Every
athlete that trains at NX Level gets a postural assessment and movement
screening. This gives us a starting
point as to where the athlete is physically.
It basically lets us know if there are any imbalances or pathologies
that need to be addressed. But before
that begins we ask each athlete what their goals are as far as their athletic
careers are concerned and what they would like to get out of training with
us. I would say at least 70% of our athletes say they want to get faster and be
more explosive.
Assuming
there are no overwhelming muscle imbalances (everyone has some to some degree) or
other pathologies, this article is going to take a look at what things can be
done in the weight room to increase speed and explosiveness.
But first
let’s look at the things inside the body that are going to dictate that speed
and explosiveness. The way I see it,
there are three things (maybe four but we’ll get to that) that are going to
dictate how explosive an athlete is.
These are, in descending order, intramuscular
coordination, intermuscular
coordination, and overall muscular strength.
Intramuscular Coordination
Intramuscular
coordination refers to how you muscle is activated when presented with a
task. Muscles are comprised of,
depending on how specific you want to get, 3-7 different types of muscle
fibers. For the sake of brevity we’ll focus
on the three main ones. These are Type
I, Type IIa, and Type IIb.
Type I Fibers
Type I
muscle fibers are what are commonly referred to as slow-twitch fibers. These fibers are not very strong but are very
fatigue resistant. They are also much
thinner than their Type II counterparts.
Type I muscle fibers are found predominantly in muscles that control
human posture and fine motor control since they can easily be held in
contraction without much effort. Elite
distance athletes will also generally have more Type I fibers throughout their
body which gives them an advantage.
When
presented with a task, such as lifting something, these muscle fibers are
recruited first.
Type II Fibers
Type II
muscle fibers (a and b) are generally referred to as fast-twitch. These fibers are the opposite of Type I
fibers in that they can produce large amounts of force but fatigue rather
quickly. These muscle fibers are found
in all skeletal muscle that requires large amounts of force to be
produces. Generally if you can see a
certain muscle on a body builder, it has a high amount of Type II fibers.
Type II
fibers are broken down into two classes.
Type IIa are intermediate fiber types.
They can use aerobic and anaerobic metabolism to produce energy. Type IIb use only anaerobic metabolism. Type IIb also have the fastest rate of firing
which is why they can produce large and quick burst of power.
Muscle Fiber Recruitment and Rate
Coding
When a
muscle performs a certain motor task not every fiber is contracted. We don’t need large bursts of energy to write
our names or jog a few miles. But when
we need to pick 500 pounds up off the floor or need to escape a momma moose in
full rut then we are going to need every single one of our muscle fibers
working to get us the hell out of there.
One of the
most interesting differences that humans have from our cousins, the chimpanzee,
is this muscle fiber ramping up.
Chimpanzees have less grey matter in their spinal cords. This grey matter controls fine movement, such
as writing out name. Without this grey
matter chimps essentially recruit ALL of their muscle fibers for every
movement. This is why they appear to be
so much stronger than humans even though they are much smaller than us. So somewhere along our tine of evolution we
humans gave up ten foot verticals, 500 pound bench presses, and 3.0 second
40-yard dashes so we could write in cursive and run marathons. Awesome.
Rate coding
refers to how many times per second the muscle receives an action potential
from the nerve that innervates it.
Without getting into sliding filament theory this action potential tells
the muscle to contract. Generally the
more times per second the muscle receives that stimulus the stronger it is
going to get.
So where
does intramuscular coordination play into all of this? Well, some people are much more efficient at
recruiting their Type II fibers than others.
And the quicker you can tap into those large fibers the higher rate of
force you are going to produce. Some
people have a higher rate coding than others.
And not only does this rate coding start high, but it stays high
throughout.
Think of
this as the difference between a sprinter and marathoner. The sprinter taps into those Type II fibers
(and has a higher percentage of them) quicker than his marathon
counterpart. The marathoner has a higher
degree of Type I fibers and will not tire as fast as the sprinter when
presented with a long distance run. Some
of this is due to genetics but a lot of it has to do with training principles,
which we’ll get to later on.
Intermuscular Coordination
Intermuscular
coordination is all about how your inidvidual muscles work together to produce
movement.
This coordination is going to
be highly relevant when it comes to form and, more importantly, energy leaks.
Using the
example of a vertical jump, when performing an explosive movement just about
every muscle in the body works in unison to create as much force as possible in
the direction you want to go. The big
movers, the muscles that do a lot of the work generating force, are going to be
the quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, and calf muscles, but there are a
lot of other muscles that come in to play that if not properly engaged will
cause a less than 100% jump. The core
muscles transfer force from the leg muscles to the upper body, the arms swing
forward to provide propulsion, the small muscles of the lower leg and ankle
provide support for the joints, the muscles of the neck and shoulder girdle
contract to support the head. And on and
on and on.
If any of
those muscles groups fire late or not at all energy will be leaked all over the
place. In other words, it’s wasted. It goes off into space, back to its own
planet, never to be seen or heard from again.
Muscular Strength
Muscular
strength is how much force a muscle can produce on the surrounding joint. It is dictated by fiber type, fiber size,
fiber density, recruitment efficiency, and rate coding. As you can see, intramuscular coordination
plays a big role in how strong a muscle is.
Two people with the same size muscles can have two totally different
strength levels. This is generally seen
when comparing elite body builders with elite power lifters. The body builder has large but not very dense
muscles. The power lifter may have
smaller muscles, but they are much denser.
