Adarq.org

Makes sense. Ive seen ridiculously strong squatters who can't jump and guys that can fly with no squat specific strength. Its all movement efficiency.  Of course being stronger in ratio to BW can't hurt. I'm curious to what some of these guys who can't ATG squat any weight can squat at a joint angle relative to their plant (specifically 2 foot jumpers), I'd venture to say its exponentially more.

This and ankle/hip mobility have led me to not really 'care' what squat is as long as its as deep as I can go safely/comfortably and the weights progress. Bottom line is still get strong, practice movement.

The article on Usain Bolt from that above article was also a neat read, although it kinda sounds like a cover letter lol to be Bolt's assistant athletic trainer:
http://bretcontreras.com/how-does-usain-bolt-train/

Very true to your first part Avishek. You have to cultivate strength occasionally ANDthe differing stimuli from switching up training/exercises/rep schemes can shock the body towards gains as well.

What do you mean? What purpose will cultivating strength "occasionally" vs. regularly serve? What purpose will cultivating weight room strength regularly serve? I mean that seriously as I'm really starting to doubt the use of squats and deadlifts as a valid way of improving athletic performance, or at least, as a fundamental way of improving strength. I think "strength" should be redefined, and squat strength may not have a strong correlation with force production at joint angles specific to top speed sprinting or even a running vertical jump, as much as I would like to believe it would.

To sort of answer your question in the above post, I read a while ago how the best UK long jumpers can produce over 5000N of isometric force in an isometric squat test. Don't know what the consensus is but that number isn't unachievable without good numbers in the gym.
http://www.elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/10165/#92131

The difference is in how your body reacts to training.

agree.

Any relative strength gain should have a positive correlation to your jump/sprint times as long as you can express it efficiently.  Without this you can get as strong as you want and it wont matter. You still have to practice the movements regularly to see gains.

Now I REALLY REALLY disagree with this. I just don't see this to be true unless the exercise in which relative strength was gained has serious transfer to the activity in question; i.e. squat strength to sprint speed, or even to running vertical jump. Even for an exercise that is more specific, such as a deadlift, increases in relative strength may be irrelevant past a certain point for a sprinter and may do more harm than good by converting type iib fibers to iia. Increases in relative squat strength from squatting may reduce a running vertical jump because now the athlete cannot handle eccentric forces as well and as fast form not jumping as often and thus will have less speed during the run up - this would be very likely to happen if you took a high jumper and told him to just squat and deadlift for a while. In my personal experience, even if I try to maintain plyometric training while strength training, strength training reduces my rate of force development no matter what. My bounding decreases, my speed and jumps decrease. My running vertical dropped 4 inches when I tested it once after I reached 315lbs in the squat. But I wasn't practicing it at all. However occasional bounding helped bring me up to PR levels. But as long as I had some deep heavy squatting in my program I could never feel as explosive as without any heavy/slow training, that could be due to the neural adaptations but also conversion of type IIb fibers to IIa. However for something more specific like the RVJ, i would jump slightly higher, not a ton higher because I was slow. As Kelly Baggett has said, the biggest gains from strength training for vertical come during the phase where we try to express the strength through more specific exercises. That's the phase I'm on now and it causes my squat/deadlift numbers to plummet a shitload, causing me to wonder why I would do it in the first place.

So theoretically increases in relative strength should increase performance in the activity in question if that activity is practiced so it might be irrelevant to bring what I just said up . . . but there is a reason why in season athletes don't strength train rigorously. And from my experience it's because it just takes away from the movements required for the sport - that's only if the strength training isn't that specific such as deep squats for TOP speed. Contrast that with hip thrusts for top speed training. In my experience with squats to improve sprints, even my acceleration feels slower with a lot of heavy squatting. But my top speed feels like absolute shit - I have no pull in my stride at all and I can feel my quads trying to push vertically into the ground like a squat, and forcing myself to pull with my hamstrings is probably what caused me to pull them nearly twice. Now I'm not spending 5d/wk on the track, but my idea is that these motor patterns compete. So strength training should be HIGHLY specific. Squatting for vertical jump increases is different. Squatting deep for increases in TOP SPEED, now that's not very specific. Deadlifts for top speed, I can't confidently say that would hurt a sprinter at all, but since I want to increase my top speed right now, I'm not going to do any deep squats (even though I badly want to). 

We all can find examples to support each point certainly; the athletes in Contreras's article cast doubt on traditional strength training but inspirational stories from Kingfush's training journal, the Rutgersdunker youtube channel, and other accounts of people improving athleticism through traditional strength training provide support for the idea that increases in relative strength improve performance in sport (neither of them are sprinting though, well Kingfush has said he wants to do a 60 don't know if he has yet). Maybe this shows that people respond differently to training . . . if they're increasing their vertical jump, increasing force production and spending less time on the ground, it doesn't matter how they got there. But maybe their muscles/tendons are acting completely differently; the people who squat a lot may jump using different machinery than people like jordan kilganon who is just a beast who can't squat much at all.

With my experiences in improving running vertical jump, I think squatting has helped me absorb more force during the plant and has increased my movement efficiency during the movement and overall has increased running vert, but slightly more so for reasons other than being able to squat more. I simply feel "weaker" when I start to do exercises that are supposed to convert the strength to speed and power and I lose strength so once I again I just question what the point of doing it was. Efforts to maintain strength simply result in my being slower because I spend time doing slow lifting...  I'm not trying to get attached to any one specific idea so I am starting to let go of training for max strength but if someone can explain in depth how to set up a proper program to avoid competing motor patterns I would be delighted to read it.

