I remember watching Space Jam as a kid and dreaming that one day I would be hitting slam dunks like Michael Jordan…
I watched the 100m sprint at the olympics and thought one day that would be me…
I was a big dreamer I know, but when I first got into training even though these weren’t my goals anymore I always still wanted to jump higher and run faster than I could. The problem was when I first started training there was only really people following bodybuilding style programs in the gym. So I just followed along with what I was taught thinking it would get me to my goals.
It helped I got bigger, stronger, faster and fitter but I didn’t get it. Why could I still not keep up to pace with many of the guys on the field who I knew I was stronger than?
Although my training was significantly better than no training, I was doing a lot of fundamental things wrong stopping me from becoming more athletic. I intend to take you through what I would do now knowing what I’ve learnt about sprinting faster and jumping higher.
So when it comes to developing speed and power it all starts with movement quality, from there strength is built upon. A lot of people shy away from the role of strength as they fear it will make them slow, but the reality is speed is the ability to produce high forces in a short amount of time to propel the body through space. If you’re weak and can’t produce high amounts of force it doesn’t matter how quickly you can move as you won’t get very far. The next step is developing power output or moving quickly with high forces and finally speed which we view as the fastest we can move.
The problem most people get themselves into is spending too much time in either of the speed end with no foundation or putting too much focus on strength and not enough on transferring that strength into speed.
I was one of the guys who spent way too much time on strength work, little to no work on movement quality and very little on speed and power. So let’s step you through each piece one by one to help you get faster and jump higher.
Smooth Is Fast
One of the most underrated facets to athleticism is movement quality, mainly because it’s real hard to quantify. It’s much easier to time a sprint or measure a jump than to be able to know whether someone moves efficiently. But think about it this way it’s much harder to sprint fast while someone is holding the back of your shirt. When you move inefficiently your body is fighting to overcome itself before it gets to moving you through space. If you can help it move without restrictions it’s like taking the brakes off you.
Now this internal resistance can be caused by a bunch of things such as poor motor control or movement patterns, chronically tight muscles, neural tightness and inhibition. We’ve found consistently that although many of the different factors can contribute to restricted movement and not reaching your speed and power potential. For us we put a large focus on reducing neural tightness and inhibition as well as correcting movement patterns.
These can come from weaknesses in stabilising musculature or connective tissue which result in the brain locking up muscles to prevent itself from injury. One of the ways we can work on strengthening up these weak points is focusing on eccentric and isometric training in these muscles which develops strength in the stabilisers, tendons and corrects faulty motor patterns.
Strength Is Never A Weakness
Now I’ll be the first person to agree that pursuing strength at the expense of developing other qualities is a surefire way to end up tight and slow. But the key point there was “at the expense of”, when training to develop strength in conjunction with other qualities it can be one of the quickest ways to make significant change.
So how do we know when it’s too much?
Follow the flow chart below to find out:
Power Up!
So by now you are in two categories, you either need to work on strength or you need to put more focus on speed and power. Either way you still want to train some power focused training anyway. We don’t believe in completely avoiding training qualities but rather just how much emphasis you give it at a time. Our best methods for training power are dynamic effort strength training, olympic lifting variations, sprints, jumps and throws. Depending on your experience level with each type and your individual strengths and weaknesses should determine where you put your focus.
The easiest way to figure out where you sit on this curve is to do a vertical jump next to a wall marking the highest point and comparing the differences between jumps of 3 starting positions:
- Seated Jump from a box
- Standing Countermovement Jump
- Drop Jump (Standing on the box, step off the box and immediately upon landing jumping back up as high as you can)
If you are strength dominant and don’t utilise the stretch shortening cycle well there will be less of a difference (or possibly no difference) between seated and standing.
If you are fairly balanced there will be small differences between each with lowest to highest in the order of 1,2,3.
And if you are very stretch shortening cycle dominant you will have a large gap between seated then to standing and another increase to the drop jump.
In terms of training, strength dominant athletes will need to focus on movements that emphasise the stretch shortening cycle like broad jumps, hurdle jumps and short sprints.
Athletes that have balanced strength-speed profiles are best served spending even amounts of time training all areas of the strength-speed continuum.
Finally athletes who are very stretch shortening cycle dominant will be best served by developing high load power with movements like olympic lifts, weighted jumps or sled sprints.
Need For Speed
When it comes to training speed the one thing to remember is quality trumps quantity everytime. Sprint coaches like Charlie Francis have been focusing on quality for years. Charlie Francis would only let an athlete keep training if they could produce at least 95% of their best sprint time for a given distance. Anything less and they were sent home to recover and come back next time.
Too many people try to turn speed work into conditioning and yield very little results. Next time you try to work on sprint training double the rest you think you need to take and focus on moving fast and smooth with every set.
The last key to training speed is focusing on training technique. The best sprinters spend the least amount of time slowing themselves down. Whether that comes from inefficient arm swing, foot placement or pull through of the leg it all adds up. Spend time in warmups specifically drilling technique before moving to high velocity work.
Get Out On The Field
One of my biggest regrets with training for athleticism is not actually getting out of the gym and on the field enough. Make the most of the tips we’ve given you here but the main thing is to get out there and take action on them rather than just adding this to your good old knowledge bank.