Reply With QuoteI guess I don't understand the questions.
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Determine the load based on your bodyweight
On more than one occasion I have heard or read that to improve vertical jump or speed when sprinting, a minimum weight must be lifted in the squat and deadlift exercises that are determined by the athlete's bodyweight. For example:
-Lift a minimum of 1.5-2 x BW
-Lift a minimum of 2-2.5 x BW
(Numbers vary depending on source)
However, given information like this, I am always left thinking about two very interesting questions:
1) With respect to what intensity of the load or 1RM% do you refer to those minimums? They do not normally specify this.
2) And what confuses me the most. If a lifter doesn't weigh the same when he starts a weight program as when he finishes the Novice Linear Progression, and the weight increases as he gets stronger, what is the bodyweight that should be used as a reference to reach these minimums? The one he started with or the current one?
TMPHBITEU
I guess I don't understand the questions.
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It is rare that I can answer something that Mark can't, but in this case I can only because I have the (mis)fortune of understanding these questions.Originally Posted by Hugo
The reference numbers are a 1 RM, so saying that you want an athlete to hit 2xBW on the barbell squat means that this would be a 1RM or an estimated 1RM if they aren't lifting heavy singles. (Ideally estimated from a heavy triple but an estimate from a set of five is good enough since this is an estimate)
The bodyweight that should be used is the bodyweight at the time the goal is achieved. It will be higher than the starting bodyweight. I would love if somebody who remembers this stuff better posts a differential equation that can be used for this. Otherwise you will just have to assume that the lifter will add 1lb of bodyweight for each 5lbs to the squat/deadlift and solve the equation iteratively.
Sprinting and jumping are *power* movements, not strength movements. It has for quite some time been accepted that muscle produces maximum power at about half of maximum strength. At some point, additional strength and muscle don't contribute to improved power because the extra weight from the added muscle more than offsets the power increase.
You might think this happens at a 1xBW on the barbell squat since that would mean an unloaded jump/sprint would be at exactly half of maximum strength. However, that's actually where the first derivative of the strength/power ratio reaches a maximum. The biggest gains in strength/power ratio happen around the point of 1xBW on the barbell. But overall strength/power will continue to climb until about 2xBW on the barbell. After that, the strength/power ratio starts to decline because the combination of the extra bodyweight and moving away from the "sweet spot" of power production more than offset the benefit of additional strength.
That's all theoretical and fairly well known. However, we have a pretty strong distrust of exercise science here. The average quality of an exercise science paper is as bad as the average quality of a computer science masters thesis. However, one thing we do have in exercise science is good data collection (even if that data is often used to make unsound conclusions). Gymnasts used to do only callisthenic exercises and no barbell lifts. But people would go out and do experiments to see how strong they were. Most D1 and above gymnasts (male and female) would be able to do about a 2xBWoB squat. So the collected data at least matches the theory. (One may be derived from the other)
In any event, these target ratios exist because there is at least some data from actual coaching in these sports that being around that strength level yields the best athletic performance even if the theory behind it is 100% wrong.
As an FYI, the NASA astronaut data also shows that this is the minimum strength level to prevent osteopenia/osteoporosis so it's a good target.
I hope this post helped.
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If you currently weigh 200lbs, Squat 1RM would need to be 300-400. Deadlift 1RM 400 to 500. The key to this line of thinking is the strength to weight ratio is high enough so that posterior chain strength is not a limiting factor in sprinting or jumping. Usain Bolt weighs about 205 on the interwebs and I doubt he's done the work to deadlift 500, but I'm pretty sure he'd be capable of it after some training at the "expense" of maybe a little weight gain.
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I think I do. Hugo, this sounds the same as some strength training programs for novices that base programming off of 1RM tests done at the initiation of the training program. Our (SS's) position has been that 1RMs are useless for determining anything, particularly for novices, because the trainee is effectively a different person following completion of the first and then each subsequent workout. Ergo, the 1RM is an unreliable data point for basing any training planning off of because it is constantly changing for novices.
