Two metrics you should monitor to stay lean year round.

Measure these two performance metrics year round to ensure that you're lean, diced and ready for competition.

You only need one metric to know if you’re too fat. Skinfolds.

What’s even simpler than taking skinfolds is the eye test. You’re a sprinter, why do you have a muffin top?

Despite being in environments in the past where skinfolds were employed, I never was motivated by the prospect of having low skinfolds. What I found more motivating for body composition improvement was seeing the improvement of performance aligning with an improvement of body composition, i.e. get lean, start running fast. However, sprinters cannot run fast year round, and perhaps, this is why some may allow their Winter coat to become a bit too thick. There’s no gratification for improved body composition at this time of the year.

An important quality for sprinters is relative strength and power production. An increase in body fat percentage is difficult to overcome with a continual increase in the ability to produce power (i.e. how many more Newtowns of force would one have to put into the ground to overcome a 5kg increase in bodyweight?). Furthermore, at what cost does a potential increase in force production come at? How much time are you in the gym, and how long does these gym sessions take to recover from? Are you even improving your capacity to put force into the ground if it is at the cost of practicing sprinting?

The following two exercises provide insight into relative strength and force production. Furthermore, they require little technical mastery; may be performed year round and will not take away from the adaptations you’re trying accomplish through sprinting or gym work.

1. Chin/Pull Up

The chin up gives a brilliant insight into relative strength. Those who can’t/don’t chin up are either weak or too heavy. The chin up, in my opinion, is the most humbling exercise one can perform. At a time when I was 82kg, I was able to complete a set of 2x60kg neutral chin ups, and comfortably over 20 chin ups. Now, roughly 10kg heavier, I struggle with 3 sets of 8 chin ups. It is a reflection of upper back and arm strength, however, I attribute to the decline of my performance in this metric mostly to an increase in body weight.

Ways to measure chin/pull up performance:

- AMRAP with Bodyweight

- 5RM Weighted

- 3RM Weighted

- Maximum hold at top position.

2. Counter Movement Jump

The counter movement jump provides insight into relative force production. With acknowledgement to the work of JB Morin, whose study with elite rugby players found null correlation between vertical jump and short sprint time (Morin et al, 2018), one may still use the vertical jump as a means to test relative force production. It is to test whether you can produce force, not a predictor for a 40m sprint time. Relative force production metrics will be poor if body weight is high. Not only is it a good reflection of relative force production, many are using it as a means to measure readiness for training. I’ve found the use of the MyJump2 App as a simple way to track Vertical Jump.

Stay proud in your chin up and jump numbers to stay lean all year round.

Reference:

Jiménez-Reyes, P., Samozino, P., García-Ramos, A., Cuadrado-Peñafiel, V., Brughelli, M., & Morin, J. B. (2018). Relationship between vertical and horizontal force-velocity-power profiles in various sports and levels of practice. PeerJ, 6, e5937. doi:10.7717/peerj.5937