In Defense of Strength Training for Speed: Lifting Heavy Doesn’t Have to Make You Slower

There are many disparate factions throughout both the strength and conditioning and track and field coaching professions. The role that heavy barbell strength training plays in the development of speed for competitive sprinters and jumpers is among the most contentious topics and inspires further divisions. Even in the age of endless data, a battle rages on between coaches who insist that lifting heavy weight on big compound movements is critical to the development of speed, and those who believe that traditional strength training makes athletes slower.

Truth is often difficult to nail down, especially when there are examples of athletes who get faster as they get stronger as well as those who get slower as they get stronger. To get to the bottom of it, let’s dismantle some of the most common claims disseminated by those who downplay the role of traditional strength training for speed athletes.

A battle rages on between coaches who insist that lifting heavy weight on big compound movements is critical to the development of speed, and those who believe that traditional strength training makes athletes slower. Share on X

Four Common Claims Against Heavy Strength Training for Speed Development

While none of these claims are without some merit, there are some misconceptions that fuel anti-lifting sentiment that are worth addressing:

1. Peak strength is irrelevant because it takes too long to generate when ground contacts during sprinting can be under .1 seconds.
2. The speed of heavy lifting is slow, so it trains your body to move slowly. If you lift, it should be light and fast.
3. Lifting heavy weights will add too much muscle, and the extra weight will slow you down.
4. Lifting weights makes you sore and tired, which prevents athletes from being able to achieve high speeds in practice.

Some coaches prevent all or most strength training because of the negative impact that some methods or styles of training can have on sprint performance. With a more nuanced view of how to attack the weight room, we can dismantle these claims to integrate heavy lifting into a comprehensive training plan to improve speed.

Some coaches prevent ALL or MOST strength training because of the negative impact that SOME methods or styles of training CAN have on sprint performance, says @MatClarkansas. Share on X

Claim #1: Peak strength is irrelevant because it takes too long to generate when ground reaction forces in sprinting are applied in under 1/10^th of a second.

One area both camps agree on is the importance of force in creating speed. The disagreement then lies in what training methods are best for increasing the magnitude of force production within the time and technical constraints of sprinting.

Force and Speed

When it comes to speed, force production is critical. It is a well-documented phenomenon that force applied to the ground is a key distinction between elite and sub-elite sprinters. This has to do with both the ability to produce force rapidly, as well as how technically efficient the athlete is at applying the force to the ground. Ground reaction forces for elite sprinters can exceed six times bodyweight on ground contact once they reach top speed. For a 170lb sprinter, that’s 1020lbs, or 4,500 Newtons of force that the body must apply to the ground that is then applied back to the body to propel it down the track.

Many coaches who argue against heavy strength work make the case that since peak strength generally takes .3-.5 seconds to generate in most barbell movements—and these enormous ground reaction forces have to be applied during ground contacts that are less than .1 seconds—peak strength really isn’t all that important because there isn’t enough time after the first two steps out of blocks (when ground contacts are longest) to generate that level of force. So, while increasing strength could help with initial acceleration, it does little for top speed.

It’s true that peak force production on heavy barbell movements takes longer to produce than what ground contacts permit. But attempting to mimic in the weight room the same time constraints that are present during sprinting is to misunderstand the way increased strength contributes to speed.

Attempting to mimic in the weight room the same time constraints that are present during sprinting is to misunderstand the way increased strength contributes to speed, says @MatClarkansas. Share on X

Conventional strength training helps raise the ceiling for force production, and as long as it is performed alongside effective sprint training, the increase in force production is occurring in parallel with the requisite sprint training that serves to improve the efficiency and speed of force application.

The time constraints are true, but one way to look at this problem is that you are only capable of exerting a certain percentage of your force capacity in less than 1/10^th of a second. As your capacity rises, so too does the absolute value of the same percentage that can be applied in the same time. In other words, there is a downstream effect of strength wherein higher levels of force can be applied within the same timeframe. So as strength improves, so too can the amount of force applied to the ground in under 1/10^th of a second.