To sort of answer your question in the above post, I read a while ago how the best UK long jumpers can produce over 5000N of isometric force in an isometric squat test. Don't know what the consensus is but that number isn't unachievable without good numbers in the gym.
http://www.elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/10165/#92131

Made a quick search:

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2002.web.dir/peter_broady/pages/Thesquat.htm

The Physics of the Squat
What makes squatting the most effective lift? The answer is the downward pull of gravity on the lifter. The squatter is essentially pushing directly against gravity. Gravity is a an attractive force that acts on every thing that has mass in the universe. Isaac Newton, famous physicist and mathematician, discovered the laws that govern this force. His law of universal gravitation states that:
Every particle in the Universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
From this law, the the acceleration due to this force of gravity near the surface of the earth is approximately 9.8 meters per second squared. This means that if two object are dropped from the same height, they will hit the ground at the same time, regardless of how much they weigh(of course, one must neglect air resistance). This is how weight is defined. An objects weight is defined as the acceleration of gravity g multiplied by its mass m (mg). For example, a person having a mass of 50 kilograms(kg) would have a weight of 490 kg meters per second squared, or 490 Newtons(N). The acceleration of gravity constant was found using Newton's famous three laws of motion:
1. In the absence of external forces, an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion with a constant velocity.
2. The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.(The equation (F=ma, or Force=mass * acceleration).
3. If two objects interact,the force exerted by the first object on the second object is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force by the second object on the first.
The Squat incorporates all of these laws. For example, take the man squatting in the picture below. Let's say that he has a mass of 100 kg and the weight has a mass of about 350 kg. What force must he exert on the bar to stop himself at parallel, the position shown in the picture?
( www.graphics.stanford.edu)
Let's call the mass of the man m and the mass of the weight M. The total downward force acting is:
F = mg + Mg = (100 kg)(9.8 m/s^2) + (350 kg)(9.8 m/s^2) = 4410 N
Since F = ma and the man, at this instant he is at parallel is not accelerating, therefore a =0 and the net force acting in the system must equal 0. This means that the man must exert a force equal and opposite to the force applied. This force is called a normal force(n). The downward force exerted on the man is 4410 N, so when he is sitting at parallel, he must be exerting a force of 4410 N as well. This problem is an example of static equilibrium, or when an object has no acceleration, making the net force equal to zero. The man must exert a force greater than 4410 N to lift the weight from parallel.
What force must the man exert to accelerate the weights up at 1 m/s^2? Once again, we use Newton's second law, F = ma. The equation for the forces acting on the object is:
F = ma = n - (M + m)g = n - 4410= (450kg)(1 m/s^2)
n = force of man = 450 N + 4410 N = 4860 N
The man must exert a force of 4860 N on the bar to accelerate the weights at 1 m/s^2.

Long story short: 4860N is the force that a 100kg man needs to apply to squat 350kg ( 3,5*BW ) with the bar accelerating up with 1m/sec2. This means he would complete the lift in less than 2 seconds.

Can you please explain how 'that number isn't unachievable without good numbers in the gym' about 5000N ?

There's so much to write about what Avishek said... but long story short - if you lack in muscle mass and in the power that muscle mass would give you (improving your relative strength) then you need to squat deep because that's the best muscle builder. You don't squat deep for specificity purposes,  you're just building a bigger engine.

When you do that you're obviously masking any explosiveness you've gained through the squat induced fatigue. You don't need to be a genius to figure that out.

And when you stop squatting you're basically eliminating that squatting fatigue and then you say "wow I don't squat and look how powerful I am now!" when in fact you're powerful because of the gains you made with the squat in the past, that are now displaying without that fatigue.

And since you're not squatting you're obviously going to lose squatting movement efficiency and then you're going to say "my squat has gone lower yet look at how much more explosive I am now, so then it must mean squatting was bad for my power".

Just use your brain a bit.

Lifting won't do anything for top speed because that's mainly genetic.
"The squat becomes a poor measure of strength at maximum velocity. At this speed an athlete must exhibit extremely brief powerful single leg ground contact and the squat does not accurately predict their ability to produce power in this movement".

However, I believe squatting does improve your acceleration and can improve the start of your races, which will end up making you a faster runner. I was reading a book about Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis called 'The Dirtiest Race in History'. In the book it said even as far back as 1981 athletes were commenting on how impressive Ben Johnson's strength was in squatting. Back than in 1981 Johnson was running 100s in 10.8, however, he was leading a lot of faster guys than him in races up to 50m but just couldn't maintain the speed. He was always a brilliant starter and I attribute that to his natural strength and squatting. Ben Johnson didn't like cleans so he didn't do cleans. Same as Michael Johnson allegedly didn't do squats preferring lunges, so he did lunges. A guy like Linford Christie lives and dies by the squat believing it's an integral part of a sprinter's training. Same as Asafa Powell believes strongly in weights. But than you'll have other guys like Kim Collins who once again claim they don't even lift.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv65yElP8A" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv65yElP8A</a>

Point being if you like an exercise and think it benefits you than do it. If you don't like it or think it doesn't benefit you than don't do it. The ultimate judge is always going to be your performance on the court, field or track that counts, not what you can do in the weight room.

I'm pretty sure Charlie Francis said that Johnson squatted 600x6 (not sure on depth) and benched 450.

http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?19380-Ben-Johnson-Squat-1rm
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?19380-Ben-Johnson-Squat-1rm