Speed Training Secrets

Part 5 - Fast Twitch Fibers, Fast Twitch Response and Muscle Memory: The key to greater speed.

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

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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 asÂ 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 - Â increases significantly.

Therefore, any training program that conditions your muscles to go from a state of complete relaxation to an immediate state of contraction is a pure speed training program.

Repetitive contractions, as in weight training and plyometric training, are of little value to the speed with which a muscle contracts.

Here’s why… because the repetitions in weight lifting causes your muscle’s memory to become ‘confused’ in regards to having an exact distance to contract to when performing an athletic skill.

Why does a muscle contract faster when it has a specific target distance to contract to?

Well, for starters, muscles have memory. They have the ability to learn a particular activity or movement and repeat it automatically. The less they have to remember the quicker they can contract to it.

Our brains and our entire nervous system work the same way. The less we have to remember and the more we have worked to memorize just a few things, the quicker we can recall them.

For muscles that means having one specific target distance.

For example: If you went into a room filled with a 100 different items, and someone asked you to find one particular item, a screwdriver for instance, immediately your brain will create the proper neuro-pathways (i.e., memory) associated with finding that screwdriver. And, if you were asked to go back and find that same item again, you would become quicker at finding it. Before long, you wouldn’t even have to think about it — you would immediately know where to go (a fast twitch response).

However, if each time you were asked to go into that room and look for a different item, your brain would never develop a consistent pattern of thought (memory), and you would constantly have to think about where something is. This non-specific pattern of thought would always take longer (a slow twitch response).

A muscle trained to contract to just one pre-determined distance or stopping point can do so a lot faster than a muscle that’s been trained to contract to and through an infinite number of distances or stopping points.

Having a pre-determined stopping point does not limit the muscle’s ability to perform it’s function. It actually increases it.

Many athletic skills that require speed are dependent upon this principle of having a predetermined distance of muscular contraction. For example, throwing a baseball or football, swinging a baseball bat, tennis racket or golf club, running fast, jumping high, kicking a ball harder or farther, etc.

These skills are driven by your muscles’ ability to contract with amazing speed through a specific contact point or predetermined distance.

Martial artists know this. They know that if they can get their muscles to go from a state of complete relaxation to a state of immediate contraction at the instant or distance of making contact with a board, it will snap in half.

Train your muscles the right way and watch your speed increase dramatically.

By eliminating repetitions and putting force on the muscle at a specific target distance the muscle is trained to rapidly accelerate up to and through the target distance.

This is exactly the principle behind isometrics the way we teach it at

AthleticQuickness.com

Find out how this training will improve your performance in your specific sport by clicking this link.

www.AthleticQuickness.com/Traning-Programs.asp

Next Time: Neuromuscular Reeducation - Muscles and nerves working together to learn specific sequences of movements that are performed instantly and with extraordinary quickness.

Always glad to help!

Dr. Larry Van Such

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 11:37 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.

31 Responses to “Part 5 - Fast Twitch Fibers, Fast Twitch Response and Muscle Memory: The key to greater speed.”

Austin Says:
May 20th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
i have already ordered an isometrics training video and bands at athletic quickness.com; so is there anything else that i can do to help increase my speed.
Stephen Molaison Says:
July 11th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Can this help my speed in road cycling?
Larry Van Such Says:
July 11th, 2007 at 8:38 am
The JUMP HIGHER basketball training program would be most helpful for cycling. Hereâ€™s why:

The pedaling motion has two basic components — the “up stroke” and the “down stroke.” The muscles involved in the up-pedaling motion are the thigh flexors and hamstrings, and the muscles involved in the down-pedaling motion are the thigh extensor, quadricep and calf muscles. These are the exact same muscle groups that are described in the JUMP HIGHER training program, found at http://www.athleticquickness.com/Jump-Higher.asp.

