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yeah for the record i did not mean GOMAD BRO!!!!!!!!!!

not sure what t0ddddddday means by my "advice to cut" -- maybe just mistyped. my advice was to stop cutting and to begin thinking about adding muscle. that can obviously be done the rippetoe way, but the rippetoe way is sub-optimal in this context as we have all discussed. for what it's worth i agree completely with t0ddday and i think we were saying the same thing. he just did so in greater depth and fewer references to jesus.

^ yeah sorry, mean your advice about bulking.  Agreed.

Thanks for the in depth response

I want to bulk to get stronger. Whenever i workout without gaining weight, i just end up spinning my wheels in place. Evidence of this in my log where I couldn't go down past 193-194lbs for like a month and didn't increase strength one bit in any lift at all.

I think you should look at this another way.  Yes, it's easier to get stronger while your bw goes up... but if you get stronger while your bodyweight goes up and then lose strength when you cut weight you are also spinning your wheels, albeit not in place. As a relative strength athlete you don't really have the luxury of gaining weight to get strength.   Super-heavy weight powerlifters do and from them we know that an extreme surplus is calories is a must for achieving massive lifts; if fact the weight of the drug free guys make the case that without drugs massive calories are needed to push weights to elite levels.

However, you are not going for power-lifting records.   I believe it's possible for you to gain strength without much bw gain if you do your nutrition right.   Calories in calories out will determine what happens on the scale, but your more detailed nutritional plan will go along way to what happens to your lifts along the way.   If you are cutting and restricting carbs it will be really hard to get your body to gain strength unless your really weak/fat.

What I would suggest for you is not to bulk but to eat enough to get stronger.  How lean are you?  If you are closer to 10% than 5% bf I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't increase strength while coming pretty close to maintaining bodyfat.  The last time I cut from 210 to 200 I increased my front squat max triple from 315 to 335.  Modest increase, and of course when I let myself go to 220 my numbers went up a lot more.... But it's still possible.   And as a jumping athlete low bw is even more important than for sprinting.

my advice: If you are at your goal weight why not eat maintenance for awhile and continue to train hard in the gym.  You were just in a restrictive diet so eating maintenance levels should put you in comparatively a much better state to make strength increase.  Try and up your lifting frequency, ie if you squat 2x a week try and move to 3-4x with a few high intensity lifts each session and some moderate intensity moderate volume sets (I think specificity of programs is overrated but something like a few singles, doubles or triples each session and then a few back off sets of 4-7 reps).   

For now keep your protein close to 200g and get about 20g carbs before workouts and 50g of carbs post workout.  Of course throwing in about 40 grams of heathly oils takes your calories at this level to about 1500... Meaning you won't have a ton more to play with and not gain weight.  Kinda elimates things like late night pizza.  That's why this approach takes discipline.   Give your lifts time... strength should gradually increase, but if you really find your lifts getting stuck then try to counteract this by adding in some most postworkout carbs.  A big reason we lose strength when cutting is insufficient glycogen reload, you can make huge inroads by modulating this.   

If you follow this kind of an approach you may in fact end up gaining some weight as you might find it necessary to increase your carbohydrate intake more to keep the strength from stalling.  This weight gain should be moderate and can be held back by a few days of tempo work (ie.  Medium intensity system work - sprinting/swimming).   I think this type of approach in the long term will get you much better relative strength than a blanket decision to start eating at a surplus of X amount of calories.  This advice isn't super simple but you are already a pretty strong guy (squatting 400+ at under 200lbs) and as such your nutrition requirements are going to be more advanced than +cals/-cals if you want to become an even better athlete.    Think of your new goal as getting stronger and eating just enough to facilitate this rather than deciding to eat a surplus of calories which will make it easier to get stronger.  Your weight work dictates the nutrition rather than nutrition dictating what you can do in the gym. 
 

^ Ehhh...  I don't want to bash the cheetah (an awesome animal for sure).... but comparing the mechanism by which a quadruped accelerates to bilateral bipedal human locomotion is pretty out of left field.   Active lower back strength is somewhat helpful to the hip hinge involved in a running vertical jump or in double leg bounding... but pretty much nonexistent in sprinting.   Isometric back strength IS essential to holding speed at high velocity but unless your at a pretty elite level it's probably not what's holding you back...  Guys running multiple <0.9 10m splits are so strong and have such tremendous leg stiffness that weakness in isometric strength can cause breakdown when they reach high speed.   Most amateurs lack the leg stiffness and even the basic hamstring strength necessary to run fast enough, essentially your breaking down way before you back is really that important.   

