The following series of articles are excerpted from
www.athleticquickness.com.
Please note that I am not a licensed reseller nor do I receive any incentives for this 'promotion'. What I am is a satisfied user of the program and feel that it may help those in need of more clubhead speed.
Sports Anatomy, Muscular Contraction & Speed Training
What will Determine the Success or Failure of a Speed Training Program?
by Dr. Larry Van Such
Section I. Slow Twitch Fibers and Slow Twitch Response
Section II. Fast Twitch Fibers and Fast Twitch Response
Section III. Neuromuscular Reeducation
Section IV. Training For Speed
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Sports Muscles and their Functions
Lesson 1. Hamstring Muscles
Lesson 2. Thigh Flexor Muscles
Lesson 3. Quadriceps Muscles
Lesson 4. Adductors Muscles
Lesson 5. Calf Muscles
Lesson 6. Thigh Extensor Muscles
Lesson 7. Abductors Muscles
Lesson 8. Triceps and Anconeus Lesson 9. Wrist Muscles
Lesson 10. Rotators of the Hips
Lesson 11. Rotators of the Spine
Lesson 12. Movers of the Arms
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I. Slow Twitch Fibers and Slow Twitch Response
The most popular way to exercise your skeletal muscles is through weightlifting. For example, the quadriceps are typically trained on a leg extension machine, the hamstrings are typically trained on a leg curl machine, the adductors/abductors are trained on adductor/abductor machines and the pectoralis muscles are trained on a flat bench, incline and/or decline bench with dumbells or machines.
Plyometric training is another popular way to exercise your skeletal muscles that involves the stretching of a particular muscle and then quickly trying to contract it. Examples of plyometric training include jumping up and down off of boxes, running steps and jumping rope.
The problem with training your muscles with these strategies is that no matter how fast you perform a repetition, the end result will always be that the muscle gets stronger, not faster. This is because the combination of weight training and/or plyometric training with repetitions conditions both your slow and fast twitch muscle fibers to carry on a slow twitch response only.
Slow twitch fibers are responsible for the strength and endurance of a muscle, and a slow twitch response is defined as one where your muscles can undergo extensive repetitive contractions before fatigue.
Therefore, any training routine that puts your muscles through repetitive contractions (i.e., repetitions), like the ones done during weightlifting and/or plyometric training, is a slow twitch exercise program. It’s good only for strength and endurance and never for speed.
Extensive repetitive contractions (i.e., repetitions) force the lengths of your muscles to be constantly changing. Muscles contract then elongate, and this process is repeated over and over again anywhere between eight to twelve times. This is what’s known as a “set.” Doing sets of exercises provides your muscles with an infinite number of potential stopping points between the beginning of a repetition and the end.
This has the effect of overloading your muscle memory pertaining to just one specific stopping point. A specific stopping point that is well-defined in a muscle’s memory, as you will see, is necessary to produce faster contracting muscles. Without them, your muscles will always be slow to respond.
For example, performing biceps curls: You begin with your arm down by your side holding onto a weight, perhaps 20 lbs. Next, you flex your forearm upwards until you can no longer move it. This process is usually repeated over and over again until the muscle tires. The net effect is the biceps is trained to be strong at the starting point, ending point and all points in between.
However, if you want your biceps muscle to contract to a specific point very quickly, two-thirds of the way for example, it cannot do so … at least not very fast. It’s hasn’t been trained to perform this way. It’s been conditioned to contract to and through an infinite number of points (a slow twitch response) throughout the repetition, not just one at two-thirds of the way.
This pre-determined distance you may want to contract to is not well defined within that muscle. It’s mixed in with an infinite number of other potential stopping points. The memory of this muscle is overloaded. With regards to speed, this muscle is now slow to respond. It’s confused having no specific target distance to contract to.
Have you ever tried to throw a baseball, swing a golf club or kick a football after lifting weights or doing plyometric exercises? These activities cannot be done very effectively. They all require that your muscles have specific target distances to be able to snap and contract to very quickly.