That is, there are more fibers per square inch of cross sectional area.
There is
also a mental aspect that plays into how much force a person can generate. This goes back to the concept of aggression in
training. A trainee that is going “balls-to-the-wall”
is usually going to generate more force than someone going through the
motions. Both have their place in
training but when trying to be as explosive as possible the balls-to-the-wall mentality
is going to be your best bet.
The Need…The Need For Speed
So now that
we know what dictates explosiveness how then do we train for it? Short answer…get stronger. Many studies have shown that A) the stronger
the athlete, the higher correlation to higher performance. In a study performed on elite soccer players
in England the strongest athletes had the highest vertical jumps and fastest
sprint times. And B) when studied side
by side groups that performed strength exercise with weights that were closer
to their 1RM improved more than groups that performed the same exercises at
lighter weights but faster. A study
performed on netball players showed that the group that strength trained had a
greater improvement in throwing velocity than the group that performed velocity-specific
exercises (kept weight lighter but moved it faster during training).
But it’s not
just about strength. Strength is no good
to an explosive athlete if that athlete can’t express that strength as an
aspect of speed. They still need to generate
that high degree of force in an extremely short amount of time. The best way to go about this is to train
both concurrently.
Strength
sessions should include both basic strength exercises and explosive moves. An example would be to perform squats and then
box jumps right after. All of the fibers
should be turned on from the squats and ready to fire on a moment’s
notice. The jumps will take advantage of
this improvement in motor recruitment.
Even if there is not an improvement in height during the session, the
nervous system is being trained to tap into the strong and explosive Type II
fibers right away instead of just relying on the weaker and slower Type I
fibers.
| Hmm. Makes sense. |
One other
thing to consider when it comes to strength training for speed; there is this
tricky thing called the “intent to accelerate”.
I’ve written a little bit about this before but it is essentially trying
to move a weight fast even though it is too heavy to do so. When I’m training I’m all about this. Telling myself to move a weight as fast as possible
is a great way to give myself a little boost.
I’m sometimes hesitant to do this with my athletes, however.
Most of the
kids I train are in high school and thus don’t have the experience to do this
properly and safely. Many times they
will relax at the bottom of the movement in an attempt to “wind up” and move
the weight fast. This is never a good
thing and leads to energy leaks at best and missing the weight and possibly
getting hurt at worst.
When
training these athletes it’s important to pick loads that will allow them to
move the weight with speed without any special focus on it. Usually kids of this age are going to benefit
from simple linear progression where weight is simply added to the bar each
session. This allows them to learn the
lift, get some muscle-building volume, and stay safe while still get stronger.
This done in
concert with more sport specific drills such as jumping, throwing, and
sprinting is going to produce the desired effects of enhanced speed,
explosiveness, power, and performance more so than focusing solely on
velocity-specific exercises.
A Final Word
This article
assumed the athlete had no pre-existing muscle imbalances or pathologies. This is rarely the case in the realm of
today’s youth athletics. When kids only
play their sport year round with no focus on training their bodies to handle
the rigors of that activity imbalances are going to occur. When an athlete develops these imbalances it
becomes increasingly difficult and sometimes impossible for them to get into
the proper positions to be as explosive as possible.
I’ll use the
example of the vertical jump. The proper
jumping position is created by flexion at the hip, knee, and ankle. When any one, or a combination of all three,
of those areas are tight from muscular imbalances somewhere else picks up the
slack. For many athletes this is the
lumbar spine. So instead of using the
big, powerful, Type II dominant muscles that surround those joints to push
themselves up, they use the small postural muscles of the low back to throw
themselves up. Obviously their jump
performance is highly diminished but more importantly the repeated stress to an
area that wasn’t designed to handle such loads is going to lead to pain and
possibly injury.
In
conclusion, to become faster and more explosive on the field or court you must train
for such activities. Getting stronger on
the basic lifts to better overcome your own inertia, along with performing more
sport-specific drills is the tried and true way to run faster, jump higher, and
deliver more powerful hits. Lift,
sprint, jump. It’s as simple as that.
Sources:
Velocity
specificity, combination training and sport specific tasks. Cronin, J. et al. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport Volume
4, Issue 2, June 2001, Pages 168–178.
Influence of
Strength on Magnitude and Mechanisms of Adaptation to Power Training. Cormie, P. et al. Medicine & Science in Sports &
Exercise: August 2010 - Volume 42 - Issue 8 - pp 1566-1581.
Is
velocity-specific strength training important in improving functional
performance?. Cronin, J.B., et al. Journal
of sports medicine and physical fitness 2002, vol. 42, no3, pp. 267-273.
The strength
of great apes and the speed of humans. Walker, A. Curr Anthropol. 2009
Apr;50(2):229-34.
Drop jumping
as a training method for jumping ability. Robert, M. Sports Med. 1990 Jan;9(1):7-22.
Comparison
of loaded and unloaded jump squat training on strength/power performance in
college football players. Hoffman, J.,
et al. J Strength Cond Res. 2005
Nov;19(4):810-5.
Strong
correlation of maximal squat strength with sprint performance and vertical jump
height in elite soccer players. Wisloff,
U., et al. Br J Sports Med. 2004 Jun;38(3):285-8.
The
effectiveness of resisted movement training on sprinting and jumping performance. Hrysomallis C. J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Jan;26(1):299-306.
Manthropology.
McAllister, Peter. 2009 St. Martin Press New York.
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