Squats and running speed

[Santa_Claus]

I do squats and leg presses in the 6-8 rep. My legs have gotten quite bigger and I was wondering if this would translate into faster running speed?

Are my legs just stronger or are they stronger & faster? If they are only stronger, will changing my rep range make them faster?

Thanks

 

[MsBeverlyHills]

squats have never translated into better running times for me- but oly liifts (clean & jerk & snatches) have becuase theyre more explosive moves.

 

[mad_monkey59]

Im sure in order to increase speed, it is necessary to train for speed... thereby using a submaximal weight with maximal effort (exploding the weight up) would increase the explosiveness of the muscle, thereby increase speed.

Correct me if I am wrong guys n gals.

 

[musketeer]

I have heard stories of SPRINTERS like Ben Johnson and Linford Christie (UK) - both heavy juicers and obviously some of the fastest men on the planet - doing amazingly heavy squats when in their offseason.

Ben Johnson was reputed to be able to out-squat the olympic weightlifters - which was possible because an oly lifter who can clean and jerk 200kg has no need to squat any more than that - and therefore more is leg strength is more weight and is therefore a waste.

 

[Madcow2]

Improving your squat can translate to faster times in someone already trained for speed and able to benefit from more power or at the other side of the spectrum, someone so untrained that some basic squatting and leg training actually improves their ability to run and post better times. If you want to be fast, you have to train to be fast. All the strength and muscle in the world is worth nothing if you are unable to utilize it properly. www.charliefrancis.com is a good site for all things relating to speed/track& field and training including strength and conditioning for these activities (I was really impressed by some of the posters in their forum and their knowledge of training - I don't think it would be unsafe to assume that some of the better coaches around might have accounts there). Charlie was the coach of Ben Johnson and had the reputation for building world class sprinters on far less drugs than many of his peers - unfortunately something went wrong and Johnson bombed testing positive for Winstrol. The physician who provided the drugs admitted to it but claimed he never provided winstrol (I believe he said they obtained turinabol from Europe in some sort of trade and kept it very low profile so the Americans wouldn't find out). His theory was Ben may have obtained extra dosage from outside the program thinking he was using Winstrol (apparently even the athletes were kept in the dark about the substitution) when in fact that was not the case. No one really can say 100% what exactly happened except that Ben was the fastest but did not keep the medal.

 

[ruggermu]

They are definately two seperate areas, not saying there's no overlap. Some of my teammates are some of the more powerful people I know with great squating strength but also slow as hell.

 

[NorgePrecision]

When I first started doing squat I think I got a lot faster, but it has plateaued since then. I was also using creatine when I first started squatting, so that may have played a roll.