Read the Article here, and discuss it below.
ELITETRACK Founder
Rapid Dynamic Training: Challenging the Limits to Sprint Performance
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Keymaster -
Participant
In the conclusion he seems to be making a case against strength training and instead focusing on training the speed of activation, but won’t the increased speed mean jack if the muscle can’t support the body at those speeds? Won’t the lack of muscle stiffness cause a loss of power?
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Also, if greater backswing velocity of the thigh is what is trying to be attained, why was the vastus lateralis being observed rather than something on the higher end of the posterior chain? Maybe its just too early for me, lol. Thoughts? -
Participant
What a crappy article. It doesn’t even define what “rapid dynamic training” consists of; it doesn’t state what was the single exercise used in the study; and it is based on a sample size of 1! And a 37-year-old at that. And, apart from the possible benefits of rapid dynamic training, the author is pleased to inform us that to race fast you have to train fast. Wow, who would have guessed?
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Participant
To be fair that 37 yr old has eight legs so its like having a pool of four runners.
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Participant
Also, if greater backswing velocity of the thigh is what is trying to be attained, why was the vastus lateralis being observed rather than something on the higher end of the posterior chain? Maybe its just too early for me, lol. Thoughts?
I think a lot of people study on muscles such as vastus lateralis because it’s an easy muscle to get an EMG on. I’m sure Mike would know more.
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Keymaster
It isn’t a true research project and wasn’t really intended to be. The data presented is more as a case-study as I understand it. The author is actually a member of the site so perhaps he will chime in.
As for the use of vastus lateralis, it is, as Mort said, a commonly used EMG site for high speed movements. Also, it can indirectly assist the ACTION of hip extension if the hip is in a flexed position.
For those who are unfamiliar, it’s very difficult to do EMG for full body high-speed activities like sprinting because sweat can short the circuit and the movement of clothes, skin, etc. creates a lot of signal noise.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
Jeremy asked that I post this for him:
The choice of vastus lateralis was four-fold: (1) I can draw a comparison to the study by Criterio & Agostoni (1984) who related increased rate of cycling to selective activation of fast fibres in the quadriceps; (2) the fibre composition in the vastus lateralis is studied by Mero, Dawson, Tihanyi, and Jansson and as I am relating the exercise to the selective activation and development of the quadriceps I thought I better start with analysis of the VL; (3) knee extension is still the fastest movement according to Kivi and I am challenging the limits to sprint performance; (4) the activation rate of the VL is the shortest of the primary muscles when sprinting according to Nummela and Kyrolainen and I am challenging the rate of muscle activation.
In terms of the exercise, it seems to be a common exercise as I have participated in it at training and seen Institute of Sport soccer players doing it as well. As far as I’m aware the exercise doesn’t have a name (Rapid steps, leg frequency drill etc.- suggest we set the standard and name it). However, from training and watching others training with this exercise, I decided to experiment to see what the limit was in terms of frequency of movement and whether this limit could be improved through training. Furthermore, I experimented with increasing the load in the movement to strengthen the joint if higher speeds of movement could be achieved.
As to the importance of the joint movements higher up the posterior chain, I am in agreement as to the importance that developing speed in this area would be for sprinting. However, the exercise that I developed to address that aspect is (1) completely novel as far as I am aware and therefore more likely to draw scepticism, (2) the exercise is kinda dorky, and (3) to maximise the effect of the exercise in terms of appropriate strength to sprinting (designed with the use of inverse dynamics) I invented a shoe that is even more dorky especially in the prototype phase.
Please ask more questions – I’m happy to help people understand this concept more.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Thanks for the clarification on the usage of the VL. That makes a lot of sense, especially for what you are trying to challenge.
However, the exercise that I developed to address that aspect is (1) completely novel as far as I am aware and therefore more likely to draw scepticism, (2) the exercise is kinda dorky, and (3) to maximise the effect of the exercise in terms of appropriate strength to sprinting (designed with the use of inverse dynamics) I invented a shoe that is even more dorky especially in the prototype phase.