So, if you can overlook the basketball overtones in the book, the training exercises are the same as they would be for a bike program. And this should be just what you’re looking for in terms of increasing bike speed.
Max Holmgren Says:
July 13th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
What do you think of Luke Lowry’s Double Your Vertical Leap program? If I bought your program do you recommend incorporating it with other stuff like lifting too?
Bob Says:
July 13th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Max,

For many sports skills, including jumping, we believe that both muscle strength training and muscle speed training are important. Yet, for best results they need to be addressed separately.

Read the article on this link for tips on how to best incorporate both speed and strength training into your workout program.
http://www.athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=91

From what we know about Luke Lowry’s Double Your Vertical Leap program - we understand it is an intensive strength training program and they publish claims of impressive results. However we do not have any first hand knowledge of the program.
paul niggebrugge Says:
October 26th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
First of all thank you for the great information. In regards to “firing” of muscles, you mention in the article that it is important to start from a relaxed state and that muscles contract right at the precise moment. My question is what about the stretch/reflex action that takes place prior to the ballistic movement? In hitting a baseball for example, there is a loading/gathering of energy before actually delivering the bat to the ball….how does this fit into fast/slow twitch movements?

Thanks
JOHN Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Will any of these programs help me become faster in hockey(ice)?
Bob Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
John, A training program for hockey is being considered by Dr. Van Such; but, it has not been published and probably won’t be for several months.

However, Dr. Van Such has advised that the best program for skating faster would be the RUN FASTER training program. This program has all of the muscle groups involved in skating as well. Generally stated, skating involves four phases: 1) the load, 2) the push, 3) the glide and 4) the return. The RUN FASTER training program conditions the muscles that are also involved in skating.

Our programs do not teach any specific athletic technique, but rather, how to increase muscle contraction speed within muscles that are used in a particular athletic skill. The RUN FASTER training program is a very specific exercise program without a lot of filler chapters (on diet, history etc.) and is designed to get you actively involved in the exercises within about 20-30 minutes after reading the material.
Roy Says:
February 26th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Just how often should my flexer muscles be trained in a week and what would be the effect if the exercises lasted for more than the 3 minutes.
david helms Says:
April 13th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
is the program to increase vertical jump also good for increasing speed? i am trying to help my son increase both. thanks for a reply.
david Says:
May 20th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
do u think mixing in resistance traning with a paracuate or sled and weight traning along with your training method. Do you think that would have a positive affect or should i only follow your method in a book
kurt Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
would using resistance sprinting as well as your training method be a waste of time or would it be more rewarding?
Bob Says:
July 18th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Resistance sprinting may help some athletes, it will depend a lot on their current conditioning, it may add muscle strength but could potentially reduce muscle speed.

Resistance sprinting will only work the hamstring, thigh extensors and calf muscles - it won’t touch the thigh or hip flexors which is where you have the most potential for speed increases.
bernard Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
i’m a kenyan runner living in japan as a studet in university, how can i get you book of speed training?
Melissa Says:
August 26th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Hi Dr. Van Such,

I’m glad to see that you’re a chiropractor teaching these principles! I go to a DC who is part of the Maximized Living network, and they’re big into surge training. After reading your material, I’m honestly still not sure if that method is a form of plyometrics, due to the fact that it is repetitive, yet it is short in duration. Surges are typically 20 seconds, but can be increased up to 60 depending on the person doing them (apparently this method is part of Olympic training as well). I think I remember you saying though that anything longer than 9 seconds is for endurance training. So I’m guessing that surge training is a good idea for endurance, but not speed….so both that combined with your method seem like a good idea! Plus I work in the restaurant industry and just bought a pedometer to clock my daily mileage! Lots of “cross country” type movement going on! Please let me know your thoughts regarding this message if you can! I’m really enjoying the Speed Training Secrets!
Shawn Says:
September 7th, 2008 at 9:40 am
How safe is isometric training like this for young developing athletes at the 10-12yr level?
shareef Says:
September 19th, 2008 at 4:55 am
hi, i just wanted to ask if we had to buy the manual or is it on the internet

also which manual would be best for hockey and basketball??
Larry Van Such Says:
September 19th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Shareef, I have emailed you a little known link to dowload a portion of the manual. The full manual will need to be purchased.

