Speed is a product of stride length (the distance your hips travel in a stride) and stride frequency (the number of steps you take in a given time period). However, you won’t reach top speed by taking increasingly larger steps to increase stride length or taking short, quick steps to increase stride frequency. Instead, top speeds are created by applying “optimal” force to the ground. Both length and frequency are improved by strength. So a better application of strength will result in faster speeds. Really, acceleration training is a form of strength training.
Ground contact times (the amount of time each foot spends on the ground) are another important factor to consider during acceleration. During the earliest parts of acceleration, especially the first two steps, you’re trying to overcome (inertia) the weight of your body by moving it forward as quickly as possible. This takes a great deal of strength and power. The stronger and more efficient you are, the more you can extend your acceleration phase.
Since high intensity sprint work involves recruiting specific groups of muscle fibers to improve the efficiency of neuromuscular firing patterns, sprinting is taxing to the central nervous system. Once the CNS becomes fatigued, workouts quickly lose their effectiveness. Any type of speed work must be done with full recovery. Generally speaking, this means approximately one minute of rest for every 10 yards that you run.
Sprinting is a highly technical activity. Without full recovery, both your muscles and your CNS will begin to fatigue quickly, reducing the short- and long-term effectiveness of your training. For this reason, acceleration shouldn’t be trained with fatigue present. To optimize your success, full recovery must be adhered to both in your individual workouts as well as in your weekly plan. It takes roughly 36–48 hours to fully recover from a speed workout.
Acceleration cues
· Drive the lead arm (same as front leg) up as you begin to sprint.
· Drive out so the body is at a 45-degree angle to the ground.
· Keep the heel recovery low during the first 6–8 strides.
· Drive the elbows down and back. Keep the hands loose but not open. The arms should remain at approximately 90 degrees from the elbow.
· Step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground to create maximal force.
Don’t force yourself to “stay low.” This will limit the amount of force you can apply to the ground and leads to poor acceleration. Let your upper body unfold naturally. “Staying low” will occur naturally if you’re already strong enough.
Get vertical!
At the beginning of your speed training, use season acceleration work. You can’t efficiently run longer distances without getting the proper strength levels and neuromuscular efficiency of the shorter intervals. As you get stronger, you can extend out the acceleration distances. You want to drive out as far as possible. The stronger you are, the further the acceleration phase will be. This will set up your top speed to be better later on.
During acceleration, the foot should strike directly below or slightly behind the hips. You must be able to drive out so that your body is at a 45-degree angle to the ground. Step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground to create maximal force.
Horizontal to vertical
Some athletes aren’t strong enough to hold and maintain that ideal drive phase. So you must trick the athlete’s body and make it so that they have to get into the right position. Start the acceleration work on the ground and work your way up. In order to put the athletes in the best mechanical position even without great strength levels, they should start with short intervals in a horizontal position. As they get stronger, the acceleration intervals can be lengthened and/or the starting positions made more vertical.
Sample beginning of the season acceleration workout:
Four X 25 yards each (400 yards total), 2.5 minute rest between each rep/four minutes between each exercise
a) Push-up “down”
b) Push-up “up”
c) Seated start, backward
d) Seated start, forward
As the athletes show that they can handle these positions and their form doesn’t break down at all during the 25 yards, you can start lengthening the interval distance and/or change the starting positions.
Maximum velocity
Maximum velocity is another way to say running at full speed. The point in a race, workout, or game in which you reach maximum velocity depends on strength levels, experience, and running mechanics. However, regardless of where and when you reach full speed, there are some differences in running mechanics and effort when compared to acceleration.
When running at full speed, you no longer need to try and apply the same level of force to the track as during acceleration. This is a common mistake among inexperienced athletes. Now that you are at full speed, you will be completely upright (perpendicular to the ground), and your body will no longer be leaning at an angle as you were during acceleration. By continuing to try to run faster and faster throughout a run as though you were still accelerating, you’re actually going to have a breakdown in running mechanics. By continuing to try to accelerate while beginning to fatigue, you’ll only slow yourself down faster because you can’t continue to coordinate your movements with accuracy.
