Weights for increasing leg speed

Sainttoff

going to hit the gym for awhile now so was wondering what weights are the best for increasing muscle strenght for speed?

thirtyfoot

A lot depends on your event but if I was looking at getting someone onto a strength program evaluating exactly where they are at would be the first step. This can't be done virtually though.

I have athletes who are moving onto a strength program right now for the first time and we had a big emphasis on their overall body conditioning. So its 4-6 weeks of core/bodyweight/old school circuits type stuff. We are now moving into the gym and doing the basics like squat and lunge (front/back/side) as well as upper body weights. In conjunction with this we are doing med ball, pit jumps, other light plyos and acceleration work. This will be developed over the season in line with what running we are doing out of the gym. This has changed and tweaked over the past 6 weeks based on how the athletes are performing or progressing. One athlete still needs a lot of overall conditioning and this needs to be taken into account. We are also doing hills.

Without seeing you day in day out its hard to know where to start but building up the all over body conditioning would be the first step before heading onto the freeweights in the gym and then plyos/bounds/acceleration out of it. Do you train with a club or in a gym and is there anybody there who is good and you could run things by or even jump into sessions with?

Sainttoff

Thanks for the reply!
fitness should be ok as just did the dublin marathon in 4:06 and lost over a stone in weight, so about 83kg now.


Plan was for the next few months was to swim, rowing machine, cycle and cross trainer in the gym and then some sits ups!

No one in the gym to give adivce, but will check it out. Dont want to do big mad weights just ones to help body get better for another marathon attempt and improve the strength in calf muscles and other areas of the legs

--amadeus--

Tingle - would you consider a free weight program generally benificial for speed? As most of us are time limited on training do you think that a road runner would be better doing (for arguments sake) 60 mins of weights or simply doing an extra 60 mins running?

thirtyfoot

--amadeus-- wrote: »

Tingle - would you consider a free weight program generally benificial for speed? As most of us are time limited on training do you think that a road runner would be better doing (for arguments sake) 60 mins of weights or simply doing an extra 60 mins running?

Free weights are the way forward in my opinion without a doubt but need to be done correctly to get the benefit.

Regarding the time issue, you are right thats the key for marathoners. Its fine for Paula Radcliffe who has a 12-14 hour window to train every day and do all the compenents but for us mere mortals you need to prioritise and for a marathoner running is probably more beneficial. Lifting weights can take time and then you need to decide do you do before or after running or even on a running recovery day, and bear in mind this will affect your run the next day.

Even top marathoners will have to make that decision on what % of time to spend on gym work because as you know recovery time is in itself as important as training. I'd say 60mins running is better than 60mins weights for your non world beater marathoner who doesn't have 12 hours a day to train if that 60mins running is an essential part of their training plan! The athletes I have are sprinters and aren't strong enough on a track so need weights, while marathoners may need strength but the strength that helps them might be to get them up that hill at 18miles. Thats why I'd say its very specific to what event somebody does. If you have time, weights in a gym are great but not to the detriment of getting the minimum miles or reps in. If you do have time as a marathoner to do weights the most efficient and effective method is freeweights.

shels4ever

Sainttoff wrote: »

going to hit the gym for awhile now so was wondering what weights are the best for increasing muscle strenght for speed?

Hi there,
I was looking to do this myself a while back, and I did find that the best way to increase leg speed to to do some hill work, It did pay off.

ss43

Sainttoff wrote: »

going to hit the gym for awhile now so was wondering what weights are the best for increasing muscle strenght for speed?

For a marathon I'd reckon just doing sprints/hills/strides should suffice. have you tried this and found it not to work. Weights for increasing strength in order to improve speed would usually be for sprinters and 800m runners which they would do as well as running speedwork. For longer distances weights generally aren't necessary for speed.

thirtyfoot

ss43 wrote: »

. For longer distances weights generally aren't necessary for speed.

I wouldn't totally agree with that. Time as amadeus suggested is probably the main factor long distance athlete mightn't do weights. Doing weights and the supplementary bits are in my opinion the most effective way to develop speed at any distance. Weights will improve your running economy as in the stronger the muscles are the less energy is required to generate the necessary power for you to run at the pace you wish. There are two studies (which unfortunately can't find and don't have links to) which found that low reps(3-5) of over 85% of your single max lift returned positive results in running economy and increased muscle without increased weight. This is something very few distance athletes do and something I never thought was relevant to distance athletes. Ger Hartman said Sonia was as weak as f*ck and he got her to improve her strength (although don't know if she lifted) while Paula Radcliffe does lift. If undertaking heavy lifting as a distance runner its probably best to keep in sync with your running so do the heavier stuff when you start doing your speed work. Also, probably best to only do if you have the time and also under a coach-supervised program. Then again, there will be as many guys who will argue against what I believe but thats the beauty of it.

Racing Flat

Maybe with the long distance runners, the benefit with weights is in improving 'elastic recoil' more so than improving strength? Purely something that just popped into my head, but probably based on Tim Noakes theories. By all accounts the East Africans have better elastic recoil in their muscles compared to non East Africans. What this means is that every time you dorsiflex, or your knee goes over your foot during the weight bearing phase of the stride, your calf muscles and Achilles get stretched. During this stretch phase they store energy which can then be 'released' during the propulsion or toe-off phase, ie when the calf muscles contract and you go up on your toes. As the East Africans have more of this elastic recoil, their muscles can work more efficiently, so they can contract stronger for longer,ie they can run faster for longer, the name of the game.

Doing plyometric type exercises or weights is a great way to train this elastic recoil and I think Hartmann gets his athletes doing this type of work. I think he has a test where you have to hop onto an 18 inch box as many times as you can in a minute. IIRC when some of the Irish Lions went to see him prior to the last tour Paula Radcliffe p1ssed all over them at this test, but Kelly Holmes was the best he ever tested, again a few years ago now so as I said IIRC. Coe and Ovett were also big into plyometric training. As was Alberto Tomba (?sp) the skiier - if you ever get a chance to see footage of him training watch it - saw a BBC documentary years ago - was amazing, particularly for the time - was throwing heavy barbells up in the air and catching them, over and over again.

thirtyfoot

Racing Flat wrote: »

. As the East Africans have more of this elastic recoil, their muscles can work more efficiently, so they can contract stronger for longer,ie they can run faster for longer, the name of the game.

.

Exactly. There is a minimum amount of time that the muscles contract (as the foot is in contact with the ground for a minimum time) so the stronger the muscles are the more energy they can generate in that limited time so less energy is required to get to the required speed. Also, since you are being more efficient there is less need to dip into and require the more energy wasting fast-twitch muscles. Fine in theory, then again, maybe a session of hills will do the job:D