After an extended warm-up this morning, I performed a round of 8 x 70 yard sprints at approximately 90% effort, approximately 1 minute rest between sprints. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve done any significant sprinting, and that, coupled with the fact that I’ve been hitting the single-leg work pretty hard, prompted my taking the rather cautious “re-introduction” route today. Also, I’ve been hitting fixie sprints pretty hard lately without mixing in much in the way of running/sprinting. I know from past experience that biking and running/sprinting aren’t exactly synergistic endeavors — emphasis on one naturally degrades performance in the other, with biking being a quad-dominant affair, versus sprinting’s required PC-dominance. We’ve also got a completely different set of neurological firing patterns to contend with in each of the two endeavors. Now, since I’m not competing in either, this is no big deal; actually, I rather prefer being multi-dimensional at this point in my life vs being a “specific-endeavor” athlete. If I were competing in one of these disciplines, though, I’d have to let the other discipline go (at least during the competitive season/phase). This is the eternal juggle of, and between, overall health, functional physical ability (think Greg Glassman’s 10 attributes of physical fitness), and sporting specificity. Much as we’d like — and much as we trick ourselves into believing — we can’t have it all/be a master of all. An increase in sport specificity will necessitate a decrease in overall functionality. It’s just the way of the world. It’s also why multi-sport athletes are so uncommon these days, even at the high school level. It’s just tough for a great all-round athlete to compete against even a good single/sport-specific athlete.
After the sprint session, I headed into the gym to toss a little iron, and did the following complex in superset fashion:
Jump Squats + BTN Jerk*: 135 x 5; 155 x 5, 5, 5
Straight Bar Muscle-Ups: 3, 3, 3, 3
Couldn’t ask for a better start to the day.
Head’s-up on a fantastic series of posts over at Speed-Endurance.com. A 3-part series covering the ins, outs and nuances of the relationship of strength and speed. Some seriously good work by Jim Hiserman, author of the books Program Design Method for Sprints & Hurdle Training and Strength and Power for Maximum Speed.
Embedded in part 3 of the series are some good lifting demonstrations of some of the more common strength-speed oriented exercises. *In particular, watch the fine jump squat form exhibited by lilledritt (I’ve embedded it below as well, by way of Speed-Endurance.com). Immediately following the final jump squat, you’ll see a nicely-performed btn jerk. I performed each of my btn jerks, however, immediately following each jump squat (jump squat, jerk; jump squat, jerk; etc…)
And then I ran across this today, from Voice of America News video. Good stuff for the masses to see, to be sure. Though I’m still not convinced that saturated fat from free range/grass-fed animals is bad in any way.
Theory to Practice 
I’ve never done jump squats before and have been meaning to give them a try…I was curious though, wouldn’t one want to squat a little deeper than shown in the video?
If looking to improve squat-specific functionality, then yes. This would be akin doing a squat “speed day” under the conjugated/Westside paradigm. What I performed (and what is demonstrated here) is more of a PC-dominant movement. Note: I’m speaking shades of gray, here. Neither movement is totally quad or totally PC, just slight shades of dominance.
That Paleo diet video was interesting. They still continue to disparage red meat yet right at the end there is a depiction of cavemen looking at pictures of mammoths, presumably their favorite food. Not much room left for fruit and vegetables after eating a mammoth I imagine.
That crossfit guy on the Paleo diet for two years still looked like he could be a bit more toned though and the Omega Diet lady looked positively overweight. More meat, less fruit, required I’d say. Real hunter gatherers look way more cut than this.
The “jump squat” looks crazy dangerous. Hope he knows a good chiropractor
No more dangerous than plyos — in a properly trained athlete, of course.