There are seemingly countless athletic qualities that enable sprinters to run fast, but one that is often not considered is the contribution of elastic strength.
Before getting into what elastic strength is, what it can do to help sprinters run faster, and how to improve it, let’s break down three basic components of sprinting: stride frequency, stride length, and ground contact time.
Stride Frequency
Stride frequency refers to how quickly an athlete changes their ground support from one foot to the other. Ben Tabachnik, Ph.D., is the Russian sprint coach who popularized the use of parachutes for sprint training in the U.S. In the book he co-authored with Rick Brunner, Soviet Training and Recovery Methods, Tabachnik says that the most important time to develop speed and quickness is between the ages of 8 and 13. Neurologist Harold L. Klawans, M.D., would agree with him.
The most important time to develop speed and quickness is between the ages of 8 and 13. Share on XIn his book, Why Michael Couldn’t Hit, Klawans said that to master athletic activities with a high skill component, those activities must be performed while the brain is maturing. Regarding his book title, Klawans explained that because Michael Jordan didn’t focus on baseball during his early years, he was not able to achieve a high level of skill (at least, compared to basketball) when he took up the sport professionally in 1994.
Citing research on violinists, Klawans said scientists “…found that those fiddlers who started playing early in life (age thirteen or younger) activated larger and more complex circuits in their brains than those who started learning to play their instrument later in life. Those who hadn’t started by thirteen never caught up. The circuits they activated were smaller, less complex, and more restricted. The time frame during which their brains could be guided to select those circuits had come and gone and left them forever without that ability.”
The lesson here is that if parents want their kids to be able to run fast, they should encourage them at an early age to participate in sports that require them to sprint.
Stride Length
Stride length refers to how much distance is covered with two steps. In 1991, track and field legend Carl Lewis needed to take 43 steps to establish his world record of 9.86 seconds in the 100 meters. At the 2008 Olympic Games, Usain Bolt needed just 41.4 steps to cover that distance, and as a result, shattered the world record with a time of 9.69. The following year the World’s Fastest Man covered the 100m in 40.92 steps and crossed the finish line with a world record time of 9.58.
A bigger muscle is generally a more powerful muscle, and as such, one of the keys to increasing stride length is to get stronger so that the athlete can apply more force into the ground to propel their body forward. Support for this idea comes from a study on the physical qualities of high-level track athletes that was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology in 2005. The researchers found that runners who excelled in the shorter events possessed considerably more muscle mass than those in the longer events.
One of the keys to increasing stride length is to get stronger. Share on XVertical and horizontal jumps are practical tests to determine an athlete’s leg power. If you test the vertical and horizontal jumps of discus throwers and shot putters on a typical track team, you’ll find their results often exceed those of the high jumpers—this is despite their considerably larger muscle mass. Case in point: 1988 Olympic shot put champion Ulf Timmermann of East Germany.
Timmermann recorded the second-longest distance of all time with a put of 75.65 feet (23.06 meters). Timmermann was powerful and brutally strong, reportedly being able to clean 485 pounds and squat 805 pounds. At a bodyweight of 262 pounds, he vertical jumped 36 inches and did a standing long jump of 11 feet, 2 inches. There are many more examples.
Former U.S. shot putter and discus thrower Ken Patera was the first American to clean and jerk 500 pounds. He did a standing long jump of 11 feet at a bodyweight of 335 pounds—talk about your Incredible Hulk!
Then there’s Adam Nelson, a U.S. shot putter who won gold in the 2004 Olympics. At a bodyweight of 260 pounds, Nelson had a vertical jump of 39.5 inches and could standing long jump over 11 feet. Nelson said that at a training camp before the 2004 Olympics, he got into a standing long jump contest with Dwight Phillips, a long jumper from the U.S. who won Olympic gold that year. In an interview that appeared on the Juggernaut Training Systems website, Nelson said they “…finished pretty much dead even.”
As for lighter power athletes, Yuri Vardanyan, a Russian Olympic champion in weightlifting who clean and jerked 494 at a bodyweight of 181, reportedly high jumped 7 feet using a three-step approach and a forward takeoff. Romania’s Nicu Vlad, the 1984 Olympic champion who snatched 442 at a bodyweight of 220, did a 43-inch vertical jump. Just type in “Olympic lifters jumping” on YouTube and you’ll find many videos of weightlifters performing impressive jumps.
