Speed Training Secrets

Yes, strength training is very important to helping athletes get faster. The stronger the athlete the more easily he will be able to carry and move his body weight. At some point, however, his strength will be sufficient and any additional improvements in speed will depend largely on the contraction velocity of his muscles, that is, how fast his muscles can contract.

With regards to sprinting speed, strength training works only if you are able increase your strength doing a certain activity without increasing your body weight too much. Take for example running; many athletes hit the gym real hard doing squats, leg presses, leg curls etc, along with upper body workouts as well. If you increase the amount of weight you can squat, lets say from 200lb to 250lb, and you are able to maintain your body weight while doing so, (lets say 190 lb), then you should be able to move your body faster, and run faster. But, if you pack on an additional 5-10 lbs of muscle weight, you may not see any improvement in your athletic speed.

Another drawback of extensive weight training is that it could actually decrease the contraction speed of your muscles which could offset any speed gains related to strength, or it could actually cause you to run slower.

Most athletes who have been lifting weights for a while find themselves at the point where their strength is near their max and their body weight doesn’t change all that much. Doing more weight training won’t help too much at this point, though it is still a good thing to maintain the strength you have. At this point, there are a few options you have to get faster:

You can continue to push yourself to get stronger while keeping a close eye on your weight and your muscle speed. It can work, but it can take a long time and much effort to see improvement.

You can try to drop a few pounds while trying to maintain your strength, but this isn’t always easy to do, though it should be considered.

You can take supplements such as creatine etc, but I am not a big fan of those things.

Or you can try speed training programs such as isometric training with the resistance bands which focuses on improving the speed in which your muscles contract by retraining your muscles for a fast twitch response while at the same time increasing the strength and improving the elasticity of the muscle tendons.

This last option allows for greater improvements in athletic speed in less time than simply increasing the size and weight of your muscles.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Speed Vs. Strength. 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.