Adarq.org

Lifting won't do anything for top speed because that's mainly genetic.
"The squat becomes a poor measure of strength at maximum velocity. At this speed an athlete must exhibit extremely brief powerful single leg ground contact and the squat does not accurately predict their ability to produce power in this movement".

However, I believe squatting does improve your acceleration and can improve the start of your races, which will end up making you a faster runner. I was reading a book about Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis called 'The Dirtiest Race in History'. In the book it said even as far back as 1981 athletes were commenting on how impressive Ben Johnson's strength was in squatting. Back than in 1981 Johnson was running 100s in 10.8, however, he was leading a lot of faster guys than him in races up to 50m but just couldn't maintain the speed. He was always a brilliant starter and I attribute that to his natural strength and squatting. Ben Johnson didn't like cleans so he didn't do cleans. Same as Michael Johnson allegedly didn't do squats preferring lunges, so he did lunges. A guy like Linford Christie lives and dies by the squat believing it's an integral part of a sprinter's training. Same as Asafa Powell believes strongly in weights. But than you'll have other guys like Kim Collins who once again claim they don't even lift.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv65yElP8A" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv65yElP8A</a>

Point being if you like an exercise and think it benefits you than do it. If you don't like it or think it doesn't benefit you than don't do it. The ultimate judge is always going to be your performance on the court, field or track that counts, not what you can do in the weight room.

I'm pretty sure Charlie Francis said that Johnson squatted 600x6 (not sure on depth) and benched 450.

http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?19380-Ben-Johnson-Squat-1rm
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?19380-Ben-Johnson-Squat-1rm

But as long as I had some deep heavy squatting in my program I could never feel as explosive as without any heavy/slow training,

Have you considered that it could be because you're just tired/sore from the weight training? That would be a pretty reasonable explanation without resorting to the claim that weight trianing isn't helpful when it has been the way almost everyone on this forum who has made big gains has come by them.

but there is a reason why in season athletes don't strength train rigorously.

Yeah, because it would fucking tire them out for their practices and matches and add a needless risk of injury. They should have taken care of their strength requirements in off-season.

if someone can explain in depth how to set up a proper program to avoid competing motor patterns I would be delighted to read it.

Read adarq's ratio method post in the performance blog.

Don't kill the apostrophe. Bring back the diaeresis in places other than the New Yorker.

^^^true, true. reminds me of the gladwell-popularized fact that most NHL players are born in the first third of the year. the theory goes that kids born earlier in the year tend to be older for their grade or division than kids born later in the year. the 9 or 10 months can make a big difference when you're little, so early-birthday kids are overselected for competitive teams because they're just bigger and stronger and more coordinated than kids younger than they are. path dependency takes over and the relatively younger kids never make up the gap.

or so i comfort my november-born, always-one-of-the-youngest-kids-in-the-class self.

I'm going to make sure my kid gets held back in kindergarten

don't you train at Blenderate's gym? Or was it Tigerak's gym? If you go to latter you'll probably see Frank Yang at some point.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByYSkRGrMqw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByYSkRGrMqw</a>

going camping this weekend with a bunch of bluegrass musicians. 

Have you listened to Yo yo Ma's thing, The Goat Rodeo Sessions? It's really good.

Also Trampled by Turtles are good.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1rwkgCAVsc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1rwkgCAVsc</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W35GtZdgffM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W35GtZdgffM</a>

ETA: this video badly exacerbates my itch to switch to pure powerlifting.

Main takeaway from this video - if you put a hippy on steroids you get a viking.