@Entropy:

How is the sprinting coming?  How have your times coincided with your diet?  I am a little late to the party as far as your extreme weight loss but while I agreed initially with LBSS I am essentially puzzled by your numbers.   Your 6'3, 160 pounds, and just posted a video of 5 reps of bottomed out front squats (so you have decent strength).   You also posted that you were >=20% bodyfat at 190lbs and still look "fat", despite the fact that you should be closing in on 5% now.   And you are training as a sprinter which is IMO the best training for body composition....

While at first glance it seems you should stop trying to lose weight.... It seems you have gained strength despite getting really small.  This certainly isn't in-line with extreme weight loss.  I can maintain strength while cutting into the single digits, but strength absolutely tanks at around 5% bodyfat.  By tanks I mean squat goes from 400's to 200's.  And speed endurance becomes non-existent which makes track workouts impossible.   

Either:

1) you have hollow bones (pretty awesome, like a bird)
2) Your scale/ruler is broken
3) You think you look fat but suffer from body dysmorphia (you should post a picture for the sane members of the forum to evalute)
4) You were extremely inactive/fat for a lot of your life, have a small frame, and have added decent squat strength despite an overall lack of musculature and some stubborn fat deposits/extra skin which keeps you from looking lean with your shirt off despite the fact that you actually have a low overall percentage of bf.  You store almost no fat on your legs, glutes, back, but have a bit of adipose on your love handles/chest where a few pounds can keep you from looking lean...


If I had to guess I would say it's probably a tiny bit of 3 and a lot of 4 (although I'm holding out hope for #1).   As such I would advise you to stop the active cutting right away.  It's great that you have built up some decent squat strength while cutting...  But now that your neural gains are likely plateauing the worst thing you can do is sabotage you ability to push up your basic strength with a restrictive diet.  I understand that you want to look lean but you are already 6'3 160.  I also know that you probably look a lot better at 160 than 190 and you want to continue the progress.  But you are already REALLY small.   If the problem isn't total fat but fat storage then putting your body in a poor hormonal state from restrictive dieting is only going to exacerbate where you put fat.       

Just my two cents, but you are at a good point and here is what I would do if I were you.   Stop cutting.  But DO NOT BULK.  At least not the bulk that 95% of people do to gain strength.  You are spot on when you say you fear spinning your wheels by making your progress and then fattening up and adding some strength but losing or maintaining relative strength.   You have built up a lot of discipline from dieting.  You can summon on that discipline to maximize your potential.  Keep the training up.  Add some carbs post-workout [~50g] and one other time per day (preferably morning unless you train really early) get a minimum of 100 grams of protein and some oils in your diet and when you are hungry try to reaching for primarily good protein sources and eat until your almost full.  You still shouldn't eat that "hot chip" and probably never should.  Stay away from alcohol and keep the training intense try and the volume decent.  Consider adding other compound movements like standing barbell presses, oly lifts, and deadlifts to your training.  You could even bench press.   Get on the track all the time.  Do speed work but don't neglect speed endurance workouts.  They will hurt but they will get you to win races and they will get you lean and they will get you to recomp.   I have yet to see a guy who doesn't neglect his weight training and runs himself into basic track shape (example:  3 400m's in sub 60 w/3 minutes rest or 10 200's under 30 with 1 min rest) who looks "fat".  This holds even for idiot college athletes who subsist on orange soda and dorm food.   These guys look remarkably leaner after a couple weeks of two-a-days despite binging on pizza each night.   You get sufficient protein and don't binge eat and you tilt the equation even more in your favor.  Take a picture now and take a picture after... My bet is you might be a few pounds heavier... But who cares.  You will be a hell of a better athlete... and that is what you are chasing...

Again, just my two cents.  Hope you improve no matter what path you choose. 

Nice squats.  It's hard to keep focus on front squat and back squat while cutting but this is what I have been doing for awhile. 

Warm up with front squats, triples up to one or two challenging but not impossible work sets for front squats.   Then switch to back squat and do higher-volume paused reps until I hit a rep goal.