However, the fast twitch response within your muscles gets wiped-out or stripped away with this type of training. This is what’s known as “dumbing-down” your muscles and is why you’ll always feel tired, heavy and sluggish (i.e., slow) following weight training and/or plyometric training. Slow twitch response training programs like these are good only for strength and endurance, never speed.
II. Fast Twitch Fibers and Fast Twitch Response
Why is it important for muscles to have a specific target distance to contract to? Because when they do, and when you start training them to respond that way, their speed of contraction increases significantly.
Fast twitch fibers are responsible for the speed of muscular contraction, and a fast twitch response is the ability of a muscle to rapidly contract to a specific distance over a short period of time. Therefore, any training program that conditions your muscles to go from a state of complete relaxation to an immediate state of contraction is a speed training program.
Repetitive contractions, as in weight training and plyometric training, are of no value to the speed with which a muscle contracts. (Do not confuse any increased coordination you may develop in performing certain plyometric exercises with that of an increased rate in muscle contraction. Increased coordination is common to all types of training that’s done on a daily basis and is only the first step towards developing fast twitch contractions.)
How and why will a muscle begin to contract faster when it has a specific target distance to contract to? Well, for a start, muscles have memory. They have the ability to learn a particular activity/movement and repeat it automatically with practice. The less they have to remember (one specific target distance), the quicker they can contract to it. Our brains work the same way. The less we have to remember, the quicker we can recall things.
For example: If you went into a room filled with a 100 different items, and someone asked you to find one particular item, a screwdriver for instance, immediately your brain will create the proper neuro-pathways (i.e., memory) associated with finding that screwdriver. And, if you were asked to go back and find that same item again, you would become quicker at finding it. Before long, you wouldn’t even have to think about it -- you would immediately know where to go (a fast twitch response). However, if each time you were asked to go into that room and look for a different item, your brain would never develop a consistent pattern of thought (memory), and you would constantly have to think about where something is. This non-specific pattern of thought would always take longer (a slow twitch response).
A muscle trained to contract to just one pre-determined distance or stopping point can do so a lot faster than a muscle that’s been trained to contract to and through an infinite number of distances or stopping points. This does not limit the muscle’s ability to function. It increases it.
A lot of athletic skills that require speed are dependent upon this principle. Throwing a baseball, swinging a baseball bat, tennis racket or golf club, running fast, jumping high, kicking a ball far, etc., are all driven by your muscles’ ability to snap or contract with amazing speed through a specific contact point or predetermined distance.
Martial artists know this. They know that if they can get their muscles to go from a state of complete relaxation to a state of immediate contraction at the instant or distance of making contact with a board, it will snap in half. Train your muscles the right way and watch your speed increase.
Interestingly enough, anything that uses memory responds very similarly. Computers are a good example. If your hard drive is overloaded or full of programs, picture files, video files, audio files, etc., what happens when you try and browse for just one file? It takes a while doesn’t it? Usually an hourglass will appear, as this is a sign that it’s going to take some time before it finds the file. But, if you clean or de-fragment your hard drive and delete unwanted files, doesn’t the speed of your computer increase? Yes, it does. When you free up its memory, and give it just one thing to look for, it performs much quicker. Your muscles can be trained to work the same way.
III. Neuromuscular Reeducation
Neuromuscular reeducation is the definition given to any form of athletic training, rehabilitation program or bodily movement that requires your muscles and nerves to learn or relearn a certain behavior or specific sequence of movements.
Learning to ride a bicycle is a good example of how your muscles and nerves eventually learn and develop the neural networks and motor pathways necessary to ride effectively. Initially you start off with training wheels.
Your body begins to develop a broad kinesthetic sense (sensation of muscle movements through nerves) necessary to maintain your balance. Shortly afterwards, one training wheel is removed and your muscles and nerves are forced to increase their kinesthetic ability or awareness to maintain a tighter balance. Ultimately, both training wheels are removed, and all of your muscles and nerves become perfectly coordinated together producing the desired effect -- riding the bike.