Claim #2: The speed of heavy lifting is slow, so it trains your body to move slowly. If you lift, it should be light and fast.

It is true that the velocity of a movement decreases as the weight on the bar increases. If weight is added continuously, eventually everyone will reach a point at which velocity = zero and the weight cannot be lifted. Most athletes tend to reach their maximum intensity on movements used to improve strength like deadlifts, squats, presses and their variations at an average velocity of around .3 meters/second.

Compare this velocity to lighter ballistic movements like jumps that can have peak velocities near 3 meters/second, and we see that the jump is going to be much closer to the speed of limb movement during sprinting than lifting heavy weight under a bar will be. The assumption is that low-weight, high-velocity movements should replace heavy strength work for speed development because they are closer to the limb velocities of sprinting.

Superficially this is a logical conclusion, but the truth is that slower velocities at higher intensities don’t necessarily train you to move slower when you sprint. In fact, it can have the opposite effect when performed appropriately. This is because of the sequential nature of motor unit recruitment. Motor units are recruited to perform work based on the work demand. This selection process differentiates between low-threshold motor units (LTMU), which are called upon for most daily activities and comprised of a higher percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers, and high-threshold motor units (HTMU), which are only called upon when the forces required for movement reach a certain force threshold. These HTMUs tend to be made up of a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers, which have a higher contractile velocity, force output, and contribute to greater sprint speeds.

So even though movement typically slows down as the intensity increases, there is a higher demand on the working muscles, and the nervous system signals those HTMUs into action. In this scenario, slow movement recruits fast twitch fibers. An important caveat is that the intensity must be high enough that weight moves slowly despite trying to move it fast. Intent is a critical component. Intentionally moving light weight slowly will not force the recruitment of HTMUs in the same way.

If high intensity movement is practiced regularly, the neurological connections that are formed become more accessible when performing other movements like sprinting and jumping, allowing athletes to express higher levels of force within the time and technical constraints of specific training.

If high intensity movement is practiced regularly, the neurological connections that are formed become more accessible when performing other movements like sprinting and jumping, says @MatClarkansas. Share on X

The second part of this claim—that lifting should always be light and fast—can be problematic too. Light and fast movement can have their place in athletic development. But trading heavy lifting for light and fast barbell movements under the guise of it being more transferrable is misplaced. Some higher-velocity movements—like light Olympic lifts and speed squats or presses—can train athletes to decelerate at the end of the range of motion in order to control the bar. This deceleration can train athletes to slow down during a phase of the movement where they should be trying to move as fast as possible.

To avoid deceleration, the solution is to turn these movements into a ballistic variation by either adding weight (Olympic lifts), throwing the bar, leaving the ground, or adding accommodating resistance with bands or chains. These all have merit within a program too, but we don’t have to choose between lifting heavy and ballistic training. The two can co-exist within a training program. However, turning everything into a ballistic movement in the weight room runs the risk of overtraining the same qualities that are often addressed in practice between sprinting, plyometrics, and throws. Spending time on the other end of the force-velocity curve developing max strength can help raise athletes’ force-producing capacity that can be expressed within the time constraints of ballistic training.

Claim #3: Lifting heavy weights will add too much muscle, and the extra weight will slow you down.

While there is truth to the idea that athletes can eventually reach a point where extra body weight can negatively impact speed, and there is a correlation between strength and size, there is more to the story when it comes to lifting heavy, building muscle, and improving speed.

Let’s start by looking at the first claim in that statement: will lifting heavy weight add muscle? Here are a few things we know about muscle growth, or hypertrophy, and training that leads to it:

• All other factors being equal, a muscle with a greater cross-sectional area is capable of generating more force than one with less.
• Even though strength and size are related in this sense and can increase simultaneously, they are different qualities that can be targeted separately through various training methods.