I’m pretty much open to hearing and trying anything once as long as there is a good reason for it, so I’d love to hear/try this if it is possible without the dorky shoes. Can you give a fair description online or is it something that needs to be seen?
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Participant
No doubt my theory is going to draw plenty of controversy. I would start by measuring the rate of angular velocity of the thigh when doing a leg cycling drill (Sports Speed-Dintiman & Ward 2003). This involves cycling one leg through a sprinting action. Hold on to a post and swing your leg back almost pawing the ground and extending your thigh until it is at least perpendicular to the ground. Then bring your leg back up to parallel with the ground. I prefer to do this in 20 continuous repetitions because any improved muscle recruitment strategies by the brain seems to benefit more beyond 10 repetitions. Time how long it takes for 20 cycles and then divide the total time by that number to work out how many degrees per second it takes per cycle. The test then becomes the exercise. Remeasure after a few days. This exercise will only benefit top end speed and even then it must be carried out in conjunction with some other exercises which I might disclose in another article. Please measure your split time between 20-30m or 30-40 m if you are an accomplished sprinter before embarking on the exercises so that we can gauge your improvements. Cheers
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Participant
Excellent. I’ll give this a try. I don’t have another speed day until Tuesday next week, so I’ll get my flying 30 measured and start then. How often is the exercise done?
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Participant
The exercise is very taxing on the CNS and so I would give it at least 48 hours between successive sessions. I would caution against doing more than 2 sets of 20 cycles per leg. If you find it particularly fatiguing mentally, reduce the number of cycles below 20 but keep it above 15. Cheers
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Participant
…Hold on to a post and swing your leg back almost pawing the ground and extending your thigh until it is at least perpendicular to the ground. Then bring your leg back up to parallel with the ground…
Can this exercise/test be as effective doing a continuous fast leg drill for 20 cycles with either leg on a track as opposed to the stationary position?
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Keymaster
Isn’t this primarily training the speed of the swing phase….something which Barry Ross says is completely and totally unimportant to sprinting speed. What would say to the argument that speed is completely generated at ground contact and not during the swing phase?
Just trying to spur discussion…
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Isn’t this primarily training the speed of the swing phase….something which Barry Ross says is completely and totally unimportant to sprinting speed. What would say to the argument that speed is completely generated at ground contact and not during the swing phase?…
That was my initial thought as well until I re-read the article. Could neuro-muscular recruitment be more of the purpose here?
Regarding the “pawing back” action I wouldn’t particularly recommend that. Rather an emphasis to “step over” and direct straight down. Having said that, I am familiar with Derek Kivi’s work.
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Participant
I’m not exactly sure how the continuous fast leg drill goes on the track but the cycling of the leg is an unloaded movement to the complete range of motion of sprinting. The objective is to use a stopwatch to encourage the athlete to move the leg faster in both phases. Almasbakk & Hoff (1996) determined that velocity improvement is the result of an improvement in coordination and Schneider (1989) showed changes to the pattern of neural recruitment of muscle as a result of rapid movements. If the athlete achieves an improvement in movement velocity of the leg, it could be the result of synchronous firing of motor units, earlier recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibre or reduced inhibition of the antagonist muscle. Ultimately, the objective is to increase the back-swing velocity of the leg which will increase the momentum of the leg (Momentum= mass x velocity) to the benefit of force production on impact with the ground. If an improvement is made to the forward swing velocity of the leg, a sling-shot effect could eventuate from the rapid transition from forward to backward swing. For the benefits of this aspect to be realised, we will have to wait until the connective tissues in the tendons of the upper leg/ glutes can adapt which takes a few weeks. Too much information?
