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Old 04-22-2014, 14:35   #16
GratefulCitizen
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Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 View Post
I see; I was curious because it seems all distance runners are built like pencils.
Light weight and long legs also increase training capacity.
For most people, the limiting factor in distance running training is wear and tear on joints and tendons.

Lower body weight means lower stresses and allows more training.
Longer legs decrease joint angles and reduce vertical oscillation (for the same stride length) which decreases stresses and allows more training.

Pencils can train longer without breaking.
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Old 04-22-2014, 16:23   #17
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Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 View Post
I suppose a combination of the two. Like say bench press one's weight about ten reps and 1.5x one's weight a few reps, barbell squat 1.5x to 2x one's weight, deadlift 2x one's weight, do 20 pullups, but then also have a high level of endurance. Being able to do Scottish strongman-style things, climb ropes, etc...also can be included.
The bench/squat/deadlift numbers you listed aren't too difficult to reach, nor is it difficult to keep decent endurance fitness at those strength levels.
The main mistake people make is overtraining.

Make progress, don't be obsessed with fast progress.
Injuries never sped up anyone's progress.

Also, you want to be very careful with heavy squats if you're in your late 20s/early 30s.
You can do a lot of damage to your lower back and not know it until your 40s.

Train strength first, worry about endurance after most of your strength goals are obtained.
It's much easier to do it in this order rather than endurance first or simultaneously.

Some of the strongman stuff is a matter of skill/technique.
Picking up and carrying full kegs (beer, not water or sand) is surprisingly easy once you learn the technique.


Funny story regarding keg-lifting:

Was picking up a 6-pack of beer for my wife last July.
The lady ahead of me in line had bought a keg (half barrel), and the clerk asked if I would help him get it into her truck.

He brought out a keg cart, but testosterone poisoning got the best of me so I waived him off a said I'd take care of it.
Still pretty easy to do (hadn't done it in more than a decade), but all sorts of joints popped when I hoisted it onto my shoulder.

Carried it outside to the lady's truck...which had a camper shell.
It was locked and she couldn't find her keys.

After a while, the keg started to feel very heavy.
Got worried that I wouldn't be able to safely lower it to the ground if she couldn't find her keys.

She finally found them and I put the keg on the tailgate.
Won't be attempting more stupidity like that anytime soon.
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Old 04-22-2014, 17:19   #18
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Thank you for the information. When you say about the heavy squats, do you mean heavy period or just heavy with regards to one's current bodyweight and strength level? I have maintained my calisthenics fitness, but need to improve my strength. Right now I am 5'10 1/2 and 144 lbs, so pretty light and thin. I can manage about six barbell squats with about 120 - 130 lbs of weight at the moment, would this be heavy for me? Or do you mean if I start getting up to doing like 300 lb squats, be very careful? I had to stop the squats for awhile as I got a sore lower back from them, so I need to improve the strength there first.
If eccentric lifting (lowering) is involved, the lower back muscles need at least 4 days recovery.
If they're the weak link, you need more rest days between workouts.

Focus on proper form (if necessary, use only the bar).
Once you have the form down, if you can't do the weight for 5 reps parallel (with proper form), it's too heavy.

Proper form can be challenging to learn.
It usually takes a couple years before the motion becomes natural.

Make use of "compensatory acceleration".
Fred Hatfield has written good stuff about this.

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Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 View Post
How can heavy squats damage the lower back in a way where you won't know about it until your forties?
Everybody's back degrades.
The gifts of youth (rapid healing) hide the extra damage done from heavy squats.

If you're not a competitive powerlifter, it isn't worth it.
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Old 04-22-2014, 18:36   #19
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Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 View Post
If I say get to 160 lbs due to extra mass, and was squatting 300, would that be "heavy," or okay?
Depends on your strength levels.
Whatever you can do 5 reps at proper form should be the upper limit for what you lift.

In a nutshell: don't test your 1RM limit in the squat.
This is where you do the damage.

If you're curious, your 5RM pretty accurately predicts 1RM.
5RM = ~90% 1RM
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Old 04-22-2014, 19:20   #20
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Well, in this article linked below he mentions tearing a quad at a powerlifting meet three weeks before completing a 50 mile ultra. And his youtube video said he pulled 715lbs just 48 hours after a three hour trail run.

So yeah, he is claiming to be simultaneously extremely strong and still able to go long. No talk off seasons or cycling between endurance and powerlifting sports.

Link is NSFW and possibly NSFLife due to photos-
http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/201...tation-of.html

But I'm questioning if the 4:15 mile, if it happened, was years ago when he wasn't nearly as big or as strong? Did he run the 4:15 five years ago at 160lb, and now after five years of being juiced to the gills he's up to 230lb and he puts up the impressive powerlifting numbers?



Never mind his one Ironman finish, I'm more interested in how he was able to run the 4:15 mile rather than do some tris/ultra.

Compared to that mile time, it's relatively easy to slog through an Ironman or an ultra. I've done an Ironman and a 44 mile ultra without training a lot for either. I was slow, mind you, but I finished them. (I also was skinny and not strong at the time, so in no way am I trying to make it sound like it's a big deal.)

However, I could have trained a lifetime and I would still never have reached a 4:15 mile.

BTW, from googling Viada, it looks like one or two folks are disputing his run times. All anyone can find online is a 5k he ran in 26 minutes back in 2007. (One race time predictor, using an extrapolation formula, says that someone that runs a 4:15 mile should run a 5k in 14:08. So somewhere along the way he got a lot faster, it would seem).

Having said all that, I'll admit that it's very cool to be that strong and finish an Ironman and some ultras. Good to know that cardio doesn't have to kill strength.