In addition to being able to apply force into the ground to propel a body upward and horizontally, strength is especially important to the start of a sprint. Brian Oldfield was a 280-pound shot putter who put the shot 75 feet. In the 1976 “Superstars” invitational competition, he ran the 100-yard dash against Superbowl X MVP wide receiver Lynn Swann; Oldfield was stride-for-stride for the first 20 yards. Likewise, Vardanyan’s comrade David Rigert, an Olympic champion who broke 65 world records, reportedly ran the 100 meters in 10.4 seconds. Again, these athletes are not sprinters, but heavily muscled power athletes.
Before going any further, I need to address the relationship between power and muscle mass—a strength coach does not want to turn their sprinters into bodybuilders. Bodybuilding protocols use relatively higher repetitions and medium weights, and these methods do not create the highest levels of muscle tension needed to produce force quickly. Let me explain.
Bodybuilding makes athletes stronger, but power methods enable them to display that strength faster. Share on XA study was published in Experimental Physiology in 2015 that looked at muscle fiber biopsies of bodybuilders and power athletes such as weightlifters. The researchers found that the training methods of power athletes increased muscle fiber quality and the ability to produce high levels of tension, whereas bodybuilding methods were found to be detrimental in enabling athletes to create maximal muscle tension. Yes, bodybuilding methods will make athletes stronger, but they will not be able to display that strength as quickly as if they used power methods. As Iron Game athletes are fond of saying, “Bodybuilders try to look good and weightlifters try to do good!” Now let’s explore ground contact time and the concept of elastic strength.
Ground Contact Time
Ground contact time refers to the ability of an athlete to exert forces to stop the descent (leg flexion/absorption) and project the body into the air (leg extension/reversal of efforts). The shorter the ground contact time, the quicker sprinters leave the ground, thus decreasing the time it takes to complete a sprint and helping to ensure optimal running mechanics.
Ralph Mann, Ph.D., and Amber Murphy, MS, wrote the classic textbook on sprinting, The Mechanics of Sprinting and Hurdling. Here is what they said about the importance of ground contact time, “Since the Ground Phase of the Sprint is the only time when the athlete can apply force to alter the Body’s Velocity, it is not surprising that this is where great Sprint results are produced.”
If you analyze leg motion prior to touchdown, the better sprinters minimize flexion at touchdown and switch immediately into leg extension. Consider that at the 2009 World Championships, Bolt ran 9.58 and Dwain Chambers finished sixth with 10.00. I understand that during this race Bolt had nearly half the degree of leg flexion as Chambers, and his total ground contact time was significantly faster than Chambers’ time. One reason for the difference was Bolt’s superior elastic strength.
Elastic Strength
Elastic strength is the ability of tissues to absorb, store, and release energy. The more energy these tissues release, the faster and more powerful the movement. But instead of just looking at the actions of muscles, consider that high levels of elastic strength can be produced by connective tissues, especially tendons.
Tendons should not be thought of as simply rigid cables that connect muscle to bone. Tendons have elastic qualities that can assist the muscles in producing power by acting as “biological springs” that compress and elongate. In fact, kangaroos have long tendons on their hind legs that can store up to 10 times more energy than their muscles. These animals are especially efficient at producing movement because tendons do not need oxygen to work and do not fatigue. Now let’s consider activities that can reduce elastic strength.
Tendons have elastic qualities that can assist the muscles in producing power. Share on XAccording to sports scientist Bud Charniga, the use of athletic tape may interfere with the tendon’s ability to absorb and redirect force, and thus may be a direct cause of ankle and knee injuries. Writing in the Sep-Dec 2017 issue of the European Weightlifting Federation Scientific Magazine, Charniga said during the first week of the 2011 NFL season, 13 players suffered Achilles ruptures. How can this be, as this should be the time when a football player’s body should be the healthiest? Athletic tape is often used as a preventative measure in football—perhaps there’s a connection? Another concern is the extensive use of foam rolling, which may reduce the elastic qualities of connective tissues such as tendons and fascia.
In addition to questionable sports medicine practices, Charniga believes that focusing on partial-range exercises, such as parallel squats rather than full squats and power cleans rather than full cleans, may cause tendons to lose their elasticity and thus make them more susceptible to injury. The same can be said of isometrics. Russian sports scientist A. I. Falameyev in 1986 said that workouts using this type of muscle contraction could exert “…a negative influence on joint mobility, muscle and tendon elasticity.”
