In order to improve your running speed, it would be very helpful to understand the ‘Running Process’ and the muscles involved in each phase of the running process.

With the introduction of Speed Training Lessons – The Running Process, I have broken down the running process into 3 phases.

The Running Process consists of these three major phases:

1. The Push Phase
2. The Swing Phase
3. The Return or Pull Phase

Each phase of the running process uses a distinct set of muscles to propel the body forward. By focusing on each phase individually, you will learn which muscles are involved in sprinting and how to properly train them to gain the maximum speed possible from each set of muscles.

You will also see that muscles work as a group; in other words, a single muscle rarely does its job in isolation. This is important to understand in order to condition them in a similar manner as to how they are used when you are performing an athletic skill (and not as individual isolated muscles).

Since each phase is characterized by the specific muscles involved in that phase, it is more easily determined which muscles play a major role in sprinting and which muscles are not so important. By focusing your speed training on the primary muscles groups involved in sprinting you will more likely see significant increases in your sprint speed.

AthleticQuickness.com/speedtraininglessons.asp

We get reports from Athletes of all ages and fitness levels telling us about the dramatic increases in their sprinting speed in a very short period time. Many start their training in midseason and still see results quickly.

Others tell us about improvements in their other athletic skills after training their muscles for speed for skills such as baseball bat speed, soccer kicking, jumping higher, tennis speed, golf swing speed and pitching and throwing.

And then there are those who are skeptical and hesitant to try these programs – which develop your fast twitch muscle fibers for blazing speed using isometrics with a resistance band.

So I have started a Speed Training Challenge. If you are one of those that are still hesitant to get faster, then I challenge you to try it for yourself and then determine if this is not the easiest, fastest and most effective way to train your muscles for speed.

All the details, including how to perform the thigh flexor exercise, (the most important muscle group for sprinting – which is often overlooked in most training programs) are on this speed training video:

www.SpeedTrainingChallenge.com

This is the last of 8 in a series about maximizing speed and quickness in your specific sport

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I hope these lessons have been helpful and given you the motivation to get out there excel in your sport with more speed and quickness in all of your athletic skills.

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This is the 7th of 8 in a series about maximizing speed and quickness in your specific sport.

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Ask yourself these three questions about your ‘speed’ training program:

1) Does it require repetitions?
(You already know how repetitions affect muscle speed)

2) Does it take longer than ten minutes to complete?
(Speed training, as the name implies should be fast and not time consuming.)

3) Do I feel tired, heavy, and sluggish afterwards?
(Do you feel slower instead of faster when you’re done?)

If you answer yes to these questions, then you do not have a speed training program. You have a strength and endurance program.

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This is the 6th of 8 in a series about maximizing speed and quickness in your specific sport. 

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Through proper training muscles and nerves will learn and develop the neural networks and motor pathways necessary for exceptionally quick and immediate responses.

Technically this process is called neuromuscular reeducation, but it is simply how the body learns a specific sequence of movements without you having to think about how to do it.

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This is the 5th of 8 in a series about maximizing speed and quickness in your specific sport. 

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Your muscles are composed of basically 3 different fiber types. The fast twitch fibers are responsible for the speed of muscular contraction, or in other words how fast the muscle will contract or how quickly movement will occur.

And a fast twitch response is defined as the ability of a muscle to rapidly contract a specific distance over a short period of time.

When muscles have a specific target distance to contract to, and when you start training them to respond that way, their rate of contraction – and therefore their speed –  increases significantly.

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This is the 4th of 8 in a series about maximizing speed and quickness in your specific sport.

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Remember, for optimum speed there are two things that need to happen:

First, the muscle’s memory needs to be ‘programmed’ so that the muscle contracts instinctively to the exact distance and with the same motion as the athletic skill.

Second, the speed at which the muscles contract needs to be maximized by fast twitch muscle fibers.

Have you ever tried to throw a baseball, swing a bat or golf club or kick a football after lifting weights or doing plyometric exercises?

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