By Lee Taft
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When you look closely at speed training you realize that there is more than just lining up and sprinting as fast as possible through the finish line. There are many aspects that directly affect speed. One is technique. Technique is extremely important to the performance of speed. If an athlete has sloppy non-directed technique, performance will certainly be less than adequate, at least for that individual’s potential. Coordination is another. Coordination between muscle groups allows one group to relax and allows the other group to contract and visa versa. Lever length is a real important component. If an athlete has a really long lever arm and the muscles which move that lever are not strong or powerful, chances are the speed of movement will be slow. There are many more elements of speed that are important as well.
I bet if I asked each one of you to freeze your thoughts about speed right now and tell me what comes to mind, I bet most of you are thinking of sprinting or running speed. Well, of course. That is what most people think of when speed is mentioned. But actually, I am going to tell you about athletic speed which can be how much speed is used to throw a shot put, or swing a table tennis paddle, or shuffle laterally in basketball or volleyball, but I will also touch on sprinting speed.
After reading this article, you will understand the three important elements of speed that are not usually mentioned outside of the sports performance fraternity. These elements are:
1. Reaction speed or time
2. Single muscular movement speed
3. Frequency of movement speed
Let’s first look at reaction speed. When a tennis player initially sees the ball come off the racquet of the server and the instantaneous movement to bring the racquet back is his reaction time. The time it takes once a stimulus is recognized until the actual movement is the reaction time. A great example of reaction time is in the sport of skeet shooting.
There are many factors which determine how quickly the reaction time will be. Without going into great detail, things such as; the age of the athlete, gender, type of stimuli, awareness, prior experience, and length of the nerve fibers will have an effect on the process that takes place during a reaction.
For example, if a young female soccer goalie has little training and little experience in terms of stopping a shot on goal, the reaction time will probably be fairly slow. In contrast, if the next athlete is a veteran track sprinter waiting for the gun to sound and fire out of the blocks, the reaction time will be much quicker.
The second element is single movement speed. This may be seen more in skills such as throwing, batting, punching, volleying, and take downs in wrestling. Basically, the single movement speed deals with the time it takes to move a body part and or implement a given distance. You could say that the initial arm action, which is the most aggressive of the arm actions in sprinting, in the coming out of the blocks is a single movement speed action. One of the abilities that are important with regard to the single movement speed is strength. The stronger and more powerful the limb is the more potential for speed of movement. Another aspect of single movement speed is the coordination between opposing muscle groups to allow each one to do their job more quickly.
The last element of speed is frequency of movements. Most literature states that this element can not be improved; it is a product of genetics. Well, it certainly does have to do with muscle fiber composition. If the athlete is predominately fast twitch this will increase the frequency of movement compared to that of an athlete that is mostly slow twitch. But I think the frequency of movement can be improved somewhat. If technique can be improved in a particular sport that requires a lever to move quickly and the lever can be made shorter to improve the speed without affecting the skill, why can’t this improve frequency?
If you look at the cyclical action of a young or inexperienced sprinters leg, you will see a longer lever due to not collapsing the leg at the knee joint upon the recover from the push off and before the high knee position. In experienced sprinters, it is obvious that they are able to shorten the leg (lever) down by bringing the heel to the buttocks and hamstrings during the recover phase. It would certainly stand to reason that the leg frequency would be greater with proper leg recover technique.
It may be small improvements in frequency but, small may be all it takes to bring an athlete to a new level of competitiveness.
The important thing for coaches and athletes to be able to acknowledge in regards to the three elements is look at the speed requirements of their sport and figure out which elements are most important. It may be that only one is important, or a combination of two, or all three may be important for success in a sport.
Don’t forget, in order for these elements to be most beneficial and the potential to be reached, the technique of the skill must be practiced and perfected. In other words, if an athlete has an innate ability to react quickly to the gun coming out of the blocks but the starting technique is horrible the natural reaction ability is nullified.
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“Skills not drills. ”
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