What are decent back squat numbers for sprinters? More importantly, what relative strength percentage is decent for sprinters? I’ve read Carl Lewis squatted twice bodyweight for low reps, and I’ve also read Ben Johnson squatting an out of this world 4 times bodyweight for a double. Thanks in advance. I’m just curious.
Nick
try this:
http://www.coachesinfo.com/category/strength_and_conditioning/246/
that might be a little too detailed, but it will answer your question.
another awesome source for sprinting and jumping is kelly bagget’s site, higher-faster-sports.com.
A few of the sprinters that I know worked out with me for a bit.
I run the 100, 200 and 4x1
One of em, who is also our pole vaulter, weighs about 170lbs is 5’6 and squats 405 to parralel. He’s one of those short
blocky kids, really stocky, but strong as an ox.
I saw another one of our spprinters squat 225 for reps.
I squated 235 ATG and weighed 150 lbs.
[quote]rawda wrote:
try this:
http://www.coachesinfo.com/category/strength_and_conditioning/246/
that might be a little too detailed, but it will answer your question.
another awesome source for sprinting and jumping is kelly bagget’s site, higher-faster-sports.com.[/quote]
That is an impressively comprehensive analysis. Thanks so much. It was interesting to read what was considered high relative strength as compared to moderate relative strength, and low relative strength.
Nick
I don’t think Ben Johnson ever squatted 4x bodyweight. I believe I recall Charlie saying that he did 6 reps at 600 or maybe it was a little more but they never had him go higher than that.
I could be wrong.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
I don’t think Ben Johnson ever squatted 4x bodyweight. I believe I recall Charlie saying that he did 6 reps at 600 or maybe it was a little more but they never had him go higher than that.
I could be wrong.[/quote]
He was also on steroids. Not taking anything away from him, though, because it’s still impressive.
[quote]bigblue244 wrote:
jtrinsey wrote:
I don’t think Ben Johnson ever squatted 4x bodyweight. I believe I recall Charlie saying that he did 6 reps at 600 or maybe it was a little more but they never had him go higher than that.
I could be wrong.
He was also on steroids. Not taking anything away from him, though, because it’s still impressive.[/quote]
So was carl lewis, and all the other top sprinters of the period. I don’t see why you need to point the finger at ben. I realize it probally wasn’t intended, but I think that this would be more appropriate:
“Keep in mind most of these pro and olympic sprinters have used steriods.”
and yes, I think ben got screwed.
Charlie had no reason to go any higher than 600 with ben because it didn’t do anything for him on the track.
If you don’t want to take anything away, then why mention it? We all know what the elite guys are on.
To the original poster: where did you hear those numbers? None of them sound right at all. The most BJ ever lifted according to his coach is 2 sets of 6 reps at 600lbs to parallel (what the other guy said, but he did it for 2 sets).
Maurice Greene squatted a bit over 500lbs and Linford Christie supposedly did circa-700lbs.
From what I’ve heard from someone who watched Gatlin squatting a couple years ago, he was doing below parallel squats ~6 reps with 385-415.
I saw this thread and just had to re-post a comment I made in another thread not long ago. I don’t think many people saw it. I edited the post to make sense:
"Best advice I can give, though it will sound like a broken record, is to squat, squat, squat and heavy if you want to improve your sprint times.
One of my favorite anecdotes related to this is from “Romo” (Bill Romanowski’s autobiography). He talks about when he first started working with Remy Korchemny on speed work and Remy asked him if he was squatting.
Romo (to my surprise) said he wasn’t and was only doing leg presses for lower body work.So Remy tells Romo to start squatting and after awhile, excited with his progress, Romo comes back to Remy and tells him he can squat 400. Remy answers, “Good. Now you can squat as much as my women sprinters.”
Granted most of Korchemny’s athletes were juiced to the gills - he was one of the guys taken down with the BALCO bust - but I think there’s something to be learned there, nonetheless."
[quote]rawda wrote:
try this:
http://www.coachesinfo.com/category/strength_and_conditioning/246/
that might be a little too detailed, but it will answer your question.
another awesome source for sprinting and jumping is kelly bagget’s site, higher-faster-sports.com.[/quote]
nice links rawda. i am a sprinter and i have always noticed that the more my squat went up, the faster i got and the higher my vert went. of course maybe it was because my clean went up also, but the squat has always been my focus and i have seen it help many other sprinters get faster that didnt utilize it before.
and for every ben johnson, there is a kim collins who claims he doesnt lift. but i say, whenver in doubt, SQUAT!
[quote]hockechamp14 wrote:
So was carl lewis, and all the other top sprinters of the period. I don’t see why you need to point the finger at ben. I realize it probally wasn’t intended, but I think that this would be more appropriate:
“Keep in mind most of these pro and olympic sprinters have used steriods.”
and yes, I think ben got screwed.
Charlie had no reason to go any higher than 600 with ben because it didn’t do anything for him on the track.[/quote]
Shut up. You don’t know and somebody might actually believe you.
[quote]CC wrote:
One of my favorite anecdotes related to this is from “Romo” (Bill Romanowski’s autobiography). He talks about when he first started working with Remy Korchemny on speed work and Remy asked him if he was squatting.