For example if I am going to work with 315 (which is about a 6-7rep max for me in fsq): Front squats:  3x135, 3x225, 3x275, 3x315, 3x315 THEN switch to paused back squats:  5-10x315 until I hit somewhere between 20-40 reps.

That might be a bit volume intense, but I really like using the front squats for ramping so the movement pattern doesn't get old, but limiting the heavier sets you are not too fried for your back-squat.  I've cut around 10 lbs and been able to keep this up while raising my reps/set in the backsquat.   A fair compromise.

Interesting article.  Tyson gay has 0.07 ground contacts... GAHHHH!

In some ways it's a shame that the article chose to compare these three athletes from 60-80m because while they don't explicitly state it... A very misleading interpretation of the data is easy to come by.

That is:

Gay is 6'0, Powell is 6'3, Bolt is 6'5 and ground contacts are 0.07, 0.08, and 0.09 respectively.  All three are clearly very fast so it seems taller athletes have greater ground contact time (less leg stiffness) but make up for it with their stride length. 

However, what's important is that while Bolt and Gay ran roughly equal 20m splits (1.63 and 1.62), Powell has poor speed endurance and maxV (in comparison) and was slower (1.69) from 60-80m.    Thus, Tyson's greater stride frequency is in affect the reason why he runs faster than Powell.  If you watch the video you will notice that Powell is overstriding by 70m which really throws the analysis off.   I would bet that between 40-50m Powell and Gay would have much more similar ground contacts and stride lengths (as well as almost equal splits).  The point being that world class sprinters from 5'9 to 6'4 have what is really only a minor correlation between contact time/stride distance and height.  Bolt is the aberration.   Remember stride rate hardly differs between amateur and world class athletes (note that's stride rate not contact time), but world class athletes impulse is much greater per stride.   

Essentially, everyone else is running and Bolt and practically bounding down the track each ground contact propelling him ridiculously far forward.  It's like the guy never leaves drive phase.  Really gotta appreciate him for what he is, the greatest athlete of all time.

Quote from: AlexV on October 01, 2012, 02:45:11 pm

its cause he is soo tall

Completely unrelated, but in the schroeder/iso article he references knee pain caused via popliteus and that activation of it solves this issue.  How is he referring to activating the popliteus? Contraction of the hamstring of front leg?

nice new articles btw 

What's the schroeder article you are talking about?  Do you have a link?  Very interested in this article will read through this one at work!

What country are located in?

Seifullaah73,

You seem to be spinning your wheels asking every last person for every last detail of your training program.  You have to understand that this forum is about getting advice for how to design your own program and become a better trainer/athlete, not getting others to write a template specific to you that you follow to a T... Think about it as some teach a man to fish type stuff...

Anyway, I told you to do 50 dips and pullups per workout until you can get them done in 4 sets of 25.  Other people told you to do 4 sets of 8.  This is not contradicting advice.  This is GENERAL ADVICE.  You could choose to do 3 sets of 10 and it would be fine.  You could do pushups instead of dips.  The point is at your level bodyweight movements at moderate intensity will suffice for the time being.   Whenever you find yourself in the gym do a bunch of pullups and dips (or pushups).  Put it in your log.  Try and do more (or more per set) each workout.   Do some weighted back squats and calve raises a couple times a week.  Try and do more weight or more reps for these lifts.  Always do at least 5 reps and fewer than 20.  Log it.  It will thrill those on the forum to see you improve (that is after all why people dispense advice for free... they like to see it help someone improve).

As far as sprinting.  I ask that you just follow this advice and not ask for any more details.  Keep sticking to your track workouts with your club.  As far as your supplemental work follow this advice:

A) If you have some time during the day and your legs don't feel terribly sore and you didn't run fast the day before:

Go run fast and do it somewhere familiar.  Try and break a record.  Run between 300 and 800 meters.  Keep reps between 30m and 120m. If there is no track nearby but there is a 50 meter hill... Then go run up the hill 8 times as fast as you can.  Time yourself and try and make each rep better than the week before... pay special attention to the last rep and make it all out.    If there is no hill nearby but there is a 100 meter straight go run that 5-6 times and set a record on the last one!