Strength is not just a function of cross-sectional area of a muscle. It is also related to neurological factors like motor unit recruitment and motor control. So even though more cross-sectional area can mean increased strength, it is also possible for two muscles with similar cross-sectional areas to have significant differences in the levels of force they can generate. By avoiding training that stimulates muscle growth and focusing on methods that target neurological adaptations, we can limit the stimulus for hypertrophy while still reaping the rewards of improved strength as it pertains to sprint performance.

Building Muscle 101

To build muscle, training must induce muscle protein synthesis (MPS). This can be done through a variety of training methods that work through several primary, MPS-triggering pathways. Methods that emphasize mechanical tension, metabolic fatigue, and muscular damage while training close to failure tend to stimulate MPS through the activation of mTOR, a key regulator of muscle growth.

For sprint and jump athletes who want to get stronger without getting bigger, the key is to minimize exposure to methods of training that emphasize tension, fatigue, and damage. This can be done while continuing to train under heavy loads on large compound movements for most of the competitive season while keeping volume very low. The big compound strength movements, like squat, bench press, deadlift, and their variations, as well as movements that target power like Olympic lifts, can be trained consistently between 80-90% of 1 RM, or whatever other method is used to track intensity like RPE or VBT.

For sprint and jump athletes who want to get stronger without getting bigger, the key is to minimize exposure to methods of training that emphasize tension, fatigue, and damage, says @MatClarkansas. Share on X

Keeping total volume under 10 working reps (ex: 4×2, 3×3, ramp up to heavy singles) at those intensities keeps a few reps in reserve, allowing athletes to target neurological adaptations via high threshold motor unit recruitment without creating the stimulus for hypertrophy.

One of my favorite methods is simply ramping up using singles or doubles to a top set of 1 at 85-90%. While muscles will still create high levels of tension, producing it in short spurts generally doesn’t create enough sustained tension or metabolic fatigue to initiate significant protein synthesis. By adding in a rapid eccentric component for movements like squats and presses, or removing it altogether in some cases like pulling from the ground and dropping the weight, there isn’t enough microtrauma to induce significant muscle protein synthesis either. The result is frequent recruitment of high threshold motor units to perform high intensity work without creating the conditions for significant hypertrophy.

Now that we know it’s possible to get stronger without getting bigger, let’s examine the second element of the claim: will extra body weight slow you down?

The Paradox of Muscle Mass

Body weight is a critical consideration for sprinters. All other factors being equal, if two bodies with different weights apply the same force into the ground while sprinting, the lighter one is going to move faster because the force is being applied back to a lighter body. These are differences in relative force—the force generated compared to the mass of the body producing it.

But for much of an athlete’s career, there is an inverse relationship between speed displayed on the track and strength, power, and body weight. In other words, sprint times can decrease as strength, power, and body weight increase. In other words, increasing mass is sometimes necessary for an athlete to develop the strength and power needed to improve speed.

For evidence of this phenomenon, look at the starting line for the Olympic 100m dash final. Donovan Bailey, Maurice Green, Justin Gatlin, Usain Bolt, and Lamont Marcell Jacobs—the winners of the last seven Olympics in the 100m dash—don’t look to be lining up for the marathon, and they don’t look like those lining up for a high school state championship 100m final either. The guys running 9.5-9.8 seconds are almost always going to have more muscle mass. To use an automobile analogy, it is because the mass adds to the size of the engine, rather than adding passengers in the car.

Theoretically, if there were no limit to the strength athletes could acquire over time without adding muscle, they could continue chasing strength forever because their relative strength would also continue to rise. Unfortunately, every athlete will reach a point of no return—the body weight at which relative force production starts to decline as body weight increases, even as absolute strength continues to climb.

Consequently, speed athletes can’t increase mass in perpetuity. Those on the line in the Olympics may be heavier than high school sprinters, but they also aren’t usually mass monsters. This means gaining muscle isn’t the career suicide that many make it out to be, but it isn’t always a performance enhancer either. There is a sweet spot each athlete must find to optimize relative force production without interfering with the demands of sprinting.

