I received the following email from Greg Almon, a consultant for the Chinese women’s speed skating team:

Hi Barry,

I would just like to give you an update as to how my skaters have performed this year from switching to a Deadlift based protocol;

The Chinese women's team has won more then 10 gold medals in the sprint categories (500, 1000m), as well as 10 more silver and bronze combined. We now have 5 skaters that skate 44 seconds or better in the 500m and broke the world record in the last competition.

It was tough to convince the coach to switch but after several days of conversation she agreed to try it. Our women skaters have increased their deadlift by an average of 115 pounds over the last 3.5 month's and the results speak for themselves.

I just want to thank you for answering my original question.

Thanks again,

Greg

Part of what was included in my response to his original email was that “good methods of developing maximal strength can help any sprinter in any discipline. I believe that the locomotion researchers would agree also that the concept of m-s force would generalize to any weight bearing form of sprinting and probably beyond that.

One study that may pertain to your suggestion is "Sprint performance-duration relationships are set by the fractional duration of external force application. Peter G. Weyand, Jennifer E. Lin and Matthew W. Bundle," a JAP study published in 2006.

The study used sprint cycling for its research rather than sprinting. The results were interesting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that the same algorithm used to predict running times ( >97% accuracy) provided a similar level of accuracy for sprint cycling--except that the exponent used in the algorithm was exactly twice the one used for sprinting. The reason for this is that during sprinting the greater portion of time is spent in the air, with no application of force, while during sprint cycling one leg is always providing force application to the pedal. Speed skating would be more akin to the latter than the former (without pedals of course!)”

Congratulations to the Chinese team for a job well done and to Greg for his perseverance!

The deadlift is the mother lode of all lifts!