Speed Training -Be Fast! Be the Best!

One of the key elements that make a successful athlete is high speed. Nine times out of ten, the teams or athletes with the most speed are going to win.

While everybody agrees on the importance of speed in order to be successful in sports, not all coaches focus on developing the skill of speed as a preliminary element of their training. Arguably the biggest myth in all of sports says you can’t coach speed -that athletes are born with “it” or they aren’t.

Speed, strength, flexibility, coordination and endurance are all skills requiring specific attention during practice and those who do not train focusing on these elements are simply not prepared to compete at high levels.

Speed can be taught and improved. There are training strategies and overspeed training equipment that can help coach speed. Because some people aren’t “naturally fast” some coaches wrongly assume there is little they can do about it. While it’s true not every athlete can be an Olympic 100 meter runner, most athletes have never been taught how to run or move correctly. As they improve their technique and practice focused training, the athletes will operate at a much higher percentage of their full potential.

Overspeed is when athletes move the whole body, or parts of the body, with speeds higher than the normal competitive speed.

Speed training basically consists of athletes trying to maintain the highest speed possible for as long as it is possible. By repeating this over and over again, the athlete will, eventually be able to extend the barrier and surpass his/ her record.

The athlete accelerates to gaining the maximum speed and then tries to maintain this speed for 30-50 yards. Even top world sprinters cannot run their fastest for even such short distance as 100 meters. Usually the athlete is gaining speed up to first third of the distance, then in the second part they are at their top speed level and in the last third they are a little slower than during the previous phase.

This fact is due to the complicated biochemical and physiological processes of the human body. This is a rule, we cannot change the time in which the athletes are capable of producing maximum intensity work, but, what we can change is the production, what they can deliver, for this physiologically limited period of time of maximum intensity work. This will be possible only if we can provide the kind of practice for the athlete where they have to move with the highest possible or even faster than that.

If the athlete is not in his best condition when the coach is trying to get him to run these maximum speed pieces, the athlete will be running with a speed lower than his best, which means such practice is a waste of time. So, in order for the athletes to improve their speed, they need to run faster than they are normally capable to. And there are various ways they can train to attain that.

Overspeed workout requires an athlete to run optimally as much as 8-13% faster than they are capable of running unassisted. The overspeed workout will activate an athlete’s muscle motor units in synchronized work, and will recruit new motor units within the same muscle. This means an athlete who is capable of running the 40-yard dash in 5.0 seconds will now be able to practice running that distance in an overspeed situation in 4.5 seconds. With six weeks of proper training that same athlete can shave between 0.2 to 0.5 seconds off of their normal 40-yard time.

Systematic use of overspeed training methods increase unassisted speed by

• recruiting more muscle (in particular fast-twitch muscle fibre)

• improving stride length and frequency

In physical terms, the increase in speed generated by overspeed training methods has a lasting effect on muscles’ ability to generate force, particularly during the foot stride and drive phase of sprinting. Put simply, muscles become more powerful and faster at contracting.

From a neural perspective, overspeed training helps the brain to “learn” to fire faster and control more muscle to achieve greater speeds. Think of the nervous system as the software of your body. If it is slow and inefficient, your movements will be slow and inefficient.

In one phrase, overspeed training starts from the logical premise that providing an athlete with the conditions to move quicker than normal must improve speed.

There are several different ways to get overspeed training, with variations within each group:

• Running downhill

When running downhill the acceleration of the body mass provides the desirable overspeed at the bottom of the hill. The setting you need to perform the downhill overspeed training is a hill that is approximately 20 to 80 meters long. Since your purpose is to reach maximum velocity before the downward part of the hill, it is best to have a 20 meter flat area to accelerate before the hill. Also, a flat runway after running the slope of the hill helps for slowing down or you can use it as part of the workout. The slope of the hill should be between 1-2 degrees.

A variation to the downhill method is a manageable ramp where we can change the inclination of the ramp.

• Towing

Another way to provide overspeed training is by using a device to pull the athlete in the direction of the movement. It’s usually an electronic device, with control over the speed, to use on a track.

Even if the towing devices used now are new, overspeed techniques have been around for over 50 years in more rudimentary formats. There are numerous examples of athletes being towed behind motorbikes, scooters and cars. The latter method was used by 1956 Melbourne Olympic 10,000m bronze medalist Al Lawrence, who ran overspeed by holding on to a rigid bar attached to the back of the vehicle.

