Need For Speed Part 1

By: Kevin Ensenat

Speed SUCKS! Yes I said it and I’ll say it again. Speed SUCKS-When you don’t have it that is. The good news is that speed can be improved and everyone can get faster. As a matter of fact, the slower you are the greater your capability for improvement. This is not to say that the average high school athlete running a 5.4s forty-yard dash can become as fast as Usain Bolt; but dropping 5 tenths to a 4.9s in 3-5 months with proper training is highly feasible. This article is going to break down speed into the major components and help clarify why certain programs work for some, and not for others.

The first and most important component to improving speed as well as overall performance is strength. Strength is the backbone of all athletic improvement; for without strength, the ability to improve other variables is severely limited. To better understand why this is I will use the analogy of the human body and a car. Strength and muscle mass are to the human body what the engine is to a car. If a car only has a 4-cylinder engine its ability to improve horsepower is limited. Sure you can tweak the engine to add 20-40 more horsepower but at the end of the day it is still a 4-cylinder engine and can only improve so much before you need to put a bigger engine in the car. A 4-cylinder engine will never be able to produce as much horsepower as a V-8. Some may argue that so and so athlete is blazing fast yet he is skinny and weak as hell. This may be true but this athlete is what I classify as the “Freak”, meaning they posses exceptional “stiffness” or are very “springy”. These athletes typically posses nervous systems that are very efficient at turning on and off quickly, as well. I will discuss these variables in part 2 of this article. So for now the first thing you need to do if you want to get faster is to get stronger. It is important to further realize that just getting stronger overall is ok but more importantly getting stronger in the proper muscle groups is the key.

Now that we understand that we need to get stronger to improve, it is vital to realize that strength (as important as it is), is only one variable. Let me explain by using an example. Most people have seen or know someone that is as strong as an ox. These athletes can squat, deadlift and bench press a ton but can’t get out of their own way on the field of play. Why is this you might ask? Well the reason is that these athlete’s posses an adequate amount of strength but lack the ability to “express” this strength as power. Lifting very heavy weights slow is great but if that is the majority of your training then you will never be able to convert this strength as power. Power is simply the ability to generate a large amount of force in the fastest possible time. What this means is that if a strength coach continues to only train this athlete to get stronger they will never get faster! Proper training involves getting an athlete adequately stronger for their size as well as training them to transfer this strength or “express” it as power. Coincidently, training for power will also lead to a further increase in strength. Although these two variables are the most “Bang for your buck” for getting faster there are other variables equally important. In part two of this article I will discuss other important training variables to help make you fast as hell!