Romo (to my surprise) said he wasn’t and was only doing leg presses for lower body work.So Remy tells Romo to start squatting and after awhile, excited with his progress, Romo comes back to Remy and tells him he can squat 400. Remy answers, “Good. Now you can squat as much as my women sprinters.”
[/quote]
This is a good story, but I think adult Romo could squat 400 the first time he squatted.
[quote]davan wrote:
He was also on steroids. Not taking anything away from him, though, because it’s still impressive.
If you don’t want to take anything away, then why mention it? We all know what the elite guys are on.
To the original poster: where did you hear those numbers? None of them sound right at all. The most BJ ever lifted according to his coach is 2 sets of 6 reps at 600lbs to parallel (what the other guy said, but he did it for 2 sets).
Maurice Greene squatted a bit over 500lbs and Linford Christie supposedly did circa-700lbs.
From what I’ve heard from someone who watched Gatlin squatting a couple years ago, he was doing below parallel squats ~6 reps with 385-415.[/quote]
Let’s assume you’re right that he did 2 x 6 at 600 lbs. What do you think his 1RM would be? Please keep in mind he only weighed 170. Anyway you cut it, it is impressive. I really do not think that steroids really had that much to do with his strength and speed. I also agree with the other poster that virtually all of teh competitors used some form of steroid or another. Ben only got caught.
Nick
[quote]Nick Radonjic wrote:
davan wrote:
He was also on steroids. Not taking anything away from him, though, because it’s still impressive.
If you don’t want to take anything away, then why mention it? We all know what the elite guys are on.
To the original poster: where did you hear those numbers? None of them sound right at all. The most BJ ever lifted according to his coach is 2 sets of 6 reps at 600lbs to parallel (what the other guy said, but he did it for 2 sets).
Maurice Greene squatted a bit over 500lbs and Linford Christie supposedly did circa-700lbs.
From what I’ve heard from someone who watched Gatlin squatting a couple years ago, he was doing below parallel squats ~6 reps with 385-415.
Let’s assume you’re right that he did 2 x 6 at 600 lbs. What do you think his 1RM would be? Please keep in mind he only weighed 170. Anyway you cut it, it is impressive. I really do not think that steroids really had that much to do with his strength and speed. I also agree with the other poster that virtually all of teh competitors used some form of steroid or another. Ben only got caught.
Nick [/quote]
ben was a freak, any way you cut, he would have been amazingly fast and strong without steroids, in fact he was fast and strong without them. but to say that steroids really didnt have much to do with his strength and speed is understated, as i think that it really took him to the next level. just my opinion though.
I thought Ben was a little heavier than 170, but if he was going for a 1RM, it might’ve been close to 4x bodyweight now that I think about it.
I think all athletes, especially high school athletes need to really understand the importance relative strength plays in speed development. Most of them just think more and more running is the answer when it often isn’t.
Ben weight 173 in Seoul and was around 178 before losing a bit of weight a couple months before the Olympics.
Romo only squatting 400lbs? lol give me a break–high school freaks can squat the (at least to parallel) within a month of lifting. Remy is good, but has been known to bulk up way too many athletes (Dwain Chambers) beyond what is needed and actually hamper performance.
Also, no reason to say “let’s assume you’re right”–that is what Charlie Francis has said himself many times. If you don’t believe the numbers, you can look around because there was a video on a Canadian news site where he was doing 315+lbs on incline press for reps pretty easily.
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
I thought Ben was a little heavier than 170, but if he was going for a 1RM, it might’ve been close to 4x bodyweight now that I think about it.
I think all athletes, especially high school athletes need to really understand the importance relative strength plays in speed development. Most of them just think more and more running is the answer when it often isn’t.[/quote]
I totally agree. If you read that entire analysis in the attachment of teh earlier post, you can read that relative strength, as seen in the power clean and squat, are amazingly correlated to sprint speed and vertical jump. I guess when all else fails when your a sprinter, increase your relative strength, and that should make your times go down.
Nick
Also, I doubt BJ could squat over 700lbs–he typically used a medium rep range and CF has said he can’t say for sure, but he had definitely built up some strength endurance in that rep range and may have a shallower max.
[quote]kellyc wrote:
CC wrote:
One of my favorite anecdotes related to this is from “Romo” (Bill Romanowski’s autobiography). He talks about when he first started working with Remy Korchemny on speed work and Remy asked him if he was squatting.
Romo (to my surprise) said he wasn’t and was only doing leg presses for lower body work.So Remy tells Romo to start squatting and after awhile, excited with his progress, Romo comes back to Remy and tells him he can squat 400. Remy answers, “Good. Now you can squat as much as my women sprinters.”
This is a good story, but I think adult Romo could squat 400 the first time he squatted.[/quote]
Yeah I would think so, too. But then again I would have figured Romo had been suatting his whole career, so who knows. I lifted the story straight from the book, though, almost word-for-word. Maybe he embellished a bit for the effect…
[quote]davan wrote:
Romo only squatting 400lbs? lol give me a break–high school freaks can squat the (at least to parallel) within a month of lifting. Remy is good, but has been known to bulk up way too many athletes (Dwain Chambers) beyond what is needed and actually hamper performance.
[/quote]
Like I said, straight from the book. And the story doesn’t say he stopped at 400, just that when he reached that mark he felt pretty good about it, and Remy shot him down.