TMPHBITEU
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The *current* 1RM is a meaningless data point, however, for non-strength athletes, a 1RM *target* is meaningful. Now I do not claim that the targets are correct. But it's fairly easy to collect this type of data. What are the world records at various sprint distances. What are the strength ratios of the athletes?
Increased strength improves athletic performance... to a point? What is that level of strength? You don't need to know anything to look at the winners at various distances in any sport and see that shorter-distance competitors are much stronger and have spent more time in the weight room. Many people have tried to figure out when additional strength starts to no longer be an advantage in various non-strength sports. Again I'm not saying that all of the calculated numbers are correct (I would have no way to know). We get this question in various incantations on the forums here all the time. Determined competitors and their coaches are going to continue to try to maximize performance.
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These types of minimums that supposedly we have to reach in squats and deadlifts, taking our bodyweight as a reference to measure the magnitude of the load, usually appear in books to improve vertical jump or sprint times. For example, in Kelly Baggett's books like "The Vertical Jump Development Bible" or "No-Bull Speed Manual Development".On more than one occasion I have heard or read that to improve vertical jump or speed when sprinting, a minimum weight must be lifted in the squat and deadlift exercises that are determined by the athlete's bodyweight. For example:
-Lift a minimum of 1.5-2 x BW
-Lift a minimum of 2-2.5 x BW
(Numbers vary depending on source)
Member
Kelly Baggett is an interesting character in that (as far as anybody knows) he really did significantly improve his vertical jump which is very unusual. I have a PDF download of the book for which I didn't pay any money. He's pretty clear in the book itself that individual mileage may vary. Anybody who hangs around this forum or around real athletes knows that SVJ is a largely non-trainable property. However, at least some improvement can be made. Baggett's marketing is, in my opinion, shameful, however the techniques in the book are reasonable.
I haven't read it for a long time but one thing he does talk about are plyometrics as originally envisioned by Yuri Verkhoshansky. And like Verkhoshansky, Baggett retains the recommendation that shock jumps are neither safe nor effective for people who aren't already pretty strong. I will have to go back and look at my copy of The Shock Method and see, but I think that Yuri originally stated that the method should not be used by anybody who doesn't have a 2xBWoB squat. I'm pretty sure Baggett lowered that to 1x or 1.5x.
I am not going to argue with the inventor of the Shock Method. If he says you need 2x to do it safely, I am certainly not qualified to disagree. There are plenty of gyms where trainers who have read exactly one book and taken an online test where they may or may not have cheated are self-declared experts and happy to "administer" shock jumps and depth jumps for people who can barely air squat.
Back to the original discussion, it's clear that in non-strength sports there's a point where additional strength is not necessarily an advantage. I am not going to claim that I know what that point is. But coaches in those sports have ideas (right or wrong). I would never use those standards to *limit* somebody's goals. However, the vast majority of gymgoers (including athletes) need to *raise* their goals. If somebody wants to do a Spartan race where you pay to do burpees (why oh why) and that motivates them to change their goal from 1x squat at a BW of 135 to a 2x squat at a BW of 160, that's something to celebrate.
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I see this problem as a graph of BW versus SVJ versus 100 meter time. Sort of a cool thing for nerds like me to theoretically plot, but has limited value in practical application. The sprinter aside, look at competitive volleyball tryouts where on the very first day of tryouts the players are measured for SVJ. This is done more out of tradition, and those player measurements get thrown out once the players take to the floor and compete. There is very little correlation of the SVJ measurement and whether the player makes the team - way too many other variables. How is his/her timing, hitting technique, ability to pass, etc. This also applies to basketball.
In the sprinter's example, we would have to assume the athlete is regularly weighed, is getting stronger, measured for SJV regularly, and everything about the sprinters performance is measured: first 10 yard time from the starting block, etc, and a high level D1 track coach would be able to titrate to the point where maximum power is derived at the starting block so that acceleration is determined through the race, say 100 yards. But since no track and field coach would put a gifted sprinter under the bar for such a test it all remains theoretical.
But interesting to consider.
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