2 Reasons Why This type of isometrics is ideal for speed training!
Because this type of training does not mix endurance or strength training with speed training, it can focus soley on the 2 factors that make it a pure speed training program - with pure speed training results.
First, what is meant by 'muscle contraction speed'
Let’s use the biceps muscle in your arm for an example. When your arm is stretched out straight then your biceps muscle is stretched. Now move your fist towards your shoulder. What has happened? Your biceps muscle ‘contracts’ thus moving your fist toward your shoulder. Now, obviously the faster your muscle contracts then the faster your fist will move. When your biceps muscle is ‘programmed’ to instantly contract to a certain position, you have then achieved lightning like speed.
The types of fibers in your muscles that create this type of speed are called ‘fast twitch muscle fibers’. They are not the same as strength and endurance fibers and therefore need to be conditioned separately. You can not condition your muscles for quickness the same way you condition your muscles for strength.
Reason 1) Time required for training
Our research has shown that fast twitch muscle conditioning takes place within the first 10 minutes of isometric training only.
Afterwards, your body's own physiologic processes will start recruiting slow twitch fibers to complete the training, which is contrary to speed training. The longer your body is involved in slow twitch training, the less faster your muscles become.
Speed training should, as the term implies, be fast. If your current "speed" training routine takes longer than 20 minutes to complete, then you are NOT training for speed but, rather, for strength and endurance.
Most speed training programs on the market take about 45 minutes to an hour to perform. Even if you performed our program for more than 10 minutes, you will start conditioning your muscles for strength and endurance and not speed. This is perhaps the hardest thing for competitive athletes to grasp, and that is, to limit the amount of time for speed training to just 10 minutes.
Reason 2) Repetitions
All other speed training programs require your muscles to perform repetitions, whether it be through running, jumping up and down off of boxes or running down a track with parachutes and/or weight sleds. Repetitions build strength and endurance within muscles, not speed.
Again, our research has shown that when muscles are forced to go through repetitions where the length of the muscles are constantly changing, the body's fast twitch muscle fibers are completely ignored, resulting in a strength and endurance training program and not a speed of contraction routine.
If this all sounds a little confusing consider this: If all you had to do to run faster was to go out and run, then each time you ran, you should be faster then the previous time out. But, we all know this is not true. This is because running more does not make you faster; but, rather, it improves your strength and endurance to run longer.
Isometric training does not require repetitions in the traditional sense. Instead, muscles are locked into a position for a given period of time forcing your body to recruit those much needed fast twitch fibers that are almost always ignored with other types of training (for example, plyometrics, weight training, etc.). The end result is faster contracting muscles, all the time, without exception.
The little known 'secret formula' for speeding past your competition.
In order to help you fully appreciate the value of isometrics training to increase your speed, agility and power, let's take a quick look at some basic principles of muscular contraction.
To start with, all skeletal muscles consist of three main fiber types. These fiber types are:
1) Slow twitch fibers- Responsible for the strength and endurance of a muscle.
2) Intermediate twitch fibers- Possess qualities of both slow and fast twitch fibers.
3) Fast twitch fibers- Responsible for the speed of muscular contraction.
The fast twitch muscle fibers are responsible for giving the athlete his speed, agility, quickness, and power. Fast twitch fibers are 10 times faster than slow fibers.
Isometric training, the way we teach it, will isolate and condition your fast twitch muscle fibers and therefore increase your speed and quickness.
Isometrics using resistance bands is the ideal strategy for speed training. This is partly due to fact that the energy stored in a stretched band is much greater than gravitational energy used by weights. Therefore the faster acceleration of a stretched band is 'transferred' to the muscles when used with an isometric exercise.
The biggest advantage to isometric training is two fold.
First, by forcing your muscle(s) to hold a position for a certain length of time, your body will begin to recruit and activate more and more motor units to help maintain this contraction. Motor units that are rarely exercised within a particular muscle are now brought into use, perhaps for the first time.
Second, the motor units that are recruited are forced to contract continuously, time after time, with no appreciable decrease in force output. This allows your muscles to achieve a state of maximum contraction very safely and effectively.