Getting back to sprinting, there are many weight training exercises that can improve elastic strength. To avoid excess knee flexion after the foot touches the ground, squats and lunges are good because they emphasize eccentric (i.e., braking) strength. To decrease the time between leg flexion and leg extension, barbell and hex bar squat jumps are effective. There is much more to be said on this subject, but these exercises are a good place to start.
Classic Olympic lifts like the clean and jerk best develop the strength qualities of sprinting. Share on XAs for the exercises that give you the most “bang for your buck” in developing all the strength qualities of sprinting, the classic Olympic lifts (snatch and clean and jerk) top the list. Note that I didn’t say partial Olympic lifting exercises, such as hang power cleans and pulls. There are also special flywheel-type resistance training machines that are ideal for developing elastic strength. Some of these machines provide the optimal amount of eccentric load at high velocity during dynamic movements. My strength coaching colleague, Paul Gagné from Canada, used these machines for eight years with over 100 elite athletes representing 15 sports and achieved remarkable results.
It’s often true that talent prevails and many outstanding sprinters do not lift weights, and we will never know if they were successful “because of this approach or in spite of it.” But the preponderance of research and real-world observation suggests that strength training programs, especially those that emphasize elastic strength, can help sprinters achieve physical superiority.
Header image by Bruce Klemens.
Since you’re here…
…we have a small favor to ask. More people are reading SimpliFaster than ever, and each week we bring you compelling content from coaches, sport scientists, and physiotherapists who are devoted to building better athletes. Please take a moment to share the articles on social media, engage the authors with questions and comments below, and link to articles when appropriate if you have a blog or participate on forums of related topics. — SF
Great article. One question. If the years between 8 and 13 are the best years to start developing speed and quickness, are we then teaching these kids the exercises atributef to these qualities starting at that age? i.e the clean and snatch and hex bar jump squat.
Martin,
The age of specialization depends upon the sport. Citing German sports scientist Dietrich Harre, initial specialization training for technical sports can begin at age 10, but in endurance sports that age is 14. More specifically, here are some sports and what Harre says should be their initial stage of specialization:
Figure Skating: 8-10
Downhill Skiing: 10
Basketball: 10-12
Soccer: 11-13
Volleyball: 14-15
Cycling: 16-17
Of course, these are generalizations. Athletes mature at different levels.
Not exactly certain why you brought up hex bar jump squats?
Hope this helps,
Kim Goss, MS, CSCS
I would just let kids under 12 sprint. Forget the gym work.
“In addition to questionable sports medicine practices, Charniga believes that focusing on partial-range exercises, such as parallel squats rather than full squats and power cleans rather than full cleans, may cause tendons to lose their elasticity and thus make them more susceptible to injury. ”
I suspect that this is probably true. It is a theory I have had for some time. In general reading, a fitness leader accreditation course, and University studies on relevant topics I incessantly have encountered the pronouncement that squats should be parallel because the amount of pressure measured in the knee joint becomes large if the angle goes below parallel.
However, to me, unless there is some evidence that the knee joint can’t handle the added pressure, then it is nothing more than interesting trivia – like the statistic that typists in a former age did one tonne of work with their little finger in a work day.
The knowledge could have some application for people recovering from injuries but, in my view, does not provide a justification for doing a partial range of motion in the exercise. The same people who teach that also teach contradictory things such as just about every other exercise should be conducted over a full range of motion to avoid a reduction in flexibility and increased injury risk.
It if refreshing to read someone who seems to agree with me.
Great article! I just wished I had written and published it! LOL! It’s amazing that strength coaches in the know have been using and applying these principles successfully for decades but I find most trainers, strength coaches, track coaches, and coaches still don’t know this. I remember attending a seminar with Pierre Roy, the former Canadian Olympic Weight Lifting coach, and he would give similar examples of his weight lifter out sprinting some of Canadas elite sprinters for the first 20-30 meters. I remember the Swann vs Oldfield race. He raced Evelyn Ashford as well. One summer we had the fortune of having Cara Heads, one of the top International and US Olympic Weight Lifters train at our facility. We tested her, and at 5’4″, 154lb, she vertical jumped 30″, and ran a 4.9s 40 yard dash. We were blown away along with some of the NFL athletes that we were training at the time. It was even more impressive because she really didn’t run or jump much, just explosive and strength oriented weight training. I shared this on my face book. Keep up the good work.
Coach Goss,
Love your work, thanks!
