Most athletes train for additional strength in order to improve their performance. In addition, they believe that increased levels of strength will improve their speed and other physical abilities such as explosive power and neuromuscular coordination.
There’s no questioning the fact that strength can improve these factors but it is not a one-to-one situation. An increase in strength does not add automatically mean there is an increase in strength, explosive power or some other physical quality. It only means that you are stronger.
The main physical quality needed by athletes in almost all sports is speed. The only exceptions to this are powerlifting and bodybuilding. Understand that speed is not limited to only running; it is seen in movement of the limbs and body in different actions.
For example, when swinging a baseball bat, speed of the bat is what determines how hard the ball is hit and how far it will go. In baseball pitching or in quarterback throwing, speed of the hand at the moment of release is what determines the speed of the ball and how fast and/or how far it will go.
Many more examples can be given as for example, how far and how hard a ball is kicked is determined by the speed of the foot at the moment of contact. How far the discus or shot put is thrown is determined by the speed of the hand at the moment of release. How fast you can run is determined to a good extent by how fast your legs can move through the stride.
Speed can be developed by itself but not to the same extent as when you do additional strength training, especially specialized strength exercises. Even though speed and strength are separate qualities, they are directly related to each other and to other physical qualities. For example, additional levels of strength can improve speed but only up to a certain point.
This is especially true for youngsters and individuals who have never before weight-trained. But for athletes who are already involved in weight training, especially intense weight training, using heavy weights, they do not gain greater speed. In fact in most cases, you can become slower!
This is not idle talk. Studies are now showing that athletes who run in their sport, especially in football and baseball, are slower after graduating college in comparison to their high school times. This is very understandable because of the emphasis on heavy weight training in the college strength and conditioning programs.
Athletes become slower because when you use heavy weights in which the movements are slow, you develop slowness in the nervous system. This, in turn, “teaches” the limbs or body to move more slowly, not faster. As a result you lose speed. This however, can be counteracted.
There are two ways of doing this. One is to make sure that as you increase your level of strength, there is no slowdown in speed when running or executing other speed related movements. If there is a slowdown it should only be temporary. Second and probably most important, is to stop the weight training and work on speed so that you can incorporate the strength into the speed.
This is what most strength training programs fail to do. In fact in most, if not all cases, it can be said that strength training is done year-round even in season? Because of this there is never a chance for the body to assimilate the newly gained strength and work it into running speed or speed of movement.
In addition, neuromuscular coordination, muscle resiliency and reactiveness must be taken into consideration in order to improve speed of execution. Strength is only the beginning stage for greater speed as you must literally convert the strength to speed to improve your performance. To do this, you must do speed-strength or explosive training, i.e., do exercises in which you display strength with speed.
Speed-strength training can take various forms. You can do strength exercises in an explosive manner, as for example, execution of the knee drive with Active Cords. When done explosively (as quickly as possible, especially on the reversal) it increases the speed of your first step which improves your quickness and acceleration as well as enhancing your ability to run faster.
Also important at this stage are plyometric exercises to increase the ability of the muscles to go into action as quickly and as forcefully as possible as needed in the running push-off and individual leg or arm movements. These exercises are usually done with Active Cords to do plyometric (shock training) exercises to get a quicker arm, leg or body (hip, shoulder) movement.
Jump exercises, such as the depth jump (which is a form of shock training) are also included for improvement of running speed. Variations of the depth jump are also used for faster arm movements or for jump speed or height.
To make the training more effective and to see even greater improvement in your movements on the track, field or court, the exercises should be specific to the actions encountered. In other words, the strength and explosive exercises should duplicate the same neuromuscular pathways as exhibited in the competitive sport.
For more information on this topic and the exercises, read Plyometric Training, Explosive Running and Build a Better Athlete.