People who’ve been involved in serious accidents go through their own form of neuromuscular reeducation. These people are sometimes confined to a bed for prolonged periods of time. When this happens, they may have to relearn how to walk. Rehabilitation programs are designed to help these people go through similar progressions just as you may have done in learning to ride your bicycle. In the beginning, it’s a challenge to get these people on their feet. Once that’s accomplished, therapists begin to physically move one leg in front of the other. This happens very slowly as with each leg movement the patients who are holding on to handrails must reestablish their balance before continuing. This process goes on almost indefinitely (days, weeks or months, depending on severity) until all of the neural pathways and motor networks necessary to help them walk again are relearned.
Athletes who train to excel in a given sport subject themselves to a higher level of neuromuscular reeducation all the time. Every day in practice, whether you’re catching a ball, shooting baskets or swinging a club, your muscles are constantly refining the pathways necessary to master these movements, making them appear effortless and without any conscious thought.
Some neuromuscular reeducation programs are so effective they can actually train slow twitch muscle fibers to behave more like fast twitch muscle fibers and/or train fast twitch fibers to behave more like slow twitch fibers. There are major differences between these programs, although the majority of athletes are not even aware of them.
If you’re not careful, what you think is a speed (fast twitch) training program could actually be a strength and endurance (slow twitch) training program in disguise. And, by using one of them, you could be engaging in a neuromuscular activity designed to get all of the muscles you exercise to behave like slow twitch muscle fibers only. Not only will these not make you faster, they could make you slower as well.
So, how do you know if a “speed” training program is really a strength and endurance program in disguise? Ask yourself three questions:
1) Does it require repetitions? (You already know what repetitions do to you.)
2) Does it take longer than ten minutes to complete? (Speed training, as the name implies should be fast, right? Absolutely!
3) Do I feel tired, heavy, and sluggish afterwards? (Do you feel slower instead of faster when you’re done?)
If you answer yes to these questions, then you do not have a speed training program. You have a strength and endurance program.
As a side note, every weight training program and/or plyometric training program I have ever seen fell into these categories. Jumping up and down off boxes, running down a field with a weight sled or parachute strapped around your waist, lifting weights as fast as you can, obstacle courses, etc.
These are all strength and endurance (slow twitch) programs. Sometimes they are sold as “speed training programs” leading to a lot of disappointment among the athletes who try them. If you happen to have one of these programs and are not performing to the level that you know you can, don’t worry, here’s some good news ...
IV. Training for Speed
AthleticQuickness.com offers several training programs designed to neuromuscularly reeducate your muscles to carry on fast twitch responses only.
The secret to these programs’ success lies in their training strategy -- isometric training with the resistance band. It’s a highly effective technique that forces your muscles to reform the neural networks and motor pathways necessary for speed.
The training is quick and easy, as speed training should be. By using it, you will feel lighter, faster and more responsive immediately. Compare this with the tired, heavy and sluggish feeling following weight/plyometric training and you will soon realize the advantages to this remarkable speed training strategy.
Currently the following programs are available from AthleticQuickness.com that will help you awaken the fast twitch response within specific muscle groups are as follows:
RUN FASTER with Isometric Training!
KICK FARTHER & RUN FASTER with Isometric Training!
JUMP HIGHER with Isometric Training!
SWING FASTER with Isometric Training!
TEE OFF with Isometric Training!
SERVE FASTER, RETURN HARDER & MOVE QUICKER with Isometric Training!
By using these programs, sport specific activities that are greatly improved are running speed, kicking distance, cycling speed, vertical jumping height, long jumping distance, baseball bat speed and hitting distance, golf club head speed and hitting distance, pitching speed, racket speed, and a vastly increased ability to approach the net faster in tennis.
Always glad to help, and remember, at AthleticQuickness.com, “We’ll bring you up to speed!” ™
Dr. Larry Van Such
Hybrid Mode
