davyjose · 03-05-2007 9:22pm

rubadub wrote:

bodyweight too, couldnt run for a bus!

What could Ben Johnson BP, I seem to remember he could squat big amounts.

The squat is a huge part of a Sprinter's training though - I would say the BP is barely more than supplementary

Diamondmaker · 03-05-2007 10:19pm

Larger lungs are obviously akin to a larger engine, does Benching increase / allow more lung growth in any way?

Certainly a requirement for explosive sports.

As they are behind the rib cage I dunno

Hanley · 04-05-2007 1:03am

rubadub wrote:

. I would have thought anybody who could bench 140kg could knock out way more than 50 pushups.

I would't be so sure mate, I'm not far off 140 and I don't think I'd get near to 50 pressups anytime soon. I must see next week how many I can push out actually...

Bench Press and sprinting

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