Question:
With reference to the traditional 1RM Back Squat…
What would you consider to be the percentage or quantity past one’s body weight that an athlete would begin to lose sprinting speed as it pertains to mass specific force?
I’d love some advice on an approximate threshold to go off of….(i.e. 2x your body weight).
Thanks!
Hello Coach Houchin!
To answer your question, consider that a technical formula to determine relative strength is to divide your absolute strength by the cross section of the muscle. Here is another way to look at it:
Relative strength = Absolute strength / Bodyweight
The problem is that as a muscle gets larger, it’s line of pull becomes less efficient (as it is now pulling more on a curve than a straight line). Weightlifting formulas take this into consideration. There are many formulas, such as the Siff formula (named after my good friend, the late Mel Siff), the Wilks formula, Sinclair formula, the Schwartz-Malone formula, and so on.
Let’s say John weighs 100 kilos (220 pounds) and squats 200 kilos (440 pounds). That would equal a Siff score of 20.7.
Now John adds 5 kilos (11 pounds) of bodyweight, but still squats 200 kilos. Now his score is 19.8. Thus, his relative strength is lower.
Now John, still weighing 105 kilos (231 pounds), squats 202 kilos (445 pounds). His score is now 20.09. His relative strength is still lower than when he weighed 100 kilos and was squatting 200 kilos.
Now, John, still weighing 105 kilos, increases his squat to 205 kilos (451 pounds). His score has jumped to 20.39, but his relative strength is still lower.
However, if John, at 105 kilos bodyweight, were to squat 209 kilos (460), his formula would be 20.79. Thus, to improve his relative strength, if John adds 5 kilos of bodyweight and squats 200 kilos, he needs to increase his squat by 9 kilos to increase his relative strength.
Thus, you can use these weightlifting formulas as a “starting point” to determine the effectiveness of your workout in developing relative strength.
What you find with weightlifters is that, at a certain point in their peak lifting ability, they usually stop gaining bodyweight and will compete in the same weight class for several years – yet still become considerably stronger. This is because they use relative strength training methods. This is why weightlifters often joke that doing anything more than 2 reps is considered cardio!
To determine power, you could use the Lewis formula that takes an individual’s bodyweight and vertical jump, puts them on an XY axis (a force/velocity curve), then connects the dots. Thus, someone who weighs 200 pounds and squats 300 pounds could become more powerful by either increasing their bodyweight, increasing their vertical jump, or both.
At the Air Force Academy, I had a football center with (I believe) a 36” vertical jump who could clean 330 pounds. Great! However, he only weighed 205 pounds, so he kind of bounced off of defensive linemen. So, for his senior year, we determined that the fastest way for him to become more powerful would be by going on a bodybuilding workout rather than trying to increase his vertical jump.
As far as running speed goes, there are many factors to consider.
First, is the bodyweight you are adding in the form of the faster twitch muscle fibers, or the slower twitch? Bodybuilders (who often perform sets of 10-15 reps per set) are often strong, but not as strong as powerlifters at the same bodyweight. Also, when using bodybuilding protocols, the additional bodyweight is often in the form of tissue that does not contribute to muscle contraction.
You recall that in this article on elastic strength, I discuss a research paper showing that the sprinters in the shorter events possessed more muscle than those in the longer events. The additional muscle enabled the athletes to apply more force into the ground to increase their stride length. Thus, Carl Lewis did the 100 meters in 43 steps and ran 9.86; Bolt only took 40.92 steps to run 9.58. Further, when Bolt ran 9.69 in the Olympics, he took 41.4 steps — so he took more steps and ran slower.
The takeaway here is that maybe you can use stride length to determine when the additional muscle mass is making an athlete slower? Of course, you could just time the athlete in their event (and assume that nothing has changed in their technique or reaction time to affect their times). Vertical jumps and standing long jumps are also a practical measurement of relative strength — but what we found had the best correlation to the 40-yard dash was the triple jump (i.e., 3 consecutive jumps on two legs). In other words, if you increase your bodyweight and your vertical jump and standing long jump decrease, perhaps you might not run as fast?
One issue with having those who run especially long distances, such as the 3000, gain a lot of muscle mass is that the extra mass compromises the cardiovascular system.
Hmmm…maybe I should so some research and write an article about this?
Anyway, I hope this helps.
Kim
Coach Houchi,
How much weight should we be doing with the hex bar or barbell jumps, relative to our squat/deadlift maxes or another measurement? Thanks!