Instead, you want to relax or “float” during maximum velocity. What this means is that you want to ease back the amount of effort that you’re expending while running but without slowing down and losing any speed. This idea sounds contradictory, and like any new skill, it takes some practice to perfect. While running, you want to continue to step over the opposite knee, but instead of driving the ball of the foot down into the ground, you’re just going to tap the foot downward, letting the ground come to you. Continue to drive the elbows down and back at the same speed but without the same intensity as during the early part of your run.
Remember, you’re not going to get any faster at this point so energy conservation is important. We know that your brain tells you to keep running harder so that you don’t slow down, but you have to fight the urge to do that and run smart. It’s the ability to make these types of adjustments that can be the difference in running a fast time, outrunning an opponent, or chasing one down to make the play.
Maximum velocity cues
· Continue to step over the opposite knee, but let the ground come to you.
· Float. Ease back in intensity but don’t slow down.
· Fight the urge to continue to run faster and harder. One of the goals of top speed training is to learn how to decelerate slowly. The athlete who decelerates the slowest runs the fastest. Relaxation is the only way to decrease the speed at which you slow down.
Sample workouts:
1. Fly 20s, 30s, and 40s: Place a cone at the starting line and at 15, 35, and 55 yards. Accelerate hard to the first cone (15 yards). Maintain the speed that you have generated by running relaxed and following the maximum velocity cues from 15–35 yards. Once you hit 35 yards, slowly decelerate for the next 20 yards, coming to a full stop at the last cone. This is a fly 20. Once you’re comfortable holding that speed for 20 yards, you can move the second cone to 45 yards (fly 30s) and 55 yards (fly 40s). The total volume for these workouts should be between 250–350 yards.
2. Sprint/float/sprint: Place a cone at the starting line and at 15, 25, 35, 45, and 65 yards. Accelerate hard to the first cone (15 yards). Maintain a hard sprint for 10 yards, focusing on maintaining the speed and intensity created during acceleration. Once you hit the next cone (25 yards), go into a float by easing back in intensity (don’t try to continue to get faster) without losing any speed. At the next cone (35 yards), go back to a hard sprint, running at full intensity and trying to increase your speed. At the next cone (45 yards), shut down by slowly coming to a stop. You shouldn’t be at a complete stop until the final cone at 65 yards, which gives you a full 25 yards to slow down.
Speed endurance
Speed endurance is the ability to maintain speed in the presence of fatigue without decelerating. Therefore, speed/power athletes must train the ability to maintain high levels of speed even when fatigued. As you can imagine, making improvements in this area can have profound effects on success and performance late in competitions when every athlete is tired. But the most critical moves and decisions are made, and games are won and lost.
Because speed endurance work is based on athletes competing in a state of physical fatigue, these workouts also have a useful mental component as well. When athletes get tired, they have a tendency to revert back to what is easy for them, which is usually poor form and technique. Therefore when performing this type of workout, it’s important to focus on efficiency and form even when it feels slower. Make the commitment to perfection in practice so that during competition you can focus solely on competing and performing your best. By improving the ability to stay mentally focused on a physically demanding and exhausting workout, athletes improve their ability to execute during the most important moments of their game or competition.
Primarily we use two types of workout to develop speed endurance:
1. Short distance, short rest: Run for a short distance (10–35 yards) while only getting a short rest period (10–30 seconds) between repetitions. Example: two sets of seven x 25 yards with 25 seconds rest between reps and three minutes between sets
2. Longer distance, longer rest: Run a longer distance (8–20 seconds or 60–150 yards) at full or near full intensity (90–100 percent) with full or near full recovery (5–15 minutes) between each repetition. Example: three x 80 yards at full speed with seven minutes rest between each repetition; two x 120 yards at 90 percent with ten minutes rest between each repetition
The type of workout that will reap the greatest benefits depends on the demands of the sport that the athletes compete in. The workout can be modified, adjusted, or adapted to suit those particular needs. For some sports, such as football, soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse where the majority of the sport’s demand consists of short bursts of acceleration followed by low intensity movements, the greatest benefits may be from running workouts of short duration with short recoveries.
On the other hand, athletes competing in sports requiring continuous high intensity runs such as track and field may find a greater benefit in runs of longer distance and greater recovery times. Both types of workouts allow athletes to compete longer into their competitions without showing high degrees of fatigue, which increases the likelihood of success.
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