Speed Kills

There is saying that is always used in the game of football and I’m sure it can be used in all sport and it is “SPEED KILLS!”  The ability to run faster than other athletes on the field or the court gives you a great advantage to becoming very successful as an athlete.  However, training athletes to become faster is somewhat of an enigma to trainers and coaches who inspire to find a cure of making their athletes faster.  To train athletes to run faster you must find a way to increase their stride length and stride frequency.  Here are some of my thoughts and ideas on training for speed.

1. Genetics:  Speed comes from the genetically makeup of your muscle fiber type.  The more type II/fast twitch muscle you have, the faster and more explosive you will be.  However, you CANNOT train to increase type II fibers in your muscles (it’s impossible).  You can train the remaining muscles that are not type II (type I/slow twitch) to have similar characteristics as the fast twitch fibers. 
2. If you don’t use it, you lose it:  To play fast/run fast you must train fast.  This means you must train the neuromuscular system to be more efficient at firing signals to the muscles so they can contract at a faster rate.  You won’t get any faster if you are half assing it in practice or in your training.  Every rep/second counts in the world of sports so go 100% every single time!
3. Newton’s 3^rd law:  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Everything in the body is connected which means that speed and power does not just come from the legs themselves.  The faster you mover your arms in opposition to your legs…the faster your legs will go.  The harder you push off the earth…the more acceleration you will gain and the faster you will become.
4. Proper form:  Form is the key for everything that you do in sport even with running.  Most of the time I see young athletes really tense up when they are trying to run fast and this inhibits the open kinetics chain (proper firing sequences of the neuromuscular system).  In addition, these athletes are running with “wasted movement” that won’t allow them to reach their peak speed.   
5. Ideas on training:  Train fast and be functional.  Train for the demands of your sport and involve plyometrics, speed training, and power training into your workouts.  In addition, you must stretch the tight muscle to allow for full range of motion when you are running. 
   1. Plyometrics:  Exercise that enhances muscular power through quick, repetitive eccentric and concentric contractions of the muscles.  Example: Box jumps
   2. Speed training:  This involves resisting and assisting running.  This will allow you to work on functional speed strength while also focusing on form.  Resistant speed training can be as simple as sprinting hills and assistance training can be just the opposite…sprinting down hills
   3. Power training:  Squat, bench, press, pull etc. at 30% of your 1RM and moving the weight as fast as you can.  Speed squats are a great way to increase speed because it involves hip flexion and hip extension just like sprinting.