Vardanyan is my Mr. Weightlifting because he stayed focused and lifted huge weights seemingly easy! As one of my former coaches said “he lifts weights like water fills a glass” (Shepherd 78).
Great theory claims, but there are real investigations if weightlifting help increase sprint speed? I mean examples of athletes that improves their 100 m dash after involving weightlifting in their programs? Because a can argument that when sprinting You don’t have a time to use that power because You have only 0.8 sec of ground contact?
Fantastic article!
This is poor information.
He’s just another strength training fanatic.
Guys please don’t think you need to lift weights to run fast.
It obviously isn’t the case! Strength/weight training will make you slower and less coordinated at some point!
IMPORTANT: The fact that most fast people are also strong does NOT mean weight training makes one fast!
For every example of a strong* guy who is powerfull and fast there are 100 examples who are as fast or even faster but not nearly as strong*
*strength is specific. Tip: gym strenght (weight lifting) is the wrong kind of strength for speed development.
Dear Internet Troll,
I am curious why you decided to use a code name for Pioglitazone Hydrochloride, a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes? Was Zoey123 taken? If you honestly believe what you say, use your real name.
You claim that strength training will make you slower. If getting stronger is useless, why do so many sprinters and other athletes in sports requiring speed use steroids? Why risk your health on drugs that don’t work?
In my articles for Simplifaster, I provide real-world examples about the value of strength training for speed, along with peer-reviewed references. My co-author for two articles competed in the 2016 Olympics in the 100 meters and coached at LSU, one of the most successful track and field programs in college sports. You just make bold statements, such as “Strength/weight training will make you slower.” Can you be a little more vague?
If you want to use your real name and have an intelligent debate, write a reply. I would be interested to see your research proving that all forms of weight training make athletes slower.
Thank you,
Kim Goss, MS, CSCS
Coach Goss,
How much weight should we be doing with the hex bar or barbell jumps, relative to our squat/deadlift maxes or another measurement? Thanks!
We start with the empty bar for our sprinters and jumpers, focusing on reacting to the ground. When I coached at a high school, we started with a 15-pound hex bar for the girls. The hex bar is nice when working with large groups of beginners, as with a barbell the bar often separates from the shoulders and crashes on the athlete. Ouch!
Also, consider that we do a variety of barbell jumps, including those in which the athlete squats all the way down.
For more on subject of optimal loads, check out the study by Marian, V. and others that was published in the Sep 2016 Journal of Sports Science of Medicine. It’s called, “Improved Maximum Strength, Vertical Jump and Sprint Performance after 8 Weeks of Jump Squat Training with Individualized Loads.”
Hope this helps.
I agree. This guy completely misses the point that strength training is specific only to the exercise being performed and has almost zero transferability to sprinting. Strength training should only be considered as general and not specific to improvements in performance to a non related exercise. In this case sprinting.
There is a whole host of reasons as to what makes one athlete faster than another. for example, as mentioned, relative power to weight ratio, limb length, tendon length, muscle belly length, origin and insertions of muscles, muscle fiber distribution, sprinting technique, Specific ROM, Rate of force production, rate coding, Specific training ie Sprint fast to be fast ( improvements in top end speed and speed endurance); adequate recovery between sets (referring to both strength training and sprint training) and adequate recovery between sessions, not overtraining, diet, sleep, hydration, mind set, being in the right race at the right time, tapering training to peak performance ect… And what usually sets those apart at the top of their sport, the use of PEDS and how they respond to them personally.
Saying that simply getting stronger in certain exercises will improve sprint performance is simplistic and nonsense. The neuromuscular contraction times of olympic lifts and other strength exercises, simply cannot match the times required to sprint fast, and the faster you exert a force the less of that force can be exerted.
If lift heavier = get faster, then the fastest people on the planet would be the strongest people on the planet, but they’re not. Weightlifters would out perform sprinters, but again, they don’t. No real world study could possibly attribute any increase in performance to getting stronger overall as opposed to the athlete simply improving by just training more intelligently on the track or becoming more attuned to the exercise being used during testing.
How does body fat play a role in all of this? Let’s say we have two identical twin athletes, athlete A is 10% body fat with a 1.5x bw squat and athlete B is 20% body fat with a 2x bw squat. Which one of those athletes would have the higher standing vertical jump and 20-30 yard sprint? Thanks!