A critical component of athleticism - the speed myth

Many athletes and their parents/coaches are concerned about getting faster. And for good reason, because it is the athletic quality that is important for almost any sport if you want to excel.

Getting faster is not too complex, however it is certainly hard work. The reason getting faster seems so complex is because of the misinterpretation of what speed really means, and how to train for it.

So before I discuss the simply solution to getting faster, let's clarify some things about what speed really is.

When most refer to speed in sports, they are actually talking about acceleration (and accordingly decceleration is equally important). Most are confusing speed in sports with speed seen on the track.

For example, 100 meter sprinters have been found to not reach top speed until 60 meters. Mind you, they are also reacting to a predictable stimulus ("ready, set, bang"), and going in a straight line.

In contrast, athletes in soccer, basketball, football, and baseball (amongst other sports) need to accelerate from a dead stop or change speeds or directions in an instant in reaction to some stimulus (i.e. the crack of the bat, a whistle, or a sudden opening in the defense). This is called acceleration, the ability to move quickly in an instant, in multiple directions, and this is what most people are referring to when they talk about speed. Coaches often refer to this as quickness or agility.

Acceleration is much more important than speed when it comes to sports other than track. Accordingly, training for acceleration is entirely different than training for speed. So all the form sprinting drills are not the best use of time for young athletes that want to get faster.

What should athletes do then to get better acceleration? Playing games and working on various conditioning drills are good for skill development, coordination, and energy system training that impact acceleration. But doing this won't make a huge impact. This is where the big training camps having a huge group of kids going from drill to drill come up short.

We can make the biggest impact by focusing on one of the most important components of acceleration that is often neglected:

Force development.

Specifically, how much force an athlete can develop relative to their body weight. Consider a simple car analogy. Let's say you have a Honda Accord. If you simply take it to a race track an open it up, you'll likely be able to go 0-60 in about 7 sec. If you have some driving instruction, you'll might get that time down a tenth of a second get to that top speed quicker. But even if you were a professional race car driver, you wouldn't get that time down much further. However, if you swapped the V6 engine for a V8, you would certainly see a faster 0-60 time. You simply need to get a engine that produces more force.

Not surprisingly, research exists to confirm that relative strength correlates with acceleration.

J Strength Cond Research, Sept 09:

Researchers found that athletes with greater leg strength as determined by their maximal squat relative to their body weight had faster 5, 10, and 40 yard sprint times than those who had lower strength levels relative to their body weight. Short distance acceleration strongly correlates with superior athletic performance in most sports, like football, basketball, and soccer.

Unless you are already squatting 2 times your own body weight, you should try to get stronger if you want to be faster in sports.

So, getting fast is as simple as getting stronger? For the most part, yes.

However, there are a couple of critical points here.

First, strength is useless if it is not total body strength. For example, getting your legs stronger won't help much if your torso is weak. The body is only as strong as its weakest link. The analogy I often use with my athletes is that of a Honda civic with the engine of a Ferrari. Although you have a powerful engine, you won't go too fast if the chassis, suspension, tires, or brakes can't support the engine! Unfortunately, focusing on"safe machines" that isolate muscle groups (like some bodybuilders train) is a common way athletes develop muscle imbalances

Second, you can't use the strength if you have improper mobility. For example, if your ankles and hips can not bend to allow you to get in positions of optimal leverage, muscles can not exert the sufficient force to optimize speed. This factor is almost universally neglected at every level of athlete conditioning. As fellowship trained Physical therapists, we have a keen eye for these issues, and can spot mobility deficits in a heart beat.

Finally, producing force is one thing, but producing it quickly on demand is another. That is why some athletes who are strong in the weight room are slow on the field (although, I have yet to see or hear of a case of someone who is strong, lean, and slow). The rate at which you develop force needs to be emphasized once you have developed sufficient strength. This is a factor we focus on more with our advanced athletes who have been through our conditioning program a couple of times.



You see, getting faster is not too difficult when you have the right game plan, suited for your needs. Young athletes need to be taught what to do and how to do it properly. The best way to do this is through our Athlete Development Program.

Please click here to see what some of our athletes and parents have to say about the Athlete Development program.