The end result is that the entire muscle matures very quickly.
So how does this condition the fast twitch muscle fibers?
The fast twitch muscle fibers are often overlooked because they are mostly ignored for purposes of contraction speed in exercise routines where the muscle length is constantly changing, when doing multiple repetitions with weights, for example. As far as your muscles are concerned this is endurance training, the job of slow twitch muscle fibers.
The Athletic Quickness Speed Training Programs use the resistance band to help isolate, condition and quicken various muscle groups in the body. The resistance band is ideal because its resistance will change depending on how far the band is stretched.
By utilizing the unique properties of the resistance band, and maintaining the muscle at a specific length by using an isometric exercise, the muscles will develop a fast twitch response.
This means, first, that the nerves and muscles develop the memory to accelerate instantly to the contraction point of the isometric exercise, and secondly, the fast twitch muscle fibers are conditioned to maximize the speed of the muscle contraction.
By strengthening the fast twitch muscle fibers, you have increased the speed at which the muscles contract or move.
When this application is applied to your thigh flexor and extensor muscles, for example, the result is an explosive increase in your running speed and power!
The same principle holds true for increasing the speed and power of any muscles that are critical to quickness and power in any sport specific activity.
In baseball for example that would be the muscles used in hitting and pitching. In basketball quickness and power are required by the leg muscles used in jumping and making quick reactions.
If this sounded a bit confusing, just remember these two things:
1. Fast twitch muscle fibers are the key to explosive speed and quickness.
2. Isometrics using the resistance band is the secret weapon for isolating and conditioning the fast twitch muscle fibers.
Isometric training has been around for a long time and so it is nothing new. Many extraordinary results in muscle size and strength have been achieved in a very short period of time with this type of training.
Below is a direct quote from Wikipedia Encyclopedia under the heading Isometrics:
"What is known, however, is that Isometric Exercise provides the fastest stimulation for muscle tissue and increases nervous conductivity and enervation (the ability to contract more muscle fibre). As such it increases the strength of the participant faster than any other natural method."
However, because of the number of new training products and techniques out on the market today, its use by athletes is often overlooked.
Many "experts" disagree with isometric training for several reasons: 1) They relate isometrics with weight training; and, if that is the case, they are right. Isometric training with weights will do very little for speed. 2) If they acknowledge using resistance bands, they more than likely use them with a weightlifting strategy involving repetitions, which also is of no benefit for speed.
Training techniques that use repetitions or that last more than several seconds will not isolate the fast twitch muscle fibers and will therefore train for strength and endurance - and not for speed.
Isometrics, the way we teach it, is the proven formula that will specifically result in speed and quickness in your athletic activities.
So there we have it, all the isometric speed training stuff that pertains to golf.
Using this system, I have boosted my MAX swing speed from 127mph to 137mph. My average speed when I play is between 118-122 thereabouts. For guys that don't already swing at my speed, I would think that greater than 10mph gains can be made.
Forum members like jr33, nuke99 and vikram who have seen me swing in person attest to a "sudden acceleration of the club" on the downstroke.
That said, I do not use the exercises detailed in the book - only the theory behind it and the high tension rubber band that the company sells.
I substitute the exercises for something I feel is more golf specific. Besides, the author doesnt seem to be a golfer and makes some disgusting poses that masquerades as a golf swing.
All said, it helps to have forearms like mine ha ha ha...
yeah.. I tried his XX Cobra on XX stiff 540.. stiff as a rebar.
I could not even launch it properly, just drop everything out of the sky. my SS is about 115+ already at that time. then he proceed to show me how he loads the shaft from above, the true meaning of Bending and loading the shaft with Naked Eyes, then proceed to bomb it , bomb bomb bomb..
To top things off, he told me, Real clubs for real man.... I didn't know to laugh or to be ashamed of my manlihood.
When this fella first shook my hand, I thought .. WTF Ouch.. Steel clamps?... When this Man is up at Atlanta soon, beware of his handshake ... I'm especially worried for 12 bucket , I heard he got a whimpy handshake..
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So there we have it, all the isometric speed training stuff that pertains to golf.