For hockey use the Tennis program - It conditions the leg muscles used in skating and also upper body muscles that could be used in handling the hockey stick. The tennis program contains all of the exercises in the Run Faster Program plus upper body exercises without any additional cost.

For Basketball use the Jump Higher program. It will help with sprint speed as well as jumping ability.
suzanne Says:
October 15th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Your speed training sounds great but I thought this was a free training programme to help with speed training, rather than adversting e-mails.
Are there any exercises, or do you have buy the programme?
Larry Van Such Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
You can watch a video of how one of the Run Faster exercises is done on the video on this page link, plus download the training tips and instructions and other material. And then try the excerise yourself for two weeks and see how much faster you are after doing just one exercise for a few minutes.

http://www.athleticquickness.com/video-runfaster.asp
Yash Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 3:52 am
Hello. Actually, I wanted to know how to make our muscles contract faster. Can you give me some tips or workouts?
Larry Van Such Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 8:56 am
The article on this link explains the single most effective way to increase the speed of muscular contraction:

http://www.athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=38

And take a look at this also:

http://www.athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=82

This one has a video that demonstrates one of the exercises for faster sprinting speed.

http://www.athleticquickness.com/fastmuscles.asp
franklin Says:
November 9th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
If lifting weights slow you down, how am I going to get stronger and faster like tailbacks in football?
Larry Van Such Says:
November 10th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Franklin, Read the article on this link for tips on how to best incorporate both speed and strength training into your workout program.

http://www.athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=91
lenny Says:
November 19th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
My son is 16 he squats 450 deadlifts 400 benches 280 and weighs 250 he plays football run 5.4 40yds will your speed traing work for him? Thanks!
Shun Says:
March 8th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Hello, are their any specific workout routines that i should follow with the bands and how often should i do these workouts?
ingo Says:
March 12th, 2009 at 9:48 am
hi larry,

my sport-school teacher says thAT FAST TWITCH FIBERS CAN JUST BE TRAINED WITH few repetitions and high intensity…so….i dont know if i sould believe u that they can also be trained with resistance bands and isometric training…….pls tell me if it really works or if u just do that to get money……=(

i live in austria and i dont know if i should book ur trainings programm because the shipping costs r so high …..

my question:DOES YOUR TRAININGS PROGRAMM REALLY HELP OR NOT????

ingo=)
Larry Van Such Says:
March 12th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Ingo, There is more than one way to condition your fast twitch fibers and heavy loads with few repetitions is one of them. The key is to avoid working your muscles with weights (especially heavy weights) using many repetitions.

And, of course, isometrics has no repetitions at all, making it ideal for developing muscle speed - as long as you do not work your muscles for more than a few minutes, in which case the slow twitch fibers take over.

We also believe that the resistance band is more effective than weights when it comes to speed. Remember, weights rely on gravity for resistance, and the acceleration factor for weights is limited by the acceleration produced by gravity - and that is always the same no matter how much the weight. The acceleration energy stored in a stretched resistance band is much greater than a lifted weight and this stored energy is, in a sense, transferred into your muscles as speed. http://www.athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=24

The many successful results that users willingly have shared are proof that the program works very well. Besides, I think you will agree that isometrics with the resistance band for a few minutes a day at home is far easier to do and more convienent than heavy weights at the gyms - and I think you will find the results to be more impressive also.
http://athleticquickness.com/page.asp?page_id=66
christian Says:
March 21st, 2009 at 9:20 am
is it ok to do the exercises twice a day with 10 hour rests between them?
Larry Van Such Says:
March 21st, 2009 at 9:54 am
You should rest a full day before doing the same muscle group exercise again. However, if you want to do an exercise for a different muscle group the it is ok to do them with a 10 hour break.
christian Says:
March 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm
thank you 4 the information