Great book

I'm reading "Science of Sports Training" by Thomas Kurz and it's awesome.  Very thorough while still being succinct. I came across a paragraph in the Strength section that I wanted to share.  Some of us have been doing this (or something similar) and for some this may be good, new material.

"Both jumps and very fast squats and half squats develop explosive strength and both types of exercises should be used in training for jumping. One of the methods for developing the explosive strength of the legs is performing squats with very light weights [20-40 kg (44-88 lb.) for athletes who can lift 210 kg (463 lb.)in a squat.] and doing them very fast--5 meters (16ft.) per second [Wachowski and Strzelczyk 1994]."

This was a great example of how to develop explosive strength i.e. jumping but the book mentioned something else about speed-strength/strength-speed that I wanted to bounce off of someone else.

"The velocity of movements without external resistance does not depend on maximal isometric (static) strength. There is no relation between the velocity of movements without external resistance and a person's maximal isometric (static) strength, but with increasing resistance there is a relation: the greater the resistance the more the velocity of the movement depends on a person's strength[deVries 1980; Sharkey 1990]. Heavy resistance exercises do not influence the velocity of nonresisted movements with the exercised limb nor the reaction time measured for that limb. In short, the speed of single nonresisted movements is not going to be improved exercising with relatively heavy weights. Heavy resistance exercises will only help the speed of movements against considerable resistance."

I would consider some (or all) of the Highland events to contain "considerable resistance" within them. Is that a fair assumption? This makes me think that as important as jumps, plyos and speed squats are that getting stronger should still be the meat and potatos of the training (along with practicing the throws). Since javelin < hammer < shot put. And shot putters train for more strength than the other two I would assume that shot put < 56 WFD and even more strength would be needed.

I understand we could just throw out a blanket "train for all aspects of it" but I'm saying that in this sport, as much as speed is important, strength is still the biggest component.  With out maximal strength all other facets are made less effective.