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Participant
I’m not exactly sure how the continuous fast leg drill goes on the track but the cycling of the leg is an unloaded movement to the complete range of motion of sprinting. The objective is to use a stopwatch to encourage the athlete to move the leg faster in both phases. Almasbakk & Hoff (1996) determined that velocity improvement is the result of an improvement in coordination and Schneider (1989) showed changes to the pattern of neural recruitment of muscle as a result of rapid movements. If the athlete achieves an improvement in movement velocity of the leg, it could be the result of synchronous firing of motor units, earlier recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibre or reduced inhibition of the antagonist muscle. Ultimately, the objective is to increase the back-swing velocity of the leg which will increase the momentum of the leg (Momentum= mass x velocity) to the benefit of force production on impact with the ground. If an improvement is made to the forward swing velocity of the leg, a sling-shot effect could eventuate from the rapid transition from forward to backward swing. For the benefits of this aspect to be realised, we will have to wait until the connective tissues in the tendons of the upper leg/ glutes can adapt which takes a few weeks. Too much information?
No problem. When you discuss the back swing velocity, are you referring to the action from when the swing foot is directly under the center of mass and rotating up under the glute and passing over the support knee? An action similar to this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=D69FKic2zL0
I do realize your procedure requires continuous repetition of a cycling pattern that one might recall from Speed Dynamics fast claw action.
Thanks for the follow-up.
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Participant
Good find thanks for that. I would imagine the exercise is the same. The thigh starts parallel to the ground, swings down to perpendicular and then back up to parallel and the cycle begins again. The foot passes behind the body and up (and over) towards the glute as the legs swings up. Same principle as the fast claw (motor behaviour) except that by timing the movement, the human athlete cannot resist going faster next time.
In terms of back swing velocity, I am referring to the thigh velocity mainly as we are attempting to match or better that in the study by Kivi 2001, of 666 degrees per second at 9.9 m/s. In addition, any improvement to angular velocity of the thigh would also be leveraged into increased velocity of the foot prior to impact.
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Keymaster
Still playing devil’s advocate here….
How can we expect to time angular velocities to an accuracy anything higher than a m/s (i.e. 9m/s or 10m/s and not 9.34 m/s) when we aren’t really measuring thigh angular displacement and are timing with a method (hand time) that is known to be only accurate to the tenth of a second. Also, how do we account for the temptation to cheat the ROM to attain higher and higher angular velocities? Finally, what would you say to the idea that very fast hip extension (the component that this exercise focuses on) is of little value and possibly detrimental if the athlete lacks the leg stiffness to handle impact forces at ground contact.ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Debate is good. Probably need a bit more clarity. Kivi 2001 measured thigh/hip extension angular velocity of 666 degrees per second whilst running at 9.9 m/s. We are estimating the angular velocity of the thigh whilst standing stationary when doing the exercise. Whether any improvement in the exercise will transfer into actual improvement in sprinting is a good question. If we increase the velocity of the leg by 10% thus increasing the momentum by 10% assuming the position of the different parts of the leg remain the same with the increase in speed, we would expect some loss but not all of the energy at impact. Therefore it would still represent an increase in energy transfer. In addition, by imposing demands on the leg at the presumed increase in velocity if doing sprint training concurrently, we would expect some adaptation. By exposing the leg to a velocity specific resistance stimulus when running (with the new increase in velocity of the leg) the adaptations may occur to both the muscle and tendons/connective tissue.
Of course this is presuming an increase in thigh/hip extension velocity as a result of the exercise. Unfortunately, humans will attempt to cheat the exercise by reducing range of motion and even reducing the count. Hopefully that is where the coach would come into play.
Here’s a question. How much loss of energy at impact do current methods of training prevent especially over and above sprint running alone? -
Participant
How might you be able to calculate angular velocity from video of sprint sessions?
