Well, here goes nothin. I'm officially blogging.
First up, linear speed development. There seems to be some confusion lately on how to achieve this goal. To me it's pretty simple. Get strong. Push hard with a big range of motion. That's pretty much it. Sure you can get cute with parachutes and towing straps and a buch of other junk, but really the most effective tools include: a short lesson or two on the basics of mechanics followed up by some short sprints with lots of rest in between, after that you jump behind a heavy sled and push it around a few times, essentially teaching your body how to exert force, then move something kinda heavy as fast as possible (cleans or snatches) teaching your body to produce force rapidly, and finally get strong. I don't really care how you do it. Squat, deadlift, single leg work, whatever. Just pick up and move something heavy.
Is there more to it? Sure, everything else in good training goes into linear speed development, but these are the bare bones basics. Practice moving as fast as possible, then do a few things to get strong so the next time you practice you can produce a little more force and go a little faster. Voila.
Great idea to have a blog...and I agree with everything you wrote above. People are constantly claiming to have Dumbo's Magic Feather when it comes to training. Linear speed is not complicated but it can be screwed up pretty quickly in my opinion. Good exercises, solid technical concepts, get nasty strong for your body weight and understand what type of speed you are development within the construct of linear speed. People mix and match stuff constantly. Your body likes you need to keep like stimulus' on like days and dislikes differing signals...I may like ice cream and beer, but I don't like them together.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work! One more place for me to steal your ideas!
Haha thanks....this is actually more me stealing your ideas than anything else!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, ice cream and beer is a great combo!!!