Speed and power are critical for improved athletic performance. But how do we train it? Long gone are the days where you are either fast, are you aren’t fast. Below we are going to look at the different aspects of speed, and what we can do to help you become faster.
Straight line speed
Sprinting is simple, run as fast as you can from point A to point B. Simple to understand, but difficult to execute. There are a lot of factors to consider when we train sprinters, most important of which is ground contact time. Whenever we are on the ground, we are slowing down. If we are on the ground for a long period of time, we are limiting our chance to maintain top speed. Just watch slow motion videos of elite level sprinters running, if we look at Usain Bolt at his best, he spends between 85-97 thousandths of a second on the ground with each leg, faster than the blink of an eye! He would struggle to maintain speeds upwards of 22mph if he spent longer on the ground. We therefore need to add training strategies and exercises into our schedule that puts emphasis on reducing ground contact time, without a reduction in force production. One way to achieve this is by increasing arm speed. We are cross-lateral animals by nature (our right arm and left leg are connected and vice versa). By moving our arms quicker, our legs move quicker, thus getting your off the ground quicker. Most people have never thought about their arms when they run, start thinking!
Multi-directional Speed
Multi-directional (MD) speed is vastly different to straight line speed and refers to an athlete’s ability to move and change direction quickly. Most athletic competitions require MD movements and skills, whether that is sidestepping an opponent on a rugby pitch or moving from one side of the tennis court to the other, MD speed is vital for all non-straight-line sports. MD speed is dependent on reacting to the unpredictability of an opponent or the need to reposition yourself to complete a required task. The become faster at them, we certainly need to be replicating this sport specific element in training, but we can also adjust foot strike to give you an edge.
A lot of runners have an opinion on landing pattern, should we land heel-toe, midfoot or forefoot? The answer, it is completely dependent on the task in hand, and for MD athletes, we should be landing on the forefoot. Similarly to straight line speed, to change direction quickly and efficiently we need to be spending as little amount of time on the ground as possible. In a MD environment, we can produce force faster whilst on the forefoot, giving us the ability to press one foot into the ground to change our direction quickly. It takes a long time to shift our bodyweight from our heels into our toes to change direction, so why not skip this step completely and stay on the forefoot! If you are unsure, practice at home, keep your weight in your heels and try and change direction, then do it with the weight in your forefoot and you will see an immediate difference in MD speed.
Acceleration
It’s not all about how fast you are, but how quickly you can get there. Acceleration refers to the time is takes to change velocity, effectively, how long it takes to go from 0-100mph. Key for both straight line speed and MD speed, but by far the hardest to train. When we look at coaching skills, we combine the emphasis of technical excellence, and repetition. Basically put, do the correct thing repeatedly until it becomes muscle memory. Acceleration is slightly different as we are unable to identify what is correct and what is not due to the change in velocity. One thing is for certain, when training acceleration, we often don’t consider the nervous system!
The Nervous System – why is it important
The Central Nervous System (CNS) is responsible for muscular recruitment. When we run, we don’t consciously think left leg do this, right leg do that, it is happening automatically, and the CNS controls this. It isn’t all about the strength of the muscles and how much force is produced when they contract, but how quickly the CNS can transfer the signals from your brain to the muscles and back again to cause a contraction. The CNS controls it all! To fully unlock our athletic potential, to accelerate, run fast and change direction, we need to train the nervous system to send these signals as quickly as possible.
There are a lot of training tools we have to our disposal when we look at training speed, but we need to combination of technical excellence, strength and CNS training to fully develop our bodies to move as fast as possible. Here at FixMyRun, we train it all! Contact us if you’re looking for a Manchester running coach and for more information to see how we can help you get faster!
