Starting Strength and Track and field

[whappend12]

Hi Coach Rip,

I am a sprinter looking to get stronger and faster because im only 138 lbs and my coach has told me if I dont get stronger I wont get faster, And I came across your Book and Routine, and personally I enjoy it and have just accomplished week one , anyways I've googled alot and it seems I cannot find the answer to this question. 1) when Im squatting,deadlifting,and cleaning ( i have my powerclean technique down to a tee, I've been lifting for a year from track and football)should I be as explosive as I can be?. The reason being is because my track and field coaches when we lifted this season they were always like "EXPLOSIVENESS MIXED WITH STRENGTH IS POWER AND THATS WHAT YOU ALL NEED" and telling us that being explosive trains our fast twitch muscles. So I was just wondering if this was true for this program. But I mean like today I did my squats and it felt like it was a lil too heavy too "explode up"


Thanks,
Whappend12

[Mark Rippetoe]

Here's a question for you and your coach: who cleans more weight? The guy with a 200 deadlift or the guy with a 500 deadlift?

[whappend12]

The guy with the 500 deadlift...

I see where your going with this.
Thanks

[Alexandros Brod]

Is there some merit to a maximal effort on a submaximal load? Not quite to the extreme of westside speed sets but sometimes you can have substantially higher bar speed with only a little less weight. I think you and Shane Hamman talked about this in your interview.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You should always try to be explosive, but you should understand first that if you're not already strong, getting strong is the best way to increase power. Do the math. The problem is his coaches: they have read all this shit about power production, but they have no idea where it properly fits into the program. Clue: it doesn't fit the freshmen boys. Most of them, anyway.

[David_G]

You need to follow SS for a few months and gain some BW, a 160lb underweight basketball player wanting to increase his vertical can't be bothered with plyometrics an special exercises before he can squat 280 and gain 20 lbs.
Same goes for you, you can't be bothered with specific explosive movements before you gain some weight and put on some extra beneficial lean body tissues, the PC will do just fine for explosiveness.

When the time for an intermediate program comes there are ways to work on explosiveness specifically, but you can't be bothered with that atm, just eat your fatty acids and protein, drink your milk, and work on form

[Clint Merrill]

As one that has been both a sprinter and a weight trainer for a (very) long time, I can confirm that for me, basic barbell training has been very beneficial. I can wish that I had SS-type knowlege when I was younger, but even with futzing around with limited guidance, and making many a training mistake, I went from being a skinny, sorta-quick kid to a nationally ranked masters sprinter.

You don't give your age, height or lifts, but most high-schoolers are just woefully weak, so SS is a great place to start, especially in the track off-season. As Mark implies, getting stronger will make you better at explosive lifts, like a clean.
At least your coaches support lifting in some form - when my son was on the school track team, I couldn't get the coaches interested in weight training at all.

Remember, you will be cleaning and/or power-cleaning, (explosive), and sprinting (explosive). Even for the "slow" lifts (SQ and DL) if heavy enough, require maximal force development, even though the bar is not moving very fast. That will help explosiveness in the long run.
Personally, I tend to use a lot of 3's, moved just as fast as I can, rather that the classic SS fives, but for you, pure SS should be great. Good luck.

[Bakez]

It is true that Jonathon Edwards stopped squatting in 1993 because he and his coach thought the exercise wasnt explosive enough, before then setting a WR comparable to Bolt's 9.58 in 1995.

But then again he did squat 235kg at 75kg bodyweight and had a 150kg clean so it wasn't like 'Jonathon Edwards didn't squat' as i've seen some people claim from time to time.