Speed and Strength: two sides of the same coin

Training Maximum Speed and Maximum Strength

Training to improve maximum speed and training to improve absolute strength are remarkably similar.

Power legend George Frenn, shown in the above image, demonstrates the proper way to one-man spot as Roger Estep reps 605 x 5.

There are three generalized types of strength. Each has its own training logic, its own recovery demand, and its own expression of human horsepower.

Three Strength Types

• Absolute strength: maximum payloads moved for low reps over short distances with no regard for velocity.
• Explosive strength: moderate payloads moved for low reps using an extended range of motion and maximum velocity.
• Sustained strength: light payloads and varying ranges of motion for extended periods using lower velocity.

Why Top Speed and Absolute Strength Rhyme

The attainment of absolute strength and the attainment of top-end sprint speed are, philosophically, remarkably similar. Absolute strength cannot be fully actualized by forever avoiding high-intensity effort. All-out sprint speed cannot be fully actualized by forever avoiding all-out sprinting.

Submaximal work has its place. It builds technique, rhythm, recovery, work capacity, and practice volume. But the exact qualities of maximum speed and maximum strength require the athlete, at the right time, to express high intensity while fresh.

The body strengthens and builds itself in response to intense muscular and skeletal stresses. Only by generating herculean effort in our power-training workouts are muscles forced to grow and strengthen. Less-than-serious effort is insufficient to invoke meaningful hypertrophy or trigger significant strength increases in a seasoned trainee.

Strength increases occur when the fully rested athlete handles poundage and reps that stress the body to capacity, or optimally, slightly past current capacity, without injury and without technical collapse. Sprinting top-speed increases occur when the fully rested sprinter runs as fast as humanly possible, up to, and optimally slightly past, previous capacity, without injury.

Here are three generalized rules that apply to powerlifting and sprinting:

• To increase strength or speed, generate a 100%+ effort when 100% rested.
• There is no point generating a 100% effort when 78% rested.
• There is no point generating a 78% effort when 100% rested.

That 100%+ or 102% language is Gallagher shorthand. It means the athlete equals current capacity, then nudges past it in a controlled, technically sound fashion: one more rep, a tiny poundage increase, a slightly faster sprint, a cleaner effort, a better execution under pressure.

Capacity and Strength Training

Capacity can be measured using many yardsticks. Capacity in power training is not about continually testing single-rep maximum lift strength. The commonsense definition for attaining 100% of capacity is this: pick an exercise, preferably one of the Core Four or an acceptable variant; pick a technique; pick a poundage; now proceed to perform as many technically correct reps as possible.

Rep until you cannot perform another clean rep. You have just given 100% for that exercise, on that day, using that technique, at that bodyweight, in that condition.

Optimally, the trainee periodically generates a 102% effort. A “past-capacity” effort is achieved by adding a rep or two to an exercise set or by increasing poundage ever so slightly while preserving technique.

There are many expressions of 100% capacity. Maximum capacity on any given day and time can be diminished, enhanced, or unchanged. Capacity is a shifting target. Capacities are never static. Day to day, week to week, hour to hour, our 100% capacities in the various exercises and drills, be it power training or sprinting, will rise, fall, or stay the same.

Capacity and Sprinting

The quest to improve all-out top speed has an amazing number of parallels to the quest to improve absolute strength. First and foremost: there is no speed without strength. Sprinting requires power and strength to propel body mass with optimal velocity.

Strength alone does not make an elite sprinter. Technique, rhythm, relaxation, body position, elastic qualities, mechanics, and sprint-specific practice all matter. Still, weak runners might make fine distance runners, but they will never become more than mediocre sprinters. Sprinting demands force applied quickly and correctly.

To improve all-out top speed, the athlete must periodically generate a capacity-level effort while 100% rested. Sound familiar? This identical mantra can be applied to strength training. Put differently, there can be no true absolute-strength gains and no true top-end sprint-speed gains if the athlete performs the most important sessions in a fatigued state.

No matter how well the lifter or sprinter performs during a partially recovered workout, the results derived from that same workout would likely have been improved had the athlete been fully recovered.

What Strength Training and Sprinting Have in Common

All-out power-training sessions and all-out sprint sessions need to be infrequent. When fully recovered, engage in a high-intensity workout, exerting maximally within the training session with repeated 100% efforts.

