Bryant W
Level 5 Valued Member
I should be careful how I phrase things. When I say bodyweight in this case I mean bodyweight on the bar, not a bodyweight squat just squatting without load. Most prominent examples that come to mind whose coaches have discussed this are Andre de Grasse and Christophe Lemaitre. There are some interesting discussions/lectures on Altis 360 that talk about this (but this requires a membership which you have to pay for). It often comes up in various episodes on the JustFlySports podcast, as well.I'm really curious to know of sub 10 sprinters who can barely handle a bodyweight squat.
That's pretty interesting, and hard for me to believe.
I don't mean to use this as a reason to recommend not squatting or something extreme like that. I just think the crossover is less significant than some suggest when it comes to explosive abilities, and that a significant degree of full depth squat strength is not a prerequisite for running fast (Chris Korfist and Tony Holler are two high school coaches who have been pretty vocal about this and written a number of articles illustrating there success in getting kids faster and their track/football teams more successful without traditional stronger/bigger/faster weightlifting strategies). I also recognize that for a mere mortal like myself, not getting stronger to preserve my slow guy/old man speed would be pretty silly. I'm not a sprint specialist, I just enjoy it still and am grateful to have been able to overcome some nagging issues in the past decade and get back at it.