Although we focus mainly on the mental aspects of the game, our passion is to bring you up-to-date information to help you improve in all areas of playing your sport.
So today we have a guest post from Dr. Larry Van Such, a Speed Training Coach, on how to quickly improve your performance.
Besides who doesn’t want to learn how you can Run Faster, Jump Higher, and Out Hit Your Opponents?
Speed is crucial for anyone who wants to advance their athletic career, win more games, or just make the team. However, athletes are often frustrated in their attempts to get faster, no matter how hard they work at it.
Because of the frustration in getting faster we sometimes make the excuse that speed is something we are born with and can’t be changed.
Naturally some will be faster than others, however the idea that we cannot dramatically increase our speed is a myth.
The fact is muscles can be conditioned for blazing speed and quickness as long as you do it properly.
And speed is not just for running.
Fast muscles will give you an unbeatable advantage in running, jumping higher, kicking a soccer ball or football farther, throwing a baseball or football faster or swinging a bat, golf club or tennis racket faster, and will improve your performance just about any other sports skill you can think of.
Two major reason athletes are often disappointed in their speeds gains is because they have been taught to use strength training strategies in order to make themselves faster and also because they have not been conditioning all of the muscles used in the running process.
Strength training is great for making your muscles bigger or stronger, so they can move against heavier resistance.
Yet, once muscles are strong enough to move against resistance, making them even stronger will have little or no impact on making them contract faster, in fact added muscle size and strength can sometimes have a negative effect on muscle speed.
The problem is that many athletes are expecting to get faster when they are actually training to get stronger.
The secret to getting more speed in your muscles lies in the training strategy.
Isometric training is a training strategy that is overlooked in most training programs.
When combined with the dynamic elastic properties of the resistance band it becomes a very effective training method that forces your muscles and nerves to reform the neural networks and condition fast twitch muscle fibers for dramatic increases in speed and quickness.
That means that your muscles and nerves start working together in a more efficient way, and the fast twitch muscle fibers (which are responsible for muscle contraction speed) are now being conditioned for maximum speed and quickness.
If this type of training has not been done in the past then results can come very quickly.
Athletes are now crushing all their personal best speed times in just a couple of weeks by training for only 15 minutes a day, 4 days a week using this type of exercise.
Training all the correct muscles for faster sprinting speeds is also being overlooked in most speed training programs.
Your thigh flexor muscles, for example, are considered to be a primary muscle group for increasing top sprinting speed.
The thigh flexor muscles are among the strongest muscle groups in the body. Yet, surprisingly, they are found to be significantly under developed in most athletes.
This is because many athletes do not understand their function and importance and also because there are very few ways to train these muscles both in the gym and on the field.
Thigh flexors or hip flexors. Main function is to raise your thigh and swing it forward. (See Arrow)
With weak thigh flexors, your running speed will be significantly slower, more than you would imagine.
The only way I have found to effectively isolate and increase the speed of these muscles is with isometric training using the resistance band.
Again, no other workout is more effective at making these muscles faster.
If you have not applied isometric training with the resistance band to your thigh flexor muscles you have a huge potential of untapped speed just waiting to be released – and it will only take a few days to start seeing dramatic improvements in your sprint speed.
With fast thigh flexor muscles you will be faster than ever before. Your friends, coaches and teammates will be amazed – they will want to know your secret. Even if you are currently in mid-season you could be outperforming your best in days.
And remember – being fast is not the same as being strong. You will need fast muscles to dramatically improve your sprint speed, become the best athlete possible, and advance your athletic career to the next level.
By using isometrics with the resistance band for your speed training exercises, you can’t help but dramatically improve your performance in your sport and stand out from the crowd.
AUTHOR
Dr. Larry Van Such is the Program Director of Athletic Quickness (http://athleticquickness.com/) and author of: Run Faster with Isometric Training, Strike Faster – Martial Arts Speed Training, Baseball Swing Mechanics, Speed Training Secrets, How to Condition Thigh Flexors for Speed Increases in Speed Others are Getting, How to condition thigh flexors for speed, Increases in speed others are getting