Agreed 700+ lbs is NFL lineman numbers some rare ones can push 900+. You give me a guy who can squat like that and has the leg stamina of the claim I will get him a NFL contract.

Anyone with that much strength and the ability to run 4:15 miles is not believable.
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Old 04-22-2014, 20:07   #21
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Chris Solinsky.
There is an example of a freakishly big fast middle-distance runner.

6'1" 165lbs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Solinsky

Read elsewhere that he ran around a 4:15 mile at 175lbs.
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Old 04-24-2014, 08:06   #22
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When you say "ridiculous strength numbers," like what are we talking?
To me, anything in the 2xBW or greater with a high work capacity is a very well conditioned athlete. Rob MacDonald at Gym Jones weighs a hefty 245, but has a near 600# DL, a 355 overhead squat (with a 300 overhead squat where his hands are touching on the bar) but can also row 500m in 1:17 or 5000m in 16:55. Those to me are ridiculous numbers, especially given that the world rankings at concept2 have the #1 ranking for men at the 500m at 1:15 and the 5K row time would put him in the top 30 in the world.

To quantify, I have to agree that the mile time may be BS for the guy discussed at the start of the thread, but there are folks out there that can perform at that high of a level, although they are few and far between. To me the proof is in the pudding. If you are willing to claim a 4:15 mile, then post a video you actually weighing in and then running that mile. Otherwise, STFU and go back to trolling for people who will believe what you put on the internet.

To the endurance side (forgot the original question):

148# athlete (owner Mark Twight, 52 yrs of age)

DL @ 365, Wt Pullups with +106#, Denali from 14K to summit in 5.5 hrs

Most of the endurance folks have a 2x+ BW DL and close to that in front squat.


BTW if your back is an issue don't back squat, people tend to do a forward lean due to hip mobility issues. Start front squatting instead and work on mobility...
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Old 07-16-2014, 09:25   #23
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Over on wannabebig.com (I can't pull up the site at the moment due to internet restriction), Alex V. posted a number of times in an ongoing thread regarding his training. I believe the thread is titled "Rebooting my goals - Ironman Cozumel". I am a little suspicious of the 4:15 also. I could see 4:45 maybe, 4:15no.

Viada's training recommendations I think are very sound and right in line with what I've personally seen from some very good friends who are good runners (friends running 2:37-45 marathons and 16:30'ish 5Ks in their late 30s). Mainly being, the recommendations in doing your lower body strength training on the same day as your harder runs. This is also practiced by Alberto Salazar's guys such as Galen Rupp, Mo Farah, etc. The difference being I believe they do their run workouts first in the day, then come back later to do their strength work, and then another run. Viada recommends doing the lower body strength work first, and then the hard run workout after on the same day.

Personally, and I speak from an optimization standpoint, I agree with Viada, Salazar's, etc., bunching of these stresses. But if I went Viada's route, I'd have to do the run right after the lifting, I'd be too stiff later in the day. Again, speaking about being optimal as opposed to just gutting it out.

In that Viada thread, he flat out admits that he can suck it up for a pretty good 1.5 mile time, but after that, the laws of physics really hit hard and he is much, much slower. And I've also read where he admitted that one concession is that he had to limit the amount of accessory lifts, to also have the energy and ability to recover from the endurance training (maybe this was in the jts article?). I think what we see in Viada's performances is also somewhat similarly seen in decathletes (though typically taller than Viada, you are dealing with bodyweights ranging from as broad as 175-210lbs). These decathletes have some really great 1500m times, but I think the drop-off in pace when asked to race a 5K would be pretty significant. A 4:30 1500m is worth around a 4:50 mile. I typically see a 12-15 second per mile slowing of athletes from the 1 mile to the 5K. I don't think that these guys are going to be running sub-16 min 5Ks / 5:05 min/mi at their size, even if their training were more targeted to it (and why we've only seen one Chris Solinsky). I'd wager we see a slowing to a good 6:00 min/mi pace at least. Which I believe Viada only claims around a 19:00 min 5K himself? Anyways, just some thoughts.

Glad to see the Gym Jones reference. I can tell you this, the competitors that they prep for the CF games, do much, much more traditional "cardio" than most CF athletes I believe. When you look at how Gym Jones trained teams, like the Games Teams winners in 2012 or 2013, it didn't seem to hurt their performance. And I believe that we'd be looking at 4 x 60 min endurance runs during the week, not counting some rowing and swimming. I'd wager that Tommy Hackenbruck, also Gym Jones trained, does very similarly.

What I like most is that Viada, a lifter himself, recognizes that to be optimal at both, you can't just go on a lifting program, and then just add in a random running program. If they are not programmed and coordinated together, and the similar stresses of each program individually are not taken into account, then you're likely going to see mediocre results at best. Not to mention likely feel like crap as you'll never have much recovery. I think with age, this "programming" if you will only becomes that much more important.

Greath thread and though I'm late to the party, I enjoyed reading all of the input.
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Old 04-14-2015, 14:41   #24
PhyrricVictory
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He has an e-book where he claims

Quote:
e’s refined his methods from working with hundreds of athletes in all disciplines, from strongmen who want to run half marathons, to members of the Special Forces, to the countless athletes who just want to be able to deadlift 500-600 pounds and run a 5:00 mile.
http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/...ybrid-athlete/

From a separate article:
Quote:
Still on the fence? Here’s a basic overview of Alex’s training methods that have helped pro powerlifters and strongmen run 5ks while improving their total or placing in shows, Special Forces candidates survive selection, and athletes of all stripes boost their performance in ALL realms simultaneously.
http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/...brid-training/

Assuming that he isn't applying the term "Special Forces" to any selective unit (Rangers, SEALS etc..) is anyone in this community able to verify these statements and provide some insight to what may have been taught?

EDIT: Formatting

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