• Rubber bands

This type of overspeed training uses the elastic qualities of various rubber bands, stretch cords or bungee cords. Usually, the coach would have two athletes with similar top speed and body weight work together, but there are variations with more complex arrangements where as many as three to six athletes can work together at the same time.

• Unweighted training equipment

The unweighted training equipment allows you to run at a fraction of your body weight.

There are several different unweighted training devices, but the basic idea in all of them is that the athlete is supported in a harness or an inflated enclosure and this way he/ she can run on a treadmill or on a track without pressure on his/ her joints and ligaments and without his legs having to support his full body weight.

Exercise physiologists reckon that it’s easier to “teach” muscle cells to function at accelerated firing rates if the nerves and muscles don’t have to simultaneously worry about supporting full body weight.

• The Alter-G treadmill creates a seal around the user’s waist and then inflates to create a pressurized environment that can take away up to 80% of the user’s body, lessening the pounding to the joints. The running speed and incline can be adjusted, along with what percent of weight should be removed.

• The GlideTrak (see the video below) is basically a specialized metal frame that goes over pretty much any treadmill. The athlete is strapped into the metal frame and runs on the treadmill with virtually zero impact. The straps are parachute grade 8,000 lbs tested, so the device is very stable and secure.

• The GlideCycle is similar to the GlideTrak, but it is an outdoor device. The athlete is again supported by straps in a seat, but the frame he is strapped into has two wheels, just like a bicycle. The GlideCycle has no pedals, so the rider pushes himself/ herself forward using his/ her legs in a movement that is similar to running or gliding.

Downhill running can be effective, when performed under close supervision with the right athlete and on the right elevation. Unfortunately, most athletes have a very unusual running gait when performing such an exercise. Athletes tend to heel strike unnaturally which will increase braking forces and promote poor mechanics. Also, many athletes experience a great deal of Delayed Onset Muscle (DOMS) following downhill workouts due to its eccentric nature. Research tells that increases in DOMS will decrease running efficiency and power output. Because of this, most recommend 2-5 days of recovery following the onset of DOMS. For most athletes, this is a waste of valuable training time. Another important thing to consider about running downhill is that if the slope is too great, you are not getting the benefits out of the workout and the risk of injury is higher.

The towing method also affects the sprint technique in a negative way. This applies to the rubber bands method too, since it is similar in the effect it produces on the sprint kinematics. Towing behind motor vehicles, either by rope or by hanging on to a suitable platform is best avoided because of potential dangers.

Another drawback to running downhill, towing or the rubber bands overspeed training is it increases ground contact time due to your foot strike to the ground occurring further in front of your center of mass.

Studies have shown that if too much assistance is placed on “towing” the athlete, the body, sensing danger, will naturally respond by telling the muscle to brake. The braking phenomenon can happen if the slope is too steep, if the “towing” force is too great or if the athletes training together with rubber bands are not of similar body mass, strength qualities and speed. Creating an extreme assistive, overspeed situation would be counterproductive. To avoid this, the assistance has to provide no more than 8-13% faster movement than the fastest possible without equipment.

The above mentioned drawbacks have not been reported with the use of unweighted training equipment.

The GlideTrak and the AlterG offer the benefits of providing runners with an extremely intense, very controlled training session –the speed, incline and body weight can be progressively controlled throughout a workout and across the developmental training program. Moreover, a coach can stand alongside the athlete, while they are in full flow and provide immediate verbal feedback.

The advantage the GlideTrak offers over the AlterG is that with the GlideTrak the coach can physically correct the athlete from the side, for example by the use of a carefully placed hand to the athlete’s back whilst they are in motion to help keep the athlete’s hips “high” (a key aspect of sprint technique) and assist them with keeping up with the required speed.

The GlideCycle gives you the possibility to enjoy the outdoors while training on a unique unweighted training device. The GlideCycle provides excellent cross training, balancing the body and preventing hamstring injuries. GlideCycle training can extend an athlete’s career by reducing the wear and tear of conditioning while keeping him or her physically fit.

In this article we have looked at

• the importance of speed for sports success and

• we have seen that speed can be taught and improved.

I presented

• what overspeed is and

• how it works.

I enlisted

• overspeed training methods and looked at their

• drawbacks.

After all these we can conclude that

unweighted training devices are most beneficial for overspeed training.