We are currently accepting athletes for our upcoming Summer program. Our program begins on June 21rst so be sure to submit your registration form soon, as our program is already nearly full!. We keep our program small to provide the highest quality of service, so please submit your form right away to reserve a spot. You can download a registration with all the details form from our website here. Feel free to call at 978-927-2065 with any questions!

Pushups For Charity: pictures and total funds raised

I was excited when I arrived back from vacation earlier this week and heard the amazing total amount of funds raised for the Wounded Warrior Project from our Pushups for Charity event last week. The photographer also dropped off some great pics!

Check out the show below to see the action, and the total amount we raised...

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Amazing

Came across this video this morning - it's a must see:

Pushups For Charity Results

Last Saturday we hosted the Pushups for Charity Beverly event, and it was a great time!

We raised some serious money for the Wounded Warrior Project! The donations are still being collected, so I'll post the totals next week.

Some amazing push-up performances were on display as well. Here are the results for how many push-ups were performed in 90sec by the participants:

Michelle (the push-up queen: 32
Stephen: 64
Rob: 64
Tom: 64
Tom R: 67
Dave: 67
Bryan: 81
John: 84 (fittingly perfect West Point style technique)
Me: 96
And the winner...

Daniel (aka Pocket Hercules): 98!!!

It was a pleasure to lose to Daniel. He is an amazing young man (13 years old!) and has done some really impressive stuff training with Spectrum. Nice work Daniel - unbelievable!

I'll have some pictures posted next week when I return from a quick trip to Chicago.

In the meantime, check out the video below we showed and the event to tell the audience about Spectrum and inspire the participants before the contest.

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Be sure to find out about our Quick Start to get the results you deserve!

How much weight do you lift performing pushups?

I've always wondered how much weight is being lifted when performing push ups. I knew it wasn't equal to your body weight, because your feet are touching the floor distributing a significant amount of weight away from your arms. So how much of your weight are you actually lifting?

During some downtime, the question entered my head, and I began pondering how to actually measure the weight lift for a push-up.

I grabbed a few colleagues from Spectrum and Orthopaedics plus, a wobble board, and a weight scale and began the experiment. This is how we did it.

Dave, our eager test subject, got on the scale and we recorded his weight.

Then we placed a wobble board (essentially just the piece of wood minus the fulcrum) over the force plate to widen the surface area to accommodate the true hand spacing of a push up. Dave assumed the push-up position, and we recorded the weight.

The conclusion? In this case, the weight on the force plate was 71% of his body weight. I'm sure you might see variations of this because of people of different height and dimensions, but as a preliminary test it serves to give us an accurate estimate of how much weight you are lifting when doing a push-up.

We continued the study by seeing how much adding resistance bands of various tension affected resistance of push ups. This was a tricky set up, which at one point caused me to be partially launched across the room. We hoped no one would walk into the assessment room while we were doing this. See the pic below to see the set up, and you'll see why ;)



Here are the results of how much weight was added to a push-up with the bands:

Monster mini band (at Spectrum - Red band): + 24 pounds
Light Band (" Purple Band): + 44 pounds
Average band (" Green Band): + 81 pounds
Strong band (" Blue Band): + 150 pounds

Again, this might vary based on different body dimensions. Someone with longer arms may have slightly more resistance, and someone with shorter arms, slightly less resistance.

So if you want to have a pretty good estimate of how much weight you are lifting while doing push-ups, multiply your body weight by .71, then add the above poundage the corresponds to the above bands if you use them.

You can get resistance bands here.

Enjoy your push up training, and now you can more precisely track your weight progressions!

Push-up training gone bad!

Tried to do some weighted push-ups in preparation for Pushups For Charity Beverly, but the weights wouldn't stay still!

Hip weakness causes foot and knee pain

Many people are not aware that a weakness in one area can cause pain and problems somewhere else. Perhaps the most common area of weakness is the hips, and the consequences are many.

Be sure to check out the video below to see an example of how hip weakness leads to a common problem, resulting in foot and knee pain, and how to correct it.






For a thorough assessment of your weaknesses, and a specific plan that details exactly how to solve it, click here.