Gaining muscle isn’t career suicide, but it isn’t always a performance enhancer either—each athlete must find the sweet spot to optimize relative force production without interfering with the demands of sprinting. Share on X

Claim #4: Lifting weights makes you sore, which prevents athletes from being able to achieve high speeds in practice.

When an athlete gets sore after a hard training bout, what they are typically referring to is delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS. DOMS is the result of a novel training stimulus due to sudden increases in tissue stress, which can stem from a variety of stimuli like volume, intensity, and range of motion. All these changes can create microtrauma, or damage, within an unprepared muscle. In addition to the changes in stimuli, it is typically accentuated eccentric movements that are the most likely to cause DOMS because of the amount of microtrauma that is created.

DOMs can impact speed on two levels:

1. The soreness itself can lead to restricted movement and lower force production that alters sprint and jump mechanics, preventing near-maximal speed from being achieved. If you want to improve speed, max or near-max velocity must be trained in practice. On this point, it is true that soreness can prevent high speeds from being achieved.
2. The microtrauma that causes DOMS can be a precursor to a more severe injury when the high force and speed requirements of sprint training create tension that exceeds the muscles’ diminished structural capacity due to this damage. These are often the conditions that lead to perhaps the most common injury among sprinters and jumpers—pulled hamstrings.

While the second half of this claim is true—soreness can prevent high speeds from being achieved—the anti-heavy lifting coaches often mistakenly blame heavy strength training for creating soreness. What gets ignored is that it is unlikely to cause soreness if it isn’t a novel stimulus. Consistency in training and regular exposure to high intensity movements is critical to avoid the likelihood of recurring or poorly-timed soreness.

The best course of action is to consistently perform movements that the athlete is familiar with in a training scheme that does not make large, sudden jumps in volume, intensity, or range of motion, and is purposefully arranged throughout a training week with consideration of what the priority is in practice. This means not randomly skipping weeks in the middle of the season. Eliminating exaggerated, eccentric training in-season, especially for hamstrings prior to high intensity sprint and jump sessions on the track, can be beneficial too. Fortunately, we can satisfy all these conditions and still lift heavy weight.

The best course of action is to consistently perform movements that the athlete is familiar with in a training scheme that does not make large, sudden jumps in volume, intensity, or range of motion, says @MatClarkansas. Share on X

Why The Bad Reputation?

Part of the reason heavy lifting gets a bad reputation as a tool for speed development is because of the perceived impact it has on the top-end speed of athletes in other sports—particularly American football and competitive powerlifting—who can get slower as they get bigger and stronger.

This is really an unfair comparison, as neither football players nor powerlifters typically emphasize technical sprint training or encounter top-end speed situations. Even in football, where speed is a valuable quality, acceleration and change of direction are more commonly trained in the sport than top-end speed.

Unfortunately, heavy lifting gets the blame for degrading speed in these two sports when it is likely increasing bodyweight combined with a lack of true top-end speed training that are the culprits.

Key Takeaways

• Increasing absolute strength can also improve the amount of force athletes are able to apply during brief ground contact times.
• Though heavy lifting is relatively slow, it can improve sprint performance by improving force production through increased motor unit recruitment.
• You can lift heavy weights without gaining significant muscle mass, provided volume is kept low.
• Muscle mass can often be a performance-enhancer for speed athletes.
• Soreness can be avoided in-season with consistent exposure to relatively high-intensity movements, avoiding accentuated eccentric movements, and maintaining only small fluctuations in volume, intensity, and range of motion.

The weight room can be a challenging realm to navigate when it comes to using it as a tool for speed development in sprint athletes. Like any training, there is inherent risk in strength training, and track coaches and athletes are notoriously hyper-aware of anything involving bodyweight, soreness, and slow movement. But keeping these ideas in mind can help mitigate risk and traverse this minefield of competing opinions to ensure that the weight room can be used as a tool to develop sprint performance.

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