Using this system, I have boosted my MAX swing speed from 127mph to 137mph. My average speed when I play is between 118-122 thereabouts. For guys that don't already swing at my speed, I would think that greater than 10mph gains can be made.
Forum members like jr33, nuke99 and vikram who have seen me swing in person attest to a "sudden acceleration of the club" on the downstroke.
That said, I do not use the exercises detailed in the book - only the theory behind it and the high tension rubber band that the company sells.
I substitute the exercises for something I feel is more golf specific. Besides, the author doesnt seem to be a golfer and makes some disgusting poses that masquerades as a golf swing.
All said, it helps to have forearms like mine ha ha ha...
compda, could you share a couple of sudden acceleration of the club exercices using this resistance? Why do i get the feel you might tie a band to the cieling?
compda, could you share a couple of sudden acceleration of the club exercices using this resistance? Why do i get the feel you might tie a band to the cieling?
Jerome,
No, I have never tied the band to the ceiling.
Research has shown that the body only contributes 10% of power to the golf swing, whereas the speed of the hands and their actions contribute 90% of power.
Further “transferring” your weight from the back foot to the front foot creates only 2mph of body speed – which only increases clubhead speed if your timing is inch perfect.
In exercising for golf my focus is always on the forearms. This practice was further given endorsement by no less than the 2005 REMAX Long Drive Champ, Sean Fister, when he came to visit in September.
His words to me were: "I don't train anything above the elbow joint. Jack Nicklaus said that I have the fastest hand speed of anyone he has ever seen."
Look at the following attached.
This is a very clear view of the anatomy of the forearm. The most important muscles I feel are those that help cock and uncock the wrists and those that help pronate and supinate.
Work on those
I did these exercises plus master the Snap Release10-24-E only in April of this year and the results have been very very satisfactory.
Research has shown that the body only contributes 10% of power to the golf swing, whereas the speed of the hands and their actions contribute 90% of power.
Further “transferring” your weight from the back foot to the front foot creates only 2mph of body speed – which only increases clubhead speed if your timing is inch perfect.
In exercising for golf my focus is always on the forearms. This practice was further given endorsement by no less than the 2005 REMAX Long Drive Champ, Sean Fister, when he came to visit in September.
His words to me were: "I don't train anything above the elbow joint. Jack Nicklaus said that I have the fastest hand speed of anyone he has ever seen."
Look at the following attached.
This is a very clear view of the anatomy of the forearm. The most important muscles I feel are those that help cock and uncock the wrists and those that help pronate and supinate.
Work on those
I did these exercises plus master the Snap Release10-24-E only in April of this year and the results have been very very satisfactory.
Indeed the muscles you pointed out would cock and uncock the wrists and pronate and supinate. Although muscles of the upper arm would also help in pronation and supination of the forearm- so if you were trying to strengthen those- then you would want to also strengthen the upper arm muscles. However, none of the muscles that you described would move the hands faster through space. So to me, Sean's quote is just another quote that doesn't make any sense or is very unclear.
Indeed the muscles you pointed out would cock and uncock the wrists and pronate and supinate. Although muscles of the upper arm would also help in pronation and supination of the forearm- so if you were trying to strengthen those- then you would want to also strengthen the upper arm muscles. However, none of the muscles that you described would move the hands faster through space. So to me, Sean's quote is just another quote that doesn't make any sense or is very unclear.
Sorry Mike,
When he related Jack Nicklaus' compliment, he was uncocking and rolling his hands - very quickly.
To him , handspeed was the sequenced release of the swinger - uncock and roll.
That said, I agree with you on the role of the upper arm but I still do not completely understand its role in producing clubheadspeed thus have not began isolating them in training yet. I will be most keen to share once I reach a conclusion.
One thing that stuck in my mind about Sean was the size of his Extensor carpi radialis longus and his Pronator teres. They resembled sausages.
Research has shown that the body only contributes 10% of power to the golf swing, whereas the speed of the hands and their actions contribute 90% of power.
So, you could hit it 90% as far without moving the body? Surely not...try hitting balls without any shoulder turn and tell me how you go?
I agree the hands are important, but those numbers don't seem to make sense at all....can you point me to the data?
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