Both sprint drills and powerlifting sets are short. Both seek to attain maximum exertion with a full tank of ATP, the body’s nitrous oxide. Nitrous provides hundreds of extra horsepower to racecar engines for a few brief seconds. The body’s immediate high-output system is similarly short-lived. The phosphagen system burns hot and fast, and then it must be replenished by rest.

In an all-out speed session, and in a limit-exceeding periodized power-training session, the workout consists of a series of all-out efforts with a goodly amount of rest between capacity-equaling or capacity-exceeding efforts. Past a certain limited point in the training session, fatigue prevents further true 100% efforts.

Lifting all-out and running all-out are counterproductive and potentially injurious if done while fatigued. If there is a question in the athlete’s mind or coach’s mind as to whether the sprinter or lifter is fully recovered, more time needs to be taken.

When in doubt, kick the can down the road. Delay the all-out session. Unless the athlete is fresh, rested, alert, and vital, training sessions will produce substandard results. The sprinter and strength athlete credo: train the body together, rest the body together.

Train the Body Together, Rest the Body Together

All-out sprinting and heavy power training are inherently dangerous. When sprinting as fast as humanly possible, the body is under tremendous stress. One false step, one poor warm-up, one fatigued stride, and the athlete is courting a pulled hamstring, hip flexor, calf, adductor, or worse.

When attacking a limit 5-rep set in the squat, attempting to set a new personal record, pushing your guts out, you are one technical miscue away from ripping, tearing, or pulling muscles. A serious lifter must respect the bar in the same way a serious sprinter respects top speed.

This element of danger concentrates the Mind. All-out efforts require a melding of Mind and Body to accomplish the past-capacity drill. A sloppy or inattentive athlete, running all-out or lifting all-out, puts himself in danger of catastrophic injury.

Because of the relative simplicity of the task, the shortness of the sprint, and the brevity of a powerlifting set, both lend themselves to intense psyche. The sprinter or powerlifter can take his psyche to the next level. A 100% physical effort is amplified and taken to 102% with the proper warrior psyche. Because the tasks are simple, all-out psyche is appropriate and advisable.

Speed and strength go together. They complement one another. Ideally, the athlete practices both. Determine the optimal number of rest days you need between all-out lifting sessions. Determine the number of recovery days needed between all-out sprinting sessions. With proper recovery, workouts are never taken when fatigued. Train the body together, rest the body together. Learn to exert 100% safely and consistently. This is where the physical gains lie hidden in plain sight.

Equipment Notes for Speed and Strength Training

Speed and strength are trained with simple tools used well. The tool does not create speed or strength. The athlete, the effort, the recovery and the plan do that.

For serious barbell work, lifters and facilities can compare Olympic weightlifting bars, dumbbells, kettlebells, and rack setups such as half racks and quarter cages. The Legend Fitness Continuum Quarter Cage / Squat Stand, IRON COMPANY Rubber Hex Dumbbell Sets, and IRON COMPANY Premium Powder Coated Kettlebells are examples of tools that can support hard strength work when matched to the athlete and facility.

For sprinting and running work, the outdoor track, turf, hill, or straightaway is still king. When indoor running is needed, treadmills and a non-motorized option such as the AssaultRunner Pro Curved Treadmill can support controlled running work when used appropriately.

Safety Note for All-Out Sprinting and Heavy Power Training

All-out sprinting and heavy strength training are advanced enough to deserve respect. Beginners should build technique, mobility, base strength, sprint mechanics, and work capacity before chasing maximal efforts.

Warm up thoroughly. Use progressive build-ups before maximal sprinting. Use conservative warm-up jumps before heavy lifting. Use secure racks, safeties, collars, and spotters when appropriate. Stop if there is sharp pain, dizziness, numbness, loss of position, hamstring tightness, repeated technical breakdown, or any rep or sprint that no longer resembles the intended drill.

Training to capacity is not the same as training recklessly. This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW coaching philosophy and speed / strength analogy. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, sprint-programming, or strength-programming advice.

Related Speed and Strength Reading

For a deeper companion piece on coordinating sprinting and resistance training, read Sprinting and Resistance Training: Find the Balance. For a speed-history and sprint-coaching perspective, read Charlie Francis Speed Trap.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.