B) If you have some time during the day BUT you ran the day before or your legs still somewhat sore from weight-training or previous speed work:

Go run intermediate and do it somewhere familiar.  Try and break a record by reducing recovery or lowering overall time.  Run between 1000 and 2500 meters.  Keep reps to at least 100 meters.  For example if you find a 200 meter straight somewhere go run the 200 meters 5-10 times.    Rest at least 30 seconds and less than 8 minutes between reps.  Run each rep at the same time.  This will take some practice.  If you run to fast you will "die" if you run too slow you won't get a good workout.  You will figure it out.  Maybe you will be able to run 200m in 35 seconds 8 times with 4 minutes rest between each rep.  Try and improve next time.  You could improve by adding a 9th rep.  You could improve by taking the recovery down to 3 minutes.  You could improve by taking the time per rep to 33 seconds.  Remember improvement (lower time or reduced recover) is required across ALL reps.  Nobody can tell you what to improve you have to base it on how YOU feel.  Generally if you are feeling a bit more sore you will do better trying to set a record for less recovery... You will learn to feel that out.  When you are close to 8 minutes recovery between reps than try and lower the recovery... If your recovery is short then try and reduce time per rep!   

C) If you have some time during the day but you ran the day before and you still feel very sore from training:

Then rest.  If you are really itching to train than go jog for 15 minutes, do your skips, dynamic activation, and some static stretching. 

D) You have homework or a lecture or a family commitment and can't train:

That's ok.  The next day you have some free time just evaluate whether you are A,B,or C.  Get in the gym too if it's been awhile.


**************

One rule: Before you ask any more questions, get to a track ASAP and got some friend of yours or someone to just stand there and time you running 60m, 100m, 200m, even 300m and 400m.  You can stand there put your hand on the ground and they can start the watch when they see you move and stop it when they see your foot touch down past the line.  Have them take 3 times for the 60m, 2 for 100m and 1 time for each other distance.  Report your times in your log.  Also, get a spotter or a squat cage and find out how much weight you can squat for 3 reps.  Finally, report how many pullups in dips you can do in a single set of each.  That is your homework.  The sprint times and squat testing should be repeated every couple months.  Besides that just follow the guide a wrote for you and good things will happen.  I've been around sprinting for awhile and I have tried my best to write this as simple as possible (you might notice I combined speed endurance and tempo for you... at your level you really don't need to separate the two and it seemed to be confusing you)... I hope after your report your test results you next journal entries will be a lot shorter... something like this:

**** Sample ****
Felt a bit sore but not terrible (Option B)
Ran 200m 7 times.  4 minutes recovery.   Times: 32,33,34,33,34,34,37  (Will try and take a bit off the first next time and get them all under 35)
Got to gym:  Did 3x10x150 for squats, calf raises.   (will go for 3x10x155 next time) Did 4x10 pullups and dips (will go for 4x12 next time)

That's it.

Good luck. 

I read also squatting will help in increasing my sprint time. I read it also on elitetrack, on
Why do you have to play the psychological game, i would like to do what you told me, but since i live on campus, the track is quite far, and on Wednesdays and sundays they use a minibus to get to the track and back, any workout related to using a track on other days is out of the question. how many workouts should i do for the upper and lower?

the plan you suggested

monday: tempo work
tuesay: rest/recovery
wednesday: speed work  + weight training (hi intensity low body + moderate upper body)
thursday:  speed endurance
friday:  tempo work + weight training ( lower intensity )
saturday: rest/recovery
sunday: speed work + weight training ( moderate intensity )

i really would like to improve my speed endurance.
but am in a dilema, any suggestions.

I'm not playing a psychological game with you, I'm just giving you advice but if you refuse to take it and keep telling me you know something to be true because you read it on this or that website then I am wasting my time.  If you want to sprint you have to run both often and fast. 

Can't make it to a track more than twice a week?  Then you can do hill work.  You can find a park and do bounding and tempo work there.  You can do moderate recovery runs on the street.  The point is your priorities need to be in the following order: running fast (speed work), running hard (endurance), jumping/bounding, lower body lifting, recovery, upper body lifting.  You don't need to worry about upper body lifting when you can't run under 8 seconds in the 60m.  You don't even need to worry about squatting when your over 8 seconds in the 60m.  You just have to learn how to run. 

At your level you just need to make sure you are sprinting more often.  That's the best advice you are going to hear.  It might not be what you want to hear, because maybe it's more attractive to you to think you need to tweak some technical detail or add some specific weightlifting... but it's the truth!