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Keymaster
To do it with any accuracy would be nearly impossible without a 3D DLT transform, a high speed camera (>200 fps) and digitized video. If you didn’t care about accuracy then you could use some basic motion analysis software (like Silicone Coach or Dartfish), align the camera perfectly in the sagital plane of the runner and then figure out how many degrees the thigh moved (preferably using some form of landmarks on the athletes body at the hip and knee joints) when he passed the camera and then divide that by the time it too to move through that range of motion. I would guess that you could get errors as great as 50 degrees / second like that though which would make it pretty worthless.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
To do it with any accuracy would be nearly impossible without a 3D DLT transform, a high speed camera (>200 fps) and digitized video. If you didn’t care about accuracy then you could use some basic motion analysis software (like Silicone Coach or Dartfish), align the camera perfectly in the sagital plane of the runner and then figure out how many degrees the thigh moved (preferably using some form of landmarks on the athletes body at the hip and knee joints) when he passed the camera and then divide that by the time it too to move through that range of motion. I would guess that you could get errors as great as 50 degrees / second like that though which would make it pretty worthless.
Thanks Mike. Software not a problem. Camera and DLT are another matter altogether. I might go through the process, although realizing that the end result might be unusuable.
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Keymaster
Please keep us posted on both the analysis side and your opinions on the efficacy of the protocol.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Please keep us posted on both the analysis side and your opinions on the efficacy of the protocol.
I will. I have 2 groups that either have begun some work in this area and another to start in a few weeks. I expect this aspect of our program to continue into and throughout the summer.
I will tell you that I’m skeptical of the process and believe that more than the activities discussed will reflect improvement. However, as an alternative for some of our young developmental athletes, I’m more than willing to implement.
By the way, do you see any correlation between the work discussed in this thread and the following presentation from Osaka:
Mid-phase sprinting movements of Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell in the 100-m race during the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Athletics
Akira Ito, Koji Fukuda and Kota Kijima Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences, Osaka, JapanAbstract
In the present study, the running movements of Tyson Gay (9.85 seconds) and Asafa Powell (9.96 seconds) who finished first and third, respectively, in the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Athletics were analyzed. Their data were compared to past data (Ito et al., 1998) in order to determine the characteristics of both sprinters. Maximal sprint running velocity was 11.85 m/s for Gay and 11.88 m/s for Powell. For Gay and Powell, step frequency was 4.90 and 4.96 steps/s, respectively, and step length was 2.42 and 2.40 m, respectively. According to Ito et al. (1998), sprint running velocity is not related to maximum thigh angle “high knee”, but the faster the sprint running velocity, the greater the minimum knee angle. The maximum thigh angle for Gay and Powell was comparable at 65° and 70°, and the minimum knee angle for Gay and Powell was 41° and 38°, respectively, and these numbers were similar to the data obtained by Ito et al. (1998). The horizontal distance from the toe at the point of landing to the center of gravity for the two sprinters was 0.31 m, and this number is comparable to that for sprinters who run 100 meters in 11 seconds (Fukuda and Ito, 2004). Therefore, it is not necessarily good to land immediately underneath the center of gravity when landing. In support leg movements, an interesting finding was seen with maximum knee extension velocity for Gay and Powell. During landing, the knee joint of both sprinters always remained bent, and when acceleration force was expressed during the latter half of the support phase, the extension velocity had a negative value: -50 degrees/s for Gay and -68 degrees/s for Powell. Training guidance that attempts to increase sprint running velocity by reducing the deceleration associated with landing must be reexamined because the landing distance for Gay and Powell is comparable to that of sprinters who run 100 m in 11 seconds. What is important here is that Gay and Powell continue to bend the knee of the support leg during the support phase, and training guidance that instructs sprinters to actively extend the knee and ankle joints of the support leg must be reevaluated.
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Participant
Protocol? Which protocol are you using? If you are trying to increase the rate at which you can cycle your leg, after an initial improvement to the rate you may encounter a plateau. I would suggest that when you get to that point, you add load to the movement with a little weight around the leg. An easy way to do this is to wear a boot such as an old army boot. The slight addition of load was shown by Almeida (1995) to improve the speed of an unloaded movement not to mention that it becomes a bit more specific as the leg encounters load in actual sprinting when it hits the ground. Once you hit the plateau, the (rapid dynamic training) protocol should then involve the use of slight load (bias) for some sets and no load for other sets of the leg cycling exercise.
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Member
Protocol? Which protocol are you using? If you are trying to increase the rate at which you can cycle your leg, after an initial improvement to the rate you may encounter a plateau. I would suggest that when you get to that point, you add load to the movement with a little weight around the leg. An easy way to do this is to wear a boot such as an old army boot. The slight addition of load was shown by Almeida (1995) to improve the speed of an unloaded movement not to mention that it becomes a bit more specific as the leg encounters load in actual sprinting when it hits the ground. Once you hit the plateau, the (rapid dynamic training) protocol should then involve the use of slight load (bias) for some sets and no load for other sets of the leg cycling exercise.
Wearing leg weights can cause form to deteriorate.
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Participant
With all due respect, I would never use leg weights or anything to that affect. These are developmental athletes with very limited strength levels. Where resistance is concerned, I have used bands or flexor apparatus. However, its’ use will not be prominent.
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Member
They attributed this to a greater
average backswing acceleration of the thigh. If shorter
ground force production time is the mechanism that will
enable faster running speeds, then this must be achieved
through faster moving limbs either during or prior to the
foot making contact with the ground.Isn’t this primarily training the speed of the swing phase….something which Barry Ross says is completely and totally unimportant to sprinting speed. What would say to the argument that speed is completely generated at ground contact and not during the swing phase?
Wouldnt faster ground forces require greater ground forces not quicker leg swing. Because even if you can bring your leg around quicker it doesnt necessarily mean you can produce greater ground forces.
Furthermore, greater thigh
acceleration results in shorter ground force production
time thereby reducing time on the ground.Do you mean backward thigh acceleration(from a high knee position)? Or back to front?
I was under the impression that it was fairly well documented that the best way to get faster is to increase stride length not frequency.
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Participant
Question: “Is stride length the cause or the effect?” The practice of leg cycling would increase the backward swing of the leg as well as the forward swing although a transfer to actual sprinting remains to be measured accurately. Forward swing is not as important but an increase surely would not harm sprinting. Backward swing is important. Derek Kivi (ISB XVII Congress Abstract 1999) reported the forward swing (hip flexion) of Donovan Bailey at 11.18 m/s to be 918 deg/sec and compared this to Chengzi’s (1987) result of 910 deg/sec for sprinters at 10.82 m/s. In contrast, Kivi reported Bailey’s hip extension to be 953 deg/sec compared to Chengzi’s study of 550 deg/sec. Furthermore, Derek Kivi describes the accelerated backward movement of the leg to be improving Bailey’s foot velocity and decreasing the braking forces at contact. The whole point of the article is that for faster movement of the propulsive limbs for sprinting beyond your current plateau’s, find a similar movement and practice that movement repetitively with a view to reducing the time to execute the movement. If (for example) you are currently taking 250 milliseconds to swing your thigh backwards at the moment, you may need to practice against less load until you reduce that swing-back time (thereby increasing the angular velocity)before increasing the load again. In order to facilitate the faster movement, a faster contraction of the muscle has to be the cause.
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Participant
Wow. Tough gig this one! 😉 (did that smiley come out right?)
For those of us blessed with the ability to run fast, I’m jealous. Perhaps they are born with an abundance of fast twitch fibre, and an ability (skill) to be able to selectively recruit those fibres early or even simultaneously, or an ability to relax the antagonist muscle quickly. Therefore for them, faster running speed probably correlates with faster leg cycling. For those not so fortunate or skilled, we may need to practice moving our limbs faster in leg cycling (or leg kicking-Chu & Korchemny 1989)to refine the skill.
No doubt some of you are posing the question that strength training will result in faster backward acceleration of the thigh.
Here’s my question: which do you think is better for improving baseball pitching speed throwing a heavier baseball, throwing the correct weight baseball, or throwing an underweight baseball?Sleep well. :-/
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Participant
Which method improves baseball pitching speed the most?
DeRenne et al. (2001) says that specific resistance training with light and heavyweighted baseballs may be the single best method to increase throwing velocity. Studies in 1985 and 1990 showed that greater improvements were seen when throwing a normal weighted baseball from training with the lighter weighted balls which realised greater movement velocities. Furthermore, the conclusion reached by DeRenne and colleagues is that peak force output of fast-contracting muscle fibres can be 4 times greater than that of slow fibres, and that highly specific fast movements could recruit and fire these high-threshold fast muscle fibres (Bloomfield 1990, Sherman 1981). Similar results in European handball were seen after training with underweighted handballs (Van Muijen 1991, Skoufas 2003).
In terms of sprinting (and leg cycling), training by “throwing” the leg backward in leg cycling could be described as a highly specific underweighted fast movement. In addition, training movements to facilitate this would not be limited to leg cycling. In fact, leg cycling was brought up only as one movement specific exercise similar to top speed sprinting and much like (underweighted) sprint bounding. Hopefully this has given you some understanding of where my theories originated. Furthermore, you can now double up as baseball pitching coaches. -
Member
Jeremy, I thought you might be interested to know that the Inno-Sport system has had this type of work incorporated into it for some time now in the form of RFI Trampoline Sprints. The ROM is similar to that seen at MaxV but the turnover is in excess of 6 strides per second.
The second exercise “RFI Upright Tramp Sprints” is what I’m referring to:
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Participant
Great minds think alike! Scary really because those techniques are so close to the actual techniques used in my Rapid Dynamic Training protocol. I’m particularly interested in why you do the low trampoline sprints. Have you noticed any effect of this on any particular aspect related to sprinting because it is executed at the extreme end range of motion at the periphery of the forward swing and start of the down/back swing of the leg? Is the intention similar in concept to the article on Isometrics posted in this website somewhere?
Also what does RFI + RA stand for?Cheers
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Participant
RJ, further to the previous correspondence, the discussion on isometric training I’m referring to can be found in the forum on “isometrics for athletes” in the Strength and Conditioning section. The discussion is about a paper by WD Bandy.
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Member
Great minds think alike! Scary really because those techniques are so close to the actual techniques used in my Rapid Dynamic Training protocol. I’m particularly interested in why you do the low trampoline sprints. Have you noticed any effect of this on any particular aspect related to sprinting because it is executed at the extreme end range of motion at the periphery of the forward swing and start of the down/back swing of the leg? Is the intention similar in concept to the article on Isometrics posted in this website somewhere?
Also what does RFI + RA stand for?Cheers
The main purpose behind trampoline sprints of both kinds is actually to increase extensibility (the relaxation of antagonistic muscle groups at the correct moment) as well as contraction and relaxation rates in general. The ultra high speed and low loading allow both of these to be accomplished while producing relatively low levels of fatigue. The RFI low tramp sprint in particular is used to develop the aforementioned traits within the lower end of the ROM (acceleration specific).
The RFI+RI stands for the methods being applied in the session. RFI stands for reflexive firing isometrics. This is a method in which the body stays relatively stable (in the vertical plane) while the limbs move through a ROM. This would include line hops, dot drills, top speed sprinting, and the tramp sprints. RA stands for reactive acceleration. This method involves a reactive contraction followed by a thrusting of the hips and a displacement of the torso. This would include sprint accelerations, depth jumps, regular jumps of any kind, bounds, etc.
The Inno-Sport system uses an entirely different nomenclature that seems confusing at first, but once you learn it it actually makes discussing and assigning training 10 times easier and more precise than ever.
And in regards to the “Isometrics for Athletes” article/thread, what specifically are you interested in discussing?
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Participant
Actually it’s not that confusing to me. In reference to the low trampoline sprints and the article/thread on isometrics, I wondered if reflexive firing isometrics in the low trampoline sprint position transferred into glute strength over the entire range of motion of the glutes. Not to worry. If the exercise isn’t intended for that it would be difficult to determine such as effect.
As for the upright trampoline sprint being executed at 6 strides per second, it is very similar to the exercise undertaken in the article.
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Participant
Just a bit concerned that those trying to improve mid to top end speed via the practice of leg cycling may not be getting significant enough improvement. If anyone is interested, I suggest that the focus is not primarily in utilising the glutes to pull the leg backward, but involves the quadriceps in kicking the leg downward. I saw a drill by Asafa Powell that demonstrates the type of kicking action that will enable leg cycling to be carried out at faster rates, and improve mid to top end speed to a greater effect.
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Participant
I really don’t think faster cycling work is going to work. The comparison of unloaded baseball throws to a cyclic activity such as sprinting which involves building momentum is not really valid either. There is evidence that throwing overweight shot puts increases initial performance, but would I use weighted vests or sled pulling as a regular training drill? No. I don’t think unloaded sprinting helps develop speed without first developing acceleration to get to those velocities, such as assisted sprints by being pulled. sled pulls and weighted vests will help develop acceleration capabilities, but even then such work must be limited. Sprinting requires sprinting work. You don’t have to go as far as Barry Ross suggests to only sprinting and deadlifting. I truly believe most athletes who are sprinters and aren’t elite don’t have the accelerative capabilities to match the elastic strength/leg stiffness capabilities developed in their legs.
On another note, I would like to point out James Hay’s invited review in 2002 for the Journal of Applied Biomechanics and I would like point out that the faster someone runs for a particular distance is related to taking less steps in that race reducing the total amount of time on the ground, not significantly altering step rate.
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Participant
Yes, increasing top end speed is more likely to be noticeable if you improve acceleration first. You suggest a combination of assisted sprints via pulling (sounds unloaded to me) in conjunction with resisted acceleration. Would this facilitate faster velocity training (assisted) and greater force training (resisted)? I’m all for varying velocity for resistance as a method to improve sprinting. Blazevich (2002,2003) uses both faster resistance training with slower heavier resistance training every 4th week or so to measureable effect.
As for faster leg cycling, one could say it follows the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands theorem. By moving the leg faster one should get adaptations in the connective tissue although the main purpose is to improve the recruitment rate of muscle fibre. Of course the sprinter must do some sort of strength training to ensure that any increase in speed of the leg prior to impact will not be completely wasted upon contact with the ground. Sprinting regularly itself may be the best way to adapt to any stimulus from the increase in leg velocity. As pointed out in the article, not many methods can be substantiated against the benefits of sprint training itself. That’s why I developed this a new method of which leg cycling is a small step at improving top end speed. I’m not complaining I’ve increased my acceleration by at least 10 extra metres before I flatten out in speed.
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Participant
I was saying that assisted sprints would be unloading, and I mostly don’t like its use for developing athletes, because developing athletes seem to have better elastic and eccentric strength than more than concentric strength required during acceleration. I think this can be seem with almost all middle distance and most sprint athletes in US high schools. They don’t accelerate well thus perform on adequate long jumps, but if you put them in the triple jump they measure slightly longer than their long jump scores would indicate. Maybe that’s anecdotal, but I believe there is some validity to it.
I think the biggest thing your drill adds is what I would call specific strength work (work through a larger or similar ROM and mobility). I don’t believe it will improve turnover directly, but it will improve the ROM the leg can work in which is big factor in helping a faster swing time to be expressed in a longer step pattern, but not necessarily a faster step rate. Really, I think you just came up with another drill to put alongside Mach Drills, Seagrave Drills, and Hurdle Mobility, etc… Which is drill work in a very general context that has some specific relations to the task/events at hand.
I actually like the article, and I believe that you should continue investigating “rapid dynamic” training. I am big believer in drills to improve ROM and as a training season progresses so does the ROM of all joints which directly relates to speed. I think you’ll find the more longitudinal your investigations are the larger the ROM, the longer the step length, and the faster the swing times will be and there will be a correlation to maximal velocity and sprint times assuming you also worked on acceleration previously.
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