Speed Training Secrets

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.

Learning to ride a bicycle is a good example of how your muscles and nerves eventually learn and develop the neural networks and motor pathways necessary to ride effectively.

You start off with training wheels.

To maintain your balance your body begins to develop a sensation of muscle movements through nerves. Shortly afterwards, one training wheel is removed and your muscles and nerves are forced to increase their kinesthetic ability or awareness to maintain a tighter balance.

Ultimately, both training wheels are removed, and all of your muscles and nerves become perfectly coordinated together producing the desired effect — riding the bike.

Athletes who train to excel in a given sport subject themselves to a higher level of neuromuscular reeducation all the time.

Every day in practice, whether you’re catching a ball, shooting baskets or swinging a bat, your muscles are constantly refining the pathways necessary to master these movements, making them appear effortless and without any conscious thought.

It’s important therefore that an athletes training conditions his muscles and neural pathways for the desired results.

Some athletic training programs, however, are so effective at neuromuscular reeducation that they can actually train slow twitch muscle fibers to behave more like fast twitch muscle fibers or train fast twitch fibers to behave more like slow twitch fibers.

For those interested in speed, this would not be desirable, since the speed attributes of fast twitch fibers would, in effect be reduced or eliminated.

Unknowingly using a training program that trains fast twitch fibers to behave more like slow twitch fibers is one of the reasons many athletes are disappointed with their gains in speed even though their strength, coordination, endurance and even their instinctive reactions have improved.

That’s because strength and endurance training may cause fast twitch fibers to ignore their natural ability to contract instantly and to be used instead as part of a slow twitch response.

Isometrics using the resistance band is the ideal training strategy to condition your fast twitch muscles fibers to perform their natural function of speed and quickness.

We have not discussed the importance of the resistance band when training for speed. Nevertheless, the resistance band, when used properly, is a vital component of pure speed training.

A stretched elastic band has an acceleration factor that determines how fast the band will snap back to it’s normal length.

To discover why the acceleration factor of a stretched elastic band will always be superior to using weights and gravity when training for speed, click the link below:

AthleticQuickness.com/page.asp?page_id=24

Next Time: How to know if a ’speed’ training program is really a strength and endurance program in disguise.

Always glad to help!

Dr. Larry Van Such

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am and